CC please :)

[Alison]

Playing with my camera and flash today. Shot in macro mode believe it or not!

[jar_e]

Alison,

This is an interesting shot and I'm undecided on it. The tones are great, and the facial expressions are wonderul. My only concern is too much of the unfocused girl in the shot. I don't know if it's able to be cropped to reduce that affect, but I think it may be a cause for problem and will probably be the main discussion point in this thread.

Good shot, just undecided.

Jared

[Alison]

Is this crop any better?

[jar_e]

Alison...I'm not too sure if that fixes it or not...I'm kind split between the two. I'm interested to see where this thread goes; I'm surprised no body else has posted.

I'll be watching this thread regularly

Jared

[Liz]

Alison,

This is good compositionally IMO. Actually it might work (IMHO) better with the lovely young girl in the foreground more in focus and the lovely young girl in the background softer or out of focus. The tonal quality is also very good

Liz

Playing with my camera and flash today. Shot in macro mode believe it or not!

[walterick]

I'll agree with Jared and Liz on this one. The tones are great, but the girl in the foreground really needs to be in focus.

There are two "rules" of photography which may help you here; 1) blurry subjects in the foreground are often distracting, and 2) the human eye is often attracted to the brightest parts of a picture, and in this case the girl in the foreground has equal or higher luminence (sp?) as her partner, so the mind keeps looking at her and wanted her to be sharp. Make sense? You can lock focus on most cameras by pointing it at your intended subject, holding the shutter half way down to focus, and then recomposing.

I love their expressions, lots of stories in these little faces!

Rick

[TX2654]

No, don't crop it.

This picture shows how different two people that look so much alike, are.

[Alison]

I have just had a look in my files and I didn't shoot it in macro mode at all!!! Yay!
I shot it in raw, Manual mode with my kit lens, F/5.00, SS1/60, ISO 400.

I locked my focus on the girl in the background. I liked it, I thought it was pretty creative lol.
I just wanted to be different. Be a rebel and break the rules ;)

It's really nice to know what other people's opinions are though, that's why it's in here


Here's another that I took at the same time. See, I am clever enough to lock my focus on the girl in the foreground.
Nothing has been done to this one so please don't say anything about the radiator being wonky lol. I straightened it on the last image!

I took this one in raw, Manual mode with my kit lens, F/5.00, ISO 400, SS 1/100

[srobb]

Well, Alison, from an old rebel, I like both of the first pics. Rules are made to be broken and I believe that is true even in photography. It may have helped to have had the one a little more out of focus, but that is a matter of opinion. The last one is also very nice and I like it being in color. Good job on all of them.

[Old Timer]

Allison I think you got a dead winner on this one. Little tighter crop and straighting and you got one whale of an image. That expression is priceless. Just love it. You just keep getting better and better. As for the first shot posted in this thread I think that the critques pretty well said it all the foreground was just too distracting.

[Liz]

Alison,

This is really nice! Sweet! You captured it this time - the expression is wonderful.

Liz

I have just had a look in my files and I didn't shoot it in macro mode at all!!! Yay!
I shot it in raw, Manual mode with my kit lens, F/5.00, SS1/60, ISO 400.

I locked my focus on the girl in the background. I liked it, I thought it was pretty creative lol.
I just wanted to be different. Be a rebel and break the rules ;)

It's really nice to know what other people's opinions are though, that's why it's in here


Here's another that I took at the same time. See, I am clever enough to lock my focus on the girl in the foreground.
Nothing has been done to this one so please don't say anything about the radiator being wonky lol. I straightened it on the last image!

I took this one in raw, Manual mode with my kit lens, F/5.00, ISO 400, SS 1/100

[walterick]

Classic I agree with what OT said, straighten it and play with some different crops and you got it!

I totally respect you for breaking the "rules." That is how a lot of excellent photographs are made. Don't let our critique dissuade you from continuing to break the rules! Try it and try it and try it again. All those rules are made to be broken

[Alison]

Thank you everyone!!!

[jar_e]

I took this one in raw, Manual mode with my kit lens, F/5.00, ISO 400, SS 1/100

Alison,

Perfect. Make a slight adjustment on the crop and it works perfectly.

Well done!

[dbutler]

I really love the third but it's a completely different mood. I do like the first. And I think that having the foreground girl out of focus works here. But she shouldn't take up so very much of the frame IMO. Maybe a slight shift to the left for you would have worked in this. But only slight. I don't care for the second because the absolute middle of the face split just doesn't work for me here. I know it does sometimes, but I just can't see this lovely face split like that.

[mpreslar]

I like the first and the third! On the first one, I think the forground being out of focus works on several levels. The darker cloths of the girl in front make the "in-focus" girl more salient because of the brighter tones. The focus helps guide the eye to that part of the picture, which is directly on a "thirds" point. I also agree with TX2654's comment about highlighting the difference between two very similar looking people. The focus and clothing differences leave this viewer with a perception of two distinctly different personalities dispite their similarity. Great work! (None of the shots I take while just fooling around with my camera ever turn out this good! LOL! )

[Alison]

Yay!
Thank you everyone for your comments. I am finally starting to feel confident in my abilities where photography is concerned.

[amithi]

I have no photographic expertise for you, but I immediately thought "Siblings, one in the spotlight, one in the shadows... but your picture is interesting because the one in the 'shadow' is actually the one your eye goes to."