Young Couple

[ken1953]

Hello all,
A little advise please. These four pictures are of my stepdaughter and son-in-law. I have taken family pics before, but these are the first that I tried to use lessons I've learned here. I used my Kodak DX 4330 set to Auto on a tripod about 6 ft from my subjects using backflash. The sun was very low on the horizon directly behind me. The tree provided some nice soft shading. There is not much more I could have done with the camera. However, I did use PSE 3 to adjust the highlights and shading. Could you pls critique the posing, composition, the highlighting, etc.
The 4 pics are of 2 poses. The first two are the original and the fix/crop. The last are the second fix that my daughter likes best of the second pose and a first fix that I like because it shows more of the tree trunk. What do you all think?
Ken

[DJM]

Nice job! The first one has a bit of a bright spot to the left of his head. Burning might be the fix for that. The third picture is the best for me. The fill flash did a nice job and her pose is very nice!

[Lava Lamp]

Hello all,
A little advise please. These four pictures are of my stepdaughter and son-in-law. I have taken family pics before, but these are the first that I tried to use lessons I've learned here. I used my Kodak DX 4330 set to Auto on a tripod about 6 ft from my subjects using backflash. The sun was very low on the horizon directly behind me. The tree provided some nice soft shading. There is not much more I could have done with the camera. However, I did use PSE 3 to adjust the highlights and shading. Could you pls critique the posing, composition, the highlighting, etc.
The 4 pics are of 2 poses. The first two are the original and the fix/crop. The last are the second fix that my daughter likes best of the second pose and a first fix that I like because it shows more of the tree trunk. What do you all think?
Ken

Good start. I like #3 the best. I wouldn't worry about the tree trunk - the picture is about the people, so I'd try to minimize any other details to the point you know where there are, but that is about it.

One more thing you could work on is gettign rid of the glare off the glasses. You can clone that out in photoshop or whatever you have that has a cloning tool. Glasses are tough. If you use flash, you end up getting the bright spots you have here. For next time, Your options are 1) no flash - which wouldn't have worked here 2) no glasses - which sometimes makes the eyes look tired and isn't how the person normally looks 3) tilt the down the glasses a touch so that you don't get the direct reflection 4) bounce the flash if you have one you can bounce.

[ken1953]

thank you for the tips...I will keep them in mind for the next batch...I agree that #3 is best...I will definitely try to work on the glare in PSE 3...I have had a lot of problems learning the cloning tool in PSE 2 so am hesitant...but haven't given up on it...hehe...
any other comments greatly appreciated...keep 'em coming...as I wanna learn to be a better photographer...
Ken