Lost Tooth

[CLKunst]

Comments and critiques are welcomed, suggestions cheerfully explored.

[Mr Yuck]

Now look what you've done, you've gone and done made me smile.

#1 is perfect.

#2 is good, but a slightly larger DOF would be better IMO, Just to bring the fingers in the foreground in focus, leaving the background as is.

[Alison]

Your lighting is fabulous. Bounced flash?
Colours and clarity are great.
The image tells a story.
Wonderful capture.

[swmdrayfan]

Cindy,
I'd like to see the tooth in focus a little better.
Is that part of a gingerbread house? Looks tasty!
John

[Ronnoco]

Interesting shots! Now you need to work on depth of field, to further improve them.

Ronnoco

[yogestee]

Gorgeous Cindy....These images are keepers to pull out on 18th or 21st birthdays..The lack of DOF in the hand shot lets it down a bit..
BTW,,did she break her tooth on the piece of cake

Jurgen
Australia

[GB1]

Cindy - # 1 is great cept for the foreground newspaper. The focus/DOF is a little off too, but it doesn't look like you had all the time in the world to compose and had to shoot fast. # 2, what everone else says, but could also use a higher angle as there is too much negative space.

Take some more shots of her like this -- it only happens once. -GB

[Overbeyond]

How you beautifully captured the delight on the little girls face makes me not want to mention that the newspaper is a pain in the tooth. So I won't. But you could crop a little from the bottom and clone out what is left.
Lovely moment.
Tom

[CLKunst]

Thanks for the input everyone! The tooth in hand shot is a disappointment, I agree, and yes, I used a bounced flash to light both shots. I noticed it when I was setting it up for post that I had blown the focal point. My daughter set up a receiving line for tooth viewing and her hand moved to show the next in line while I was still taking the shot. I could re-shoot it but that poses its own dilemma. The "Tooth Fairy" has already collected my prop in exchange for the princely sum of 2 gold $1 coins under her pillow (It was a big tooth, just look at the size of the hole!). The re-emergence of the tooth is going to lead to some sticky questions. I am still trying to weigh the pros and cons of that conversation versus the worth of re-shooting. I've been trying to work exclusively with my 50mm F2 for my family pictures but it's an older manual focus lens and I have a hard time keeping up in low light focusing situations. Any tips for that are welcome!

Here is an alternate crop of No. 1 to reduce the newspaper intrusion although I didn't clone it out because it's real and I don't think it takes THAT much away although it may be a distraction.

The gingerbread houses were just a blast to make for the kids although they're really graham crackers iced onto the sides of small milk cartons. The tough part was explaining that they're inedible thanks to the icing that's used to put them together. My youngest still wants to know "So what's the point if you can't eat it?"