Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Grant

Grant was a fun, energetic and happy 2 year old who was staying with his Grandma and Grandpa for a couple of weeks. They were very nice to allow me to practice photographing him. I was glad the day was overcast so that I did not have harsh shadows to deal with. This was one of his rare moments of resting --- the majority of the morning I spent following him up and down and around the play equipment. He has very fine hair which the slight breeze would cause to stand up all around his head! I wonder what my photography friends think of the lighting on his face --- too much shadowing? Enough to see his face structure? What could I have realistically done here to improve this shot? Maybe I should have shot at a slightly smaller aperture, but the light was changing with the clouds and I wanted to blur the background as much as possible.

Camera settings: 50 mm lens at f1.8, 1/750, cloudy white balance
Post processing: a softlight layer at 50% opacity, lightened eyes by dodging with a brush in softlight blending mode, brushed in a lighter levels adjustment on the face only, cloned some mosquito bites from the skin, sharpened with both a high pass filter layer and an additional smart sharpen.

3 comments:

  1. Love the hair. Do you think I would look good with that style.

    I like everything about the photo--good expression, great arm jester, simple colors. But, I am not sure you really have a black point set. It seems that the steps should be close to black (or at least that is what my mind says they should be). Yet, they look really dark grey. I think setting a black point might help separate Grant from the background.

    Good second post!

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  2. You captured a great expression and setting with Grant! Made me happy just looking at it.
    Linda

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  3. Cindi, I like the lighting on his face. There aren't any distracting shadows. For an overcast day, you still have some directional light coming from the right that keeps the photo from looking flat. Good capture!

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