2 x Jurre

[Hasselbox]

2 snap shot portraits of Jurre. Number 1 in the studio, number 2 at home.

1


2

[MiniChris]

#1 is a bit soft in focus for me in this type of portrait. #2 is a much better pose, and while the hair starts to go too soft in the focus area for my tastes, what I find most bothersome is the stains on his left sleeve. They really pull my eye away from his eyes to the point where it is hard to decide which to look at first.

You might try a little less cluttered backdrop so you can close down one more stop to increase the depth of field and still retain good bokeh...and check, then recheck for any other distractions before tripping the shutter.

[wendles78]

I agree with Chris, on both points. Don't you love the way children (and it's usually mine I photograph) always have some sort of stain on their clothes when you're shooting them! A lovely little boy. You could probably photoshop those marks out in number 2, and you would have a wonderful shot.

[Goldcoastgolfer]

I don't mind the serious pose of #1. What might help is a bit of negative space to the left of your subject's face just to make people wonder what it is he's staring at. It is a bit soft and the lighting around his face seems a bit uneven - particularly around his right eye which ideally for me would be lighter so they capture your attention and bring you in. It's just too dark to do that although I'm not sure if that was the original photo or subsequent processing you've done to darken some of the image.

The stains on the sleve in #2 should be something you can edit out of the photo - even using Picasa which is free. Depth of field is a bit shallow for me in both shots but that's more a personal thing. His eyes really grab your attention in the second shot - star potential there!

[kezmal]

I like photo no 2, I think it captures a sweet little boy who looks to be in his high chair, and the stains just add to that littleboy charm.

[Loose Canon]

Hi Peter,

I thought, with your permission of course, I might make a couple of comments on your fine shots of Mr. Jurre. I’ve been running into some of these issues myself recently. They are naturally things I don’t think of until after the shots are taken and usually kick myself for!

Recently, I had the opportunity to shoot my grandchildren in my house in a “formal” sitting. I had to bribe them with dinner! We had lasagna and unbeknownst to me some of them ate while I was shooting others of them. When the “eaters” got their turn, I later found out that they all had small lasagna stains on their lips and in the corners of their mouths. Normally it wouldn’t make much difference but I was shooting super tight close ups and it stuck out like a sore thumb! It never even occurred to me that I would have this problem and then I had to deal with it in post. What I should have done is just prior to the shoot lined them all up and hosed them down good!

As Wendy mentioned, it’s always when you are ready to shoot! In fact, with kids I daresay it is just simply “always”. The stain spots on Mr. Jurre’s shirt reminded me of this, which reminded me again that I need to be extremely diligent in checking for these little nuisances (the stains, not the kids!). However, that is easy enough to correct should you so desire and your second shot is definitely a keeper in my mind.

I also like your first shot of Young Master Jurre. If this were my shot of him, I would want to keep it, too, but there are a couple of things that would bother me. As Malcolm mentioned about the negative space to camera left. But that may also be a preference thing and if you like the shot enough it no longer even matters.

First, I believe I would consider it a bit underexposed. So in RAW conversion I would either try adjusting the curves while setting blacks and whites, see if it needed a bit of fill light, or possibly even bumping the exposure. And probably in that order. Then it would probably need a little highlight recovery, especially where the highlights are blown in his camera left hair.

With this, I would probably have something I liked a little better, but then another problem. This one really bugs me and I have had to correct a couple of my recent attempts because of this. His camera left eye looks great, but his camera right pupil looks black. The difference is such that to me it is really noticeable and would be a deal killer. So I would simply take a softish clone brush the size of the camera left pupil @ 100% and clone left pupil to right. Two taps of the mouse. One to set the area to be cloned and one to clone over the right pupil. This would probably work quite nicely and no one would be the wiser if you didn’t tell!

Whatever else I would do in a normal workflow, a bit of selective dodging, burning, and sharpening (especially the eyes) levels, curves, etc.

Then sit back and see if I liked this shot of Mr. Jurre any better!

[Hasselbox]

Thank all for the comments.
1 is the favourite of his mother.
2 is for me the manner to make a real portrait that saying somethings about Jurre.
And now, practise on digital development.

[Goldcoastgolfer]

Thank all for the comments.
1 is the favourite of his mother.
2 is for me the manner to make a real portrait that saying somethings about Jurre.
And now, practise on digital development.

If the parents love a photo, you can't argue with that

Once you get the hang of digital development, it become a lot easier than you think. I really didn't want to get into post processing but realised it was necessary and now I actually enjoy it!