Baby shoes

[gredawarha]

Hello all

I recently bought my first DSLR (Nikon D3100 18-55mm Kit lens). I have not had much chance to get out and photograph what with work and looking after my 15 month old son.

So far I have taken a few shots and I intend to post them on here and hopefully have you guys critique them.

Like I mentioned earlier I have not had much time to get out and about but the other evening I was about to go to bed when I noticed that my sons shoes were sat in our living room all in a line. I thought I would take a snap



I was trying to get the blurred 'bokeh' effect and I guess convey a message of a cross between youth and growing up. My son is 15 months and it only seems like yesterday he was born and yet he now has his first shoes. Also the idea of children and their habit of leaving things lying around.

Not sure if that makes any sense.

I shot in RAW and then using Darktable I converted the file to monochrome. I didn't do anything else to the image.

I guess I am looking for comments on composition and whether you think I could improve the photo whether that be when taking the shot or post processing.

[CougarFool]

Hi Darren,
I like the idea of this picture and it has turned out very well. It works well as B&W. The composition is good but perhaps a tighter crop would draw more attention to the shoes. On my monitor the first shoe is soft with the focus point somewhere on the second or third shoe. It might be better if the first shoe was the sharpest. It is very unfortunate that the curatains at the back have created a dark area that runs along just above the shoes. Perhaps you could position them elsewhere and take some more shots? (Just my humble opinions of course!)

[gredawarha]

Hi Darren,
I like the idea of this picture and it has turned out very well. It works well as B&W. The composition is good but perhaps a tighter crop would draw more attention to the shoes. On my monitor the first shoe is soft with the focus point somewhere on the second or third shoe. It might be better if the first shoe was the sharpest. It is very unfortunate that the curatains at the back have created a dark area that runs along just above the shoes. Perhaps you could position them elsewhere and take some more shots? (Just my humble opinions of course!)

Hi Nigel

Thank you for your comments, I appreciate the help. I agree with the black and white. The front two shoes are Union Jack in design and colour and the far two shoes are dark brown. After taking the shot I felt that here were too many colours competing with each other, I felt converting to black and white was cleaner.

I agree with the focus points that you made. When I took the shot it was late at night and very much spontaneous. I do like your idea of repeating the shot focusing on the first shoe and moving the shoes to get rid of the curtains and the darkness. I shall give it a go and post the new picture

[Colin Southern]

Hi Darren,

Looks good to me.

I've given it a quick edit (a picture paints a thousand words) (hope you don't mind)

- Crop - to show more space in front ot the shoes

- Made the image more contrasty

- Sharpened the image

- Applied a vignette to give the illusion of targeted lighting