A boy and his fish

[STiZzle2010]

My son is enjoying time with his new betta fish Max. CC welcome.

Shot with a Nikon D5500, Nikkor 50mm 1.8G lens, and edited in Lightroom.
f/2.5, 1/60th, ISO 400
JMH_0012 by Hebee's Visions, on Flickr

[rpcrowe]

Great how the light illuminates his eyes and how his hands lead to the fish!

[Jimr1961]

and the glow on the hands. Very nice shot.

[STiZzle2010]

Thank you. I've been trying to focus on my composition.

[IzzieK]

Very nice shot....good diagonals here. BTW, how old is your baby here? He seems so intent and very interested in the movement of his fishy. Beautiful shot!

[Shadowman]

Nicely done.

[STiZzle2010]

Thank you! My son is 6.5 months old here. All he wants to do is watch his fish.

[Dave A]

Wow love this image. With the Beta fish on almost the same focal plane as his eyes, as opposed to being blurred really makes for a great image.

Dave

[STiZzle2010]

Thank you! I got pretty lucky to have a cooperating infant and fish. Only took about 6 shots to get this and I was quite pleased with the results. This was something completely out of the box for me and I'm glad I gave it a try!

[selig1656]

Terrific creative shooting , a great sense of the factors in the pic and the lighting .

[Dave Humphries]

That's a great shot Josh, very well done for seeing its potential and persevering until you got it 'in the bag'.

It works for all the reasons voiced by previous respondents to this thread.

I have some ideas to improve it just a smidge more, which I would do if it were mine;

a) I'd clone out of the two little bubbles (fish fart?) at the top of frame
b) I'd tone down the two brightest pale stripes on his shoulder a bit
c) I'd try a slightly warmer white balance

You'd have to be careful not to over do it with c) - he is lit by what I'm sure is a fairly bluey/purpley (UV rich) tube above the tank - in fact if I tried it, I might decide it was a bad idea.

Hope those thoughts help,

Once again - well done, Dave

[STiZzle2010]

Thank you for your feedback! After I posted, I noticed the bubbles on top and immediately kicked myself for missing them. I cloned out the reflection of my wife's face in the fish tank as she was holding him and missed it completely. Of course my eyes kept going to this spot and I have plans to fix that. Now that you mention the 2 stripes on his shoulder, my eyes are being drawn here as well and I well definitely take your advice.

I struggled with WB a lot with this image and I think a lot of it has to do with the tone of the light that is being cast on his face. I'll play around with it again when I get home and Ill post the results for further feedback.

Thanks again!

[STiZzle2010]

That's a great shot Josh, very well done for seeing its potential and persevering until you got it 'in the bag'.

It works for all the reasons voiced by previous respondents to this thread.

I have some ideas to improve it just a smidge more, which I would do if it were mine;

a) I'd clone out of the two little bubbles (fish fart?) at the top of frame
b) I'd tone down the two brightest pale stripes on his shoulder a bit
c) I'd try a slightly warmer white balance

You'd have to be careful not to over do it with c) - he is lit by what I'm sure is a fairly bluey/purpley (UV rich) tube above the tank - in fact if I tried it, I might decide it was a bad idea.

Hope those thoughts help,

Once again - well done, Dave

Here is an updated edit. How do the skin tones look?

Test-0012 by Hebee's Visions, on Flickr

[IzzieK]

Thank you! My son is 6.5 months old here. All he wants to do is watch his fish.

No wonder he is still looking healthy...wait till he decides he want to be a vegetarian...

[Chrisclick]

Great shot, Josh. The edit is an improvement. I think the touch of warmth in the light across his eyes, works well.

[STiZzle2010]

I agree, and thank you.

[Dave Humphries]

Here is an updated edit. How do the skin tones look?

Yup, that's very good.

[DEAN01]

Wonderful shot. The second post is an improvement.

[STiZzle2010]

Thank you! Is there anything that can be improved upon in this image?

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Josh,

Thank you! Is there anything that can be improved upon in this image?

Tricky to add more, but there are two things, only mentioned since you ask;

d) Perhaps a small crop off the lower edge, just enough to remove the logo, I feel this brings a nice framing to the bottom of the image with his arm, creating a circular path our eyes can follow; face (eyes) > fish > hand > along his arm > face.
It also puts the eyes nearer the lower left 'thirds' intersection

I also looked critically at the left/right edges, but decided your crop/framing is ideal there for rule of thirds and other aspects.

e) Do not have the logo/watermark, since that now attracts the eyes like the lit stripes on his shoulder did.
If you really must put one on, try it in lower right corner, but anything that is text, readable, bright(ish) or sharp is likely to distract the viewer and is not a practical prevention against image theft anyway, so serves no useful purpose in that respect.

I appreciate you may not agree with me on e) now, but you may in a few months/years time - most of us go through a phase adding watermarks when we start taking really good pictures - I did.

There are many threads here at CiC over the years discussing the subject of watermarks/logos, for example, see this thread, especially posts #13 and #14 so probably best not go in to it again here, it is rather OT (off topic) for such an excellent image.


I hope those additional points are also helpful, Dave