Mama's little helpers

[Petracsr]

My daughter and her friends are really getting into helping me practice
I wish I could have gotten it sharper in camera. Practice, practice, practice...

[David]

Petra - I find this shot quite eye-catching! I, personally, don't think sharpness is the issue here, quite the reverse. The composition of the two girls and the boy works reasonably well with somewhat enigmatic looks both to the camera and off-camera. The triangular format is good with the girls' arms and legs entering the frame in good proportion to the edges and leading the eye up and into the image. The problem is the background - it's too busy and eye-catching in its own right. Yet the colours of the background augment the subjects. The solution would be to isolate the background and de-focus or blur it, perhaps even some desaturation so that the subjects jump out. Then, perhaps, you could try some local contrast enhancement on the subjects to give a bit of "pop". You can also defocus backgrounds by using a more shallow depth of field via a large aperture - but that would need a re-shoot.

Anyway, just some thoughts.

Cheers

David

[Donald]

Petra

Have you followed Colin's workshops on Portraiture? I'm sure these would help you significantly. You can find them listed at the top of this page

[Petracsr]

David,
I understand what you are saying, and will give that a try. I've never blurred the background in pp, so we'll see what happens
The lens I had on the camera was the 50 1.8, which I love, but I've never done a group photo with it. I was worried about only getting one person in focus, so I used a smaller aperture.
Thanks for the suggestions.
Petra

[Petracsr]

Thanks, Donald, and thank you Colin for taking the time to share

[David]

Petra - Hope you don't mind - here's a quick version with blurred areas. Done by selecting the areas with a freehand tool and using a Gaussian blur of 12, then a blur brush to edit areas missed.



More care is actually needed to do this properly, particularly around the hair lines, but it's the idea.

Cheers

David

[dragonaxe]

Definately looks better blurred, but can I suggest that only the far background is blurred. The woodwork that the girl on the left is sitting on is at the same focal point as the girl, so it looks wierd that it's out of focus when she isnt. Unless she really is a levitation practitioner

I LOVE the expression on the guys face! "cat who's got the cream" or what!!?? lol