little guy

[omhubbard]

i took this while messing around ,what do yall think? one of the first times i have tried taking shots of people, any suggestions?

[casil403]

Hi OmH.....I think I would like it much more if it were turned the right way...I have to crink my neck right now to the right to view it.....

[tirediron]

A couple of issues jump immediately to mind: One is that it appears to have a slight yellow cast, easily fixable in post. Additionally, the background is very cluttered and distracting. Even though you've made good use of selective focus, look to a plain, featureless background whenever possible. I'd like to see the image a little more to the right; the "rule" of thirds generally doesn't apply to portraiture, and perhaps just a slight exposure boost on the face.

[ridicwilco]

yeah well generally you'll wanna have a difference of at least a half stop between background and foreground. usually in portraits too you'll find the photographer uses a reflector below the subject for illumination... and if you want to express a portrait of someone it's always good to articulate their eyes via a bright light source..........................

[edbayani11]

the comments od rw, td, and casil are all constructive comments.

i also find it too much to the left almost at the edge of the frame, maybe should've panned the camera a little to the left. the bg clutter i can forgive except for the red item on top of the head.
anyway, they can all be corrected through pp.

[Mad Aussie]

Friendly looking little fella.

Composition - I agree that's it too far left of frame. If you are going to place someone that far over you will need something of interest in the right of frame. The problem that would bring up is whether or not your subject was now competing with another element in the photo.
If he was sucking on a huge lollipop and the background was a blurred merry-go-round, or there was a blurred waterfall there, then that composition might work.

He has a red thing growing out of his head. Always look for those background distractions when shooting portraits

With portraits especially, if you are going to shoot one with negative space then the background is almost as important as the subject. Choosing a better background would have made a big difference.

Exposure - I can see plenty of noise there so it suggests that the ISO was quite high due to lack of ambient light OR you lightened a photo that was simply too dark to save with that technique without this noise being apparent.

I can see some catchlight in his eyes which suggests some sort of frontal lighting but it didn't provide enough it would seem. Either that or you added the catchlight artificially.

It's also possible that, if you used anything other than Manual, you suffered the exposure compensation issue where the camera saw all that bright background and decided it needed to darken the image. Choosing 'Centre Weighted' or 'Spot' may have helped with that if you metered off the boys face and then recomposed.

I see that a window to the boys left side is the major light source so perhaps a reflector off to the boys right side (our left as we view this) may have reflected some helpful light back to his face.

Hope some of that is useful