Baby Fine Hair
by cvhs99

Comment by Haneck:
Looks like this photo might need a tiny more contrast, but the focus is good... and the girl's expression is really cute! Nice capture!

The Porch
by cvhs99

Comment by SaraR:
As it is, a little dull - perhaps a person gazing out of the lsft had window would have added a bit more of a story and interest?

The Porch
by cvhs99

Comment by bassbone:
Nice concept but the lighting seems a little flat and the close crop on the sides makes it seem strained and closed down too much.

Ocean View
by cvhs99

Comment by Nuzzer:
The horizon needs levelling and the clouds could be brought out more (curves)

Ocean View
by cvhs99

Comment by quiche:
Pink & yellow floats are nice against water. Either straighten horizon or deliberately skew it more.

Ma! Ma!
by cvhs99

Comment by Bear_Music:
*** C R I T I Q U E C L U B C O M M E N T ****

There are aspects of this image that are very appealing. It's areal moment seized, it has an immediate and intimate effect. The composition is pretty good, for the sort of environment it's in. But there are a couple of issues here that are negatively affecting your score.

One of them is totally challenge-related; the child's facial expression denotes worry more than play. She doesn't look happy, basically. That had to hurt your score, I think.

Speaking of the image itself, there are technical problems that are killing you. For one thing, the most important element in the picture is the face, but it's noticeably out of focus. The tab on the gate (?) behind her is in sharp focus. The camera is grabbing focus on a contrasty part of the scene, and not on her face. If you set your AF point to the one where her face is, you'd be fine; this looks like the camera is set to evaluate all points and focus on one it "likes", which works okay for landscapes, say, but not at all well for in-close wotk like this where DOF is critical.

An even greater problem is the fact that the child's totally in shadow and underexposed. And because she's lit only by reflected light from the sky, which is very blue light, SHE'S blue as well. Now, it would be possible to fix this in post-processing to some degree, by shifting the hue'saturation over and so forth, and by using contrast masking and such, but there's a better way for the future; you want to learn to use your camera's built-in flash as a "fill light". You will need to play around with the flash exposure compensation (read your manual) to reduce power on the flash so it doesn't overpower the scene, but the D50 is definitely capable of doing a workmanlike job of fill flash.

Here's a very quick 'n dirty remake of the image; I used contrast masking (there's a description of it in my "Landscape Learning" thread) to bring up the tones on the child. I used a selective color adjustment layer to remove cyan from the "neutral" range. I used a tool I have called "focus magic" to correct the OOF image. Total time about 3 minutes. So there IS potential in the image, although the sharpening will not look natural at any larger print size.



I hope this has been of some help to you...

Education begins early
by cvhs99

Comment by Gene L.:
This is a really cute scene and the composition seems just right to me. If only it were sharper. I can see that it was shot at a slow shutter speed and probably handheld. A tripod can hold the camera steady and prevent blur from camera shake (I use one that can get very low to the ground for shooting children). Bumping up the ISO setting, when possible, can help acheive a faster shutter speed and reduce the motion blur from the subject.

Education begins early
by cvhs99

Comment by Claya:
Sepia tone doesn't work here because it gives the photo an old feel but that conflicts with the Dora the Explorer chair, which can't be very old. Image looks a bit fuzzy to and very snapshotish.

Education begins early
by cvhs99

Comment by Artifacts:
Use of sepia in this composition works well and you captured your young subject at a moment of discovery and learning. This image captures true education far better than 98% of the images that will score above it.

The biggest defect in this image is focus. Your model should be in tack sharp focus. You can see that your autofocus decided the background should be focused and not your subject since it occupies more space.

Your perspective is not necessarily bad but is "snapshot-like". Taking it from the right up from floor level where you could see the whole face might be worth trying. You can't see the contents of the book from that perspective but you have a different angle and the facial expression is what makes the image. The contents of the book are inconsequential.

You might also consider a tighter crop and cut out as much wall in the background as possible. It adds little to the composition and the wall plug is a major distraction. There is a tendency for photographers to include the entirety of an object, like the book on the right, in the image. But you can achieve a very pleasing effect by including part but not all of an object. Cropping out part of the book would achieve that effect as well as get rid of the wall plug.

Education begins early
by cvhs99

Comment by Bud:
The one thing against this image is that it is blurry. Beautiful child and great idea.