Is it me or my wife ? How "good" is this image ?

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Meleica

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I consider myself an advanced amateur photographer ( and "professional" equipment junkie ). I have had some of my best photos purchased to be used in a commercial setting, but I still consider myself an advanced amateur.

Over the years, I think my wife has become my harshest critic. Shots that I think are excellent, she'll say are "ok.." Yet, others who see my work ( average Joe's ) think its "awesome" or "excellent"

Who's more right ?

How would you rate the image below. Poor, Fair, Good, Very Good, Excellent or "Professional Grade" Lets say 1 being the lowest, 5 being the highest (best) score.

Shot handheld, available light, 1/50 F2 at iso 800. 8x10 image format.

rffim.jpg


Dan
 
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Good in what context?

It's a technically competent snapshot of a healthy baby. In that sense it's "good".

As far as any other criteria, the "goodness" depends on the value of the photo to you. If it's your baby and you want a memento, it's "very good".

It looks like any one of millions or billions of other baby photos that have been taken.
 
Personally I don't like sepia tones in images - it's largely a personal thing, even the slightest tinge of sepia gets on my nerves. However, the image is really quite strong. The expression, composition and technicalities of the image are really great - If you were a working pro, most client would LOVE this sort of their child.

As it stands, because of my distaste for sepia toned images, I'd give it a 3 out of 5.
With a B&W conversion, it could possibly go up a star, depending on how good the conversion is.

Cute kid by the way!
 
context doesnt really matter.... the viewer defines "good"......do we think master photographers work is only good or bad in a certain context ? this may be a great side conversation too !
 
Technically, this shot is plenty sharp, although one eye is sharper than the other, so this takes away a little bit of sparkle. The crop is acceptable, but in my opinion, the object is the expression of the eyes, and the mouth, so it could be a bit tighter on the forehead. The expression is very well captured. Now we come to the painful part: the tonality is barely sufficient for getting the "professional" grade in B&W - and is typical of digital camera sensors, so to sum up:
sharpness:4,5
crop: 4
expression:5
tonality:2
average:3.68
 
PS: I'm not implying that there's anything wrong with baby photos. I have taken hundreds of photos of my own baby in the last few weeks.

I think they're "good" too, but whether they are of any interest to anyone other than my immediate family or circle of friends is highly doubtful.

My photos are "good" in a technical sense. As far as "art" or other weights applied to judging them, they are decidedly average.
 
This is professional quality. Parents should be so lucky to get quality shots like this from a professional studio.
 
A natural link !

A natural link !

Human beings allways think that their baby is so cute ... it is a good thing because a baby has nothing else to ask for the protection that he/she needs....😛 😛

But a "stranger" has nothing to say about it... It is difficult to comment your picture.
To my own taste babies are ugly and not very attractives apart from the "natural connection"... "Ohhhh It is mine I have created a genious... I am so proud ..."
This feeling will help you to get up at night when he'll be crying for hours....😡 😡

I wish to him/her a good life !!!!!
 
You are assuming its my baby...

I take lots of "people" pics...

madie5.jpg



AND EVEN SOME NON-PEOPLE PICS.

trainrff.jpg
 
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Because I abhor the misuse of the work "awesome", I must call this picture excellent. The baby's parents will love it, others will objectively evaluate its quality.
 
I love the photo. I would give it a 5 but I would have shot it at f4 to get a little more sharpness out of the foreground. Beatiful child, great moment captured!
 
Dan - May I have permission to post my interpretation of the post processing of the first image? It's just a black and white conversion - I'm willing to post up how it was done as well. If you'd prefer me not to I would completely understand!

Gavin
 
I like the train photo very much, the other child photo is also very well done, I think much better than the original baby photo.

The train photo is dramatic, well exposed, sharp and conveys a good dynamic. I would not hesitate to use this photo as an illustration for publication if I was an editor.
 
good ahead with your version - I am no expert with post processing. The image went from a 11mb RAW file down to a reasonable jpg...

Dan
 
I realize this would most likely be too dramatic for parents wanting a portrait of their kid, but I wanted to do more a dramatic art sort of style version, and also I wanted to see what it would look like in B&W.

bwattempt1of1.jpg


Basically in Adobe lightroom I brought the saturation all the way down, but left the vibrancy in the middle. This took most of the colour out. In the selective colour, I bumped up the orange so to give the image a slight tone. I then bumped the contrast of the dark areas up a tad, and opened in cs3, copied the main layer into an overlay style one, added slight monochromatic grain and then gaussian blurred it slightly to keep the high contrast as subtle as possible.

If you don't like it, I won't mind if you say so -
Thanks for letting me do that!
 
It's very nice (the baby one). All of them are. The only quibble I have with the first shot of the baby is that because the baby's forehead extends out of the frame, it gives the illusion - to me, of "infiniteness" and hence exaggerated size. However, if it was my kid, and I'd have taken it, I would be quite proud of it too.
 
In my opinion, fdigital's version is very much improved. His interpretation would make a more dramatic shot for an ad, for example, the eyes "pull" more as the center of attention and the overall look is more dynamic. The photo becomes riveting and stops the eye, which is a major function of advertising commercial photography.

I also agree that many parents would not like his version. Parents for the most part want a more "cute" photo in a plain vanilla style. This is what would be profitably churned out by commercial "baby photography" studios.

Still, as a "photo for the ages", I still reserve judgement, but now we're talking art and not a commercial product. Sometimes there a fortuitous blend of the two, sometimes not.

In illustrations, for example, Norman Rockwell comes to mind as something which manages to transcend his commercial roots.
 
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