My son

[drchrisdvm2009]

Hi all! Hope you all had a great labor day weekend.
Over the past few days I was able to go out with my son (he likes to look at birds, and I like to take bird pictures) but he posed pretty well for me a couple times (and of course, no time to change lenses) so I took a few shots of him with my 100-400, I have near zero post processing skills, so the first photo is straight from the camera (loaded into lightroom and then exported as jpeg). The second one I thought had a unique look and feel to it using one of the lightroom presets (aged photo). Any tips on composition, setting the mood, lighting (these two are outdoors in near direct sunlight), or where to start for post processing and how to tell if I PP too much would be greatly appreciated.

Photo 1:
100-400 @ 200mm, f 9.0, 1/200 sec, ISO 200, Rebel XSi

Photo 2:
100-400 @ 400mm, f 5.6, 1/1000 sec, ISO 200, Rebel XSi. This one was cropped to put the center of attention towards the right 1/3 of the image (was previously centered).

Thanks in advance for any pointers/tips/help/criticism/anything. :-)

[joedlh]

A cardinal rule of people and animal photography is that you must get the eye and it must be in focus. Neither of your shots qualifies for this. So they are not interest grabbing.

A corollary to this rule is that if you don't have the eye, then the content of the image must be strong enough to elicit an emotional response from the viewer. It must tell a story. The first one approaches this goal. The story is a young lad looking across a body of water, perhaps thinking about what's over there. There are other compositions, however, that would tell it more strongly.

In the second one, you have used selective color on the shirt. What was your goal? Is it a picture of a nice blue shirt or a young boy who happens to be wearing a blue shirt? It comes across as a gimmick that misses the mark.

[bullsprig]

i like number 2 the best. for me each picture can be or mean different things to different people. when i view photos the pic will either catch my eye or not. i do not get caught up in too many rules. if you like the pic then it is a great shot. if you dont like the pic then delete it!!!! :)

the second pic does catch my eye for some reason. i really like B/W and i think that would be a good shot in b/w

[drchrisdvm2009]

Thanks for the responses!
A quick question about coming up with a "goal" for your photos... When you shoot, do you always have a goal for each shot? or do you just go out and shoot randomly and occasionally come up with something that you really like but has no goal behind it?

Do you have any suggestions of places to look (books, websites) to develop more of an eye for what is a strong image?

Thanks!

[joedlh]

Since you asked, I have two modes of shooting. If I'm in photographer mode, I always shoot in raw mode and spend time deciding what I want to capture in the image. If I'm in snap-shooter mode, I'll shoot jpegs and a scatter gun approach. Even then, however, I'm conscious of lighting and composition. I seldom post snap shots for review unless I happened to capture a fleeting moment that elicits a response (i.e., a chuckle or a tear).