Pictures @ the beach

[jbdial1515]

My family and I went to the beach for the week. We decided to try and take some pictures ourselves for the first time on the beach. I think it went pretty well but not quite as planned. I tried taking the pictures with Manual settings. They did not quite come out how I wanted but I think I was able to recover pretty well by making adjustments to the raw image (exposure was not quite what I wanted).

Tell me what you think or offer some advise on how I could improve before I have them printed (they have not been cropped only resized for web).

Thanks
JB

[carpenter]

I would try to crop this into a vertical shot. had they set off to the left a bit I think it would work better as a horizontal shot. Doesn't look like you'd have room to crop so that they sit in the left 1/3 of the photo, but maybe if it were printed in 8X10.

[jbdial1515]

I agree. I wish I would have followed the rules of thirds but to be honest, I did not even think about it and that shows my lack of expereince. I think you are right that my only option will be to vertically crop.

Thanks for the comment.

[carpenter]

I just popped it into photoshop and it should work if you wanted an 8X10 in horizontal A 5X7 is REAL close.


The photo though is priceless. The smile/laugh from your little one is great. It's hard to tell from the smaller picture but it looks good.

[jbdial1515]

Thanks for the comment. Even @ 5 months she is such a ham for the camera. We really could not have asked for more (our first child).

Here is one cropped to show her smile...she has always smiled for us when taking pictures (knock on wood).

JB

[shuttermom17]

If you have any experience with PS2 or a similar software program, you can easily add some space to the far right side of your picture by taking sections of the beach and adding to your picture. Then crop with all of you nearing the left edge and you will have a beautiful 'landscape' style shot that uses the rule of thirds for a more 'professional feel'. One of the mistakes most people make in shooting is that they center everything and that doesn't make for a very appealing look. I'd give it a go in photoshop if you have the time.

The vertical pose definitely calls for a vertical crop if you don't alter the original photo as described above. I love your choices of clothing for the beach shots. And I'd say overall you did great if you were using a timer to capture these shots. Brave too, I might add. I'm a little reluctant to bring my camera to the beach and attach to a tripod... for fear of a gust of wind wreaking havoc.

[jbdial1515]

Thanks for the comments. We were using a wireless remote. My wife and I are ok in PS so we may give that a whirl.

In regards to the camera on the beach...The way I look at it is they make more cameras, they do not make more of these special moments and you can not turn back history and capture this moment again.

JB

[In2Photos]

Originally Posted by jbdial1515

Thanks for the comments. We were using a wireless remote. My wife and I are ok in PS so we may give that a whirl.

In regards to the camera on the beach...The way I look at it is they make more cameras, they do not make more of these special moments and you can not turn back history and capture this moment again.

JB

And don't ever forget that. While our photos may never be technically correct the emotion captured is more important. In this case I think you did just fine. This will be a wonderful memory to have forever. Congrats.

PS, I hope that my beach shots later this week look anywhere near as good. I have a 2 year old whom also loves the camera but is much harder to get to sit still than she used to be.

[jbdial1515]

In2Photos:

I agree with you completely. There are so many that believe that everything has to be exactly perfect in regards to the technical aspect but one must realize that not eveyrone is here for that and they use photograpy as a way to capture the emotion and the moment.

It would not matter to me if everyone on this board told me that my picture was not "good" in nature because to me it is wonderful...It has captured a moment in time of my family and my beautiful child that I can share from now on.

And I must say I am not trying to rain on anyone's parade because I can not tell you how much I have learned from the forum in such a short amount of time. I would not have been able to capture these moments without the help of this forum. Thanks to you all.

Thanks for the comments.
JB

[Titus213]

Looks like a fun time - at least your little one was really enjoying herself - she's a doll. The exposure looks pretty good and the cropping can be fixed without much trouble. One of the 'rules' we try to adhere to when shooting is to not put heads vertically above one another. It can make an interesting special shot but generally staggering them would be more appealing. And of course you would have to stagger the bodies along with the heads....

[jbdial1515]

Thanks for the advise Titus...never really thought about it but when I look back at the rest of the series, this is the only one that is vertical and it is the least appealing.

Thanks
JB