Family shoot. Two shots for C&C please?

Spur of the moment, 'can you do this before my niece heads back home?' Sure, why not. Family members are parents, brother sister and daughter of son.

Wanted to shoot into the sun but it meant street and houses in BG. Looked for shade and used an on-camera flash for fill. Please let me know what looks right, wrong and add comments to help me get better.

1. The family

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I'm no Pro Dave but here are small 2 cents: great use of lights on both!
1. I wonder if f4 would still keep everyone in good focus so the BG could be a little more blur - Subject pop.
Clone out the front Man white pocket.
Push in a little on the arm and hip of the front Lady - just a little. Wish her bandaged finger was posed in a way so that won't shows.
2. Is just great except I think her skin tone is a little dark. I would take off a couple dot on her face as well.

Actually it's quite a nice photo and very well arranged. I agree on the wider aperture. Definitely needs more background blur. I would have framed a bit tighter too, cutting the two in front off just at the elbows. It's OK if you cut their hands off as long as the arms are leading in a natural way out of the bottom of the image - preferable leading outward from the center towards the corners. Hard to explain here but if you crop it there and crop another a few inches below the elbow and look at them side by side you'll probably see what I mean. Also, watch for what I call "spider fingers". See them creeping over the shoulder of the young girl in the middle? They are completely detached from anything else and look like some critter crawling on her. This is a pet peeve of mine that I see in work even by some of the best photographers. Why it bugs me so, I have no idea, but it just drives me crazy and it's something that I'm always on the lookout for.


The second shot, again, very well done. I think you're a natural people shooter. Now move on to off-camera-flash.

what i did hear was a quick select and blur the background a little more, clone out the bandaged finger, cloned out white shirt buttons (i have a personal problem with white buttons on a blue shirt), cloned the guys pocket lining out, and croped to my taste,

the image you had is good, good lighting, good poseing (except guys hand on girls shoulder IMO) just needs a couple of tweaks to give it a finished look

(edits were about 2-3 minutes in PS so not stella but jut to show what i meant)

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My only nitpick was the 1st photo seemed too washed out so I did a quick edit.

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