Outdoor family portraits at sunset

I took some family pictures for my sister-in-law about a month ago and wanted to get some feedback on a few of them. I have some things that I've already identified that I need to improve upon, but I'd like to see what others have to say. This was a last-minute setup just outside the grandparents' house and we lucked out with a decent sunset that night. Unfortunately it was a tad breezy too, so I needed either mom or dad to hold the light stand and take turns with the kids.

1.

I'm no expert on portraiture so take my comments not too seriously

#1 - a nice pose. The fact that the baby is looking and smiling really works. Lighting needs tweaking as there is too much shadow in the man's face
#2 - Doesn't work for me - the idea of the baby kissing the boy looks forced and not natural
#3 - A better shot, probably the best of the bunch
#4 - A nice pose but I am not sure of the framing, it may need a little more space to the left and lose a little space at the top ( you can lose that bit of leaves at the top as well

The woman has a hair tie on the arm and I suggest you clone that out.

I wonder whether the lighting is a little cool, which is in contrast the warm background, but I may leave it others to confirm that

pelooyen wrote in post #13358396
I'm no expert on portraiture so take my comments not too seriously

#1 - a nice pose. The fact that the baby is looking and smiling really works. Lighting needs tweaking as there is too much shadow in the man's face
#2 - Doesn't work for me - the idea of the baby kissing the boy looks forced and not natural
#3 - A better shot, probably the best of the bunch
#4 - A nice pose but I am not sure of the framing, it may need a little more space to the left and lose a little space at the top ( you can lose that bit of leaves at the top as well

The woman has a hair tie on the arm and I suggest you clone that out.

I wonder whether the lighting is a little cool, which is in contrast the warm background, but I may leave it others to confirm that

Thank you for the feedback Paul...very much appreciated.

I would've liked to shoot with two lights to avoid deep shadows like you pointed out in #1, but I needed another pair of hands to pull that off. That being said, I also wanted to avoid flat lighting too, so I kept the light off to the side a bit (maybe a bit too far). Do you think the sky is too bright in #1? That was my main technical concern about that image.

I totally missed the branch coming in from the top of #4...good catch. Looking at #2, I have the same thing going on there too, with a bonus street light poking in on the right side. :-/ Also, the more I look at #4, the more I think it needs a tighter crop on the right side. The foot in the bottom right is bothering me now. That one isn't cropped, so that's about my only option there.

I always seem to miss little details like the hair tie, so I usually try to bring someone with me to specifically look at the details to make sure I don't miss simple things like that.

You're also right about the lights being a little cool. I was shooting a White Lighting x1600 with an octabox and I haven't picked up gels big enough to use on it yet. The original plan was to shoot earlier in the day so that it wouldn't have been such an issue, but we ended up getting a late start.

Thanks again for taking a look.

-Brian

I think you did good. I just had my first attempt at it myself, well, 2nd family portrait attempt but first using off camera flash outside near sunset. I like the 4th one. The 3rd one is good too but I think it is cropped just a bit tight for me. I'd like a bit more space above her head. The first one is really good.

I had a baby in mine too. Really makes it tough. Good job.

You can see mine here - https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1111668

Thanks Dave...I took a look at your shots and provided feedback. Nice job.