sisters on the beach

totally new to photography, first time posting pic. Would like some suggestions if there is anything i can do with this pic. I would like to print it out and give it to the girls thanks. All I have done is cropped it:


Thanks, by the way love these forums

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Taken at the worst time of day - near mid-day. Extremely harsh lighting, typical of mid-day on a bright sunny day.

Would have been improved with a little fill flash or use of a reflector.

The girl on the left has her shirt way overexposed leaving no detail in the highlights.

This is not entirely your fault. There is a lot of mythology about needing bright sunny days for photography. Truth is you don't get very good lighting for photography unless you use open shade, or a very cloudy, partly sunny day with the sun low in the sky.

Now you have no excuse for committing these sins again.

P.S. - Welcome to the POTN and to Critique Corner - it's a blast!

lose the sun glasses

i would include the feet if you have them in your shot. looks kinda funny cropped at the ankles.

Robert_Lay wrote in post #6071412
Taken at the worst time of day - near mid-day. Extremely harsh lighting, typical of mid-day on a bright sunny day.

Would have been improved with a little fill flash or use of a reflector.

I think that about sums it up. Hard to shoot in that light, fill flash would have eliminated some of the shadows on thier faces.

This is a good time to learn that even when you open your eyes and say "wow, it's really bright out" that it's not always the quantity of light, it's the quality. I guarantee that you could see all the shadows on the girls' faces when you were looking at the scene, but you might not have noticed them, and thought since it was so bright that the camera would take care of everything. Learning to see light is very valuable.

I played with a crop, converted to B&W and sent it to the OP.It's still pretty harsh light.

thanks for the well thought out critique, it was mid day no clouds on the beach, so yes very harsh conditions. thanks flo for the very nice edit on my photo.

It looks like this was just an opportunity shot, not a planned event, but having said that, one of the mistakes I made when first learning, was thinking that a nice sunny summer day is a great time to go take some pictures....... I soon learned that this is not the case, eh who wudda thunk it? As others have said welcome to POTN, look forward to seeing your future posts/improvements.