Pictures for Grandma

Grandma's birthday is coming up. We headed out to take a few photos to send her. Five minutes out of the car the kid steps in dog crap. Here are a couple that I like and where she is not wincing from the smell. hehe. As always, please suggest ideas for improving. Thanks in advance.

These are beautiful, especially the 1st one. What lens did you use? I presume no flash?

Grandma should be happy with these. Very nice.

I love these. She is adorable.

First one is fantastic. I really like the way the texture of the tree and her sweater compliment and tie in together.

That first one is awesome!

SO great! On that first one, I love lots of things about it, but especially the curved lines of the tree, her sweater zipper, her hair and the blurred tree branch on the left. That all adds so much to the photo. Gorgeous. great work!

Hello,

Thanks for nice comments. They were taken with a canon 70-200 2.8 IS and a 50d. (TV 1/250, AV 3.5 and ISO 400) No flash, setup on a monopod with the IS turned off on the lens. It was an overcast day so the colors in her sweater did not get washed out. In fact, we just beat the rains on our way back the car.

I do appreciate your observations.

Bruce

I really like #1, the texture of the tree and sweater with such a sweet face. But I do find the upper left brightly lit area very distracting, my eyeballs keep going to it. have you tried a couple of different crops to eliminate it?

This would make a nice square crop. Just my opinion of course.

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Or a portrait orientation.

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Absolutely beautiful, love everything about these.

Oh and I do like the square crop as well...

Hello,

Thanks for the crop ideas say_cheese. I had not looked at that. I like them both. The square one the best. I will use one of them if we decide to make a print of it.

Thanks again,

Bruce

Very nice job on these!

Thanks Justiss and thanks JoShAdka4. We had fun shooting them. I really like the way they look and plan to make prints of a couple. We had just picked up her colorful sweater the day before. It was a fun birthday gift to make for grandma in WI. Except for stepping in dog poop. hehe.