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Karen

Karen

Wiggle it, just a little bit!
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Jun 28, 2008
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Okay, so I know there are tons of you that take fabulous pictures and know "stuff" about proper lighting and exposure and all that fancy blah, blah blah stuff that I just wing it for. Can I get some opinions on this family photo? There is a new store in our downtown that was running crazy specials on family photo shoots down at the beach at sunset. What do you think? This is the best one and is the one we picked to get printed for our living room at 16x20. (I just think they made some mistakes and am curious what you guys think or if it's just me):thinking2

FISHERfAMILY-105small.jpg
 
Well being from MI and knowing that lakeshore, I have seen better! ;) You guys all look GREAT, but the lighting is definitely off. Now, don't get me wrong, this is something that I would shoot - this is my quality of photo, but I don't charge people or call myself a photographer either. Hmmmm...bummer! You guys do look great though!!! Would be curious to know if they did any photo enhancing/retouching for the lighting?
 
Karen, it's a great capture of your beautiful family adn I can see why you would want it to be perfect! I probably would have composed the shot a bit differently, but that's just a matter of opinion and style. That being said they definitely should brighten up your faces, especially your DH's. I hope you are happy with the end result.
 
You have a beautiful family!!

I agree what what Leslie and Manda have said - the lighting is not good and the shadows are really harsh. IMO the composition is poor too, I want to push the camera lens over to the side!! :lol Maybe you could ask them to crop it a little differently and do some enhancement to brighten up the faces / lessen those shadows. Let us know how you get on!
 
awesome family shot! awesome.

my eye is first drawn to the sun... rather than to you guys. sunset is cool but it shouldn't be the primary eye-catcher, kwim? crazy harsh shadows, too - just too much contrast (black), imo, and way too much flash up front.
 
I agree with everyone too... my eye went to your shins - it's the lightest part of your (gorgeous) family! love love love the blue!
 
yep crop out the right side of the photo and the bottom to make you guys bigger and better compose it and play around to make the colours pop and brighten your faces. I would not accept this printed that big as is. Make them fix it or ask to do it yourself!

that bush to the right really bugs me too...I keep finding myself staring at it! Cropping should fix that!
 
Ah thank you guys... these are all the same things that were bugging me. My hubby and I went it to see the proofs about a month ago and when we left he was all excited and thought they were great and I was so disappointed. I just couldn't believe the shadows and how washed out we were with too much flash. So I just never called them back about picking which one I wanted because I just didn't think they were anything better than I could have done myself. Of course I can't do that if I'm in the pictures, hence the paying someone else part. Grrr... I'm just not that confident that they will be able to fix it other than the cropping stuff.

I emailed the guy back and asked what he could do about the harsh shadows, so we'll see what he can do. Thank you for your input!
 
Hey Karen,

Talk to your guy. With a RAW file, it should come out better than this:

Screenshot2010-09-23at101422PM.png


It just depends if he wants to do it for free or charge you. (The way my studio works is if we didn't notice when shooting, we cover it but if you want something like a head swap or something it's on you.)

Good Luck!
 
Oh wow! That is so much better and you did it with my super low res version! I'm impressed! I know they shot in RAW, so they have lots more to play with. I think they are just being lazy and not wanting to spend too much time on it, ya know? They said they'd edit it for free, but like you a head swap would cost extra. I still haven't heard back from him and that was days ago, so I'm not sure what I'm going to get.
 
I think it is such a wonderful family shot and I hope they can edit it nicely for you. If you're not satisfied, maybe you can purchase the digital image and have someone edit it for you? I don't know if that is an option with your photographer.
 
It's a beautiful photo of all of you but it seems very underexposed. If they shot in RAW that should be easily corrected...I'm sorry they didn't turn out the way you had hoped :(
 
Beautiful family!
I'm confused as to why light is on the left when the sun is on the left also :td

Either way- their is lots that can be done to fix this for now. And honestly, it is a memory, I just wouldn't pay too much for an enlargement. Its not professionally done.
 
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