Two friends

[habakuk]

Hi all.

This is a "contract work" for a good (young) friend ... a portrait shot. It paid very well (two bubble gums):



cheers
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[stormyva]

What an adorable shot!  The lighting is spot on and the background is great.  I am sure your friend will love this for years to come
The way that the ledge is cut off in the bottom left corner does seem a little odd, but it doesnt hurt the photo that bad.

[habakuk]

Thanks! Yep, the lower right corner... that could be fixed pretty easily. But for two bubble gums... what can you expect as a customer? I'll as for a additinal candy bar to make this fix. 

cheers
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[danielgilbey]

This is a great capture - I can't quite pinpoint it but something about the (dare I say) expression on the toys gives me a "we're on holiday & having a fantastic time!" impression.
Also the couple of boats/yachts in the background add to this IMO.

Really great, thanks, this has made me smile this evening.

:-Daniel

[habakuk]

Good, then there were already three people smiling because of this shot. That's fair enough.

thanks for your comment.
cheers
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[eob]

That reminds me of a commercial in which the song says: "What would you do for a Clondike bar?". You can add me to the smiling ones, place us next to the cuddly ones and shoot a group portrait, Roland. 

[Simon]

that's such a nice shot, personally I would have liked to see the background a little more in focus, out of focus is fine it gives the background a painted look very nice but I think the sail of the bigger boat and the two boats themselves begin to look doubled that is a tad too much out of focus for me but the idea of the out of focus background is great as it is not a background that requires much definition to still be interesting without taking away attention from the subjects.

The subjects themselves look great surely your "client" will look back on this image in years to come and be very happy, yes you can add me to the list of people that are smiling over this one and to think such good feelings did not even cost me a half bubble gum (and you can keep the other half bubble gum change)

Simon

[habakuk]

thanks, Simon, both for the critique and the half bubble gum.
The boat indeed had two sails set...

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[Simon]

you mean the boat actually had two real sails ? hm I suppose a main sail and the one that sticks out the front ? as I say for me it is a bit too much out of focus I think maybe the viewer might spend more time than necessary figuring out the background, perhaps if it was just softly out of focus rather than blurry it would take less time observing and you would look straight at the subjects, ah but what can you expect for 2 bubble gums perhaps for an additional 3 you could be persuaded to reshoot.

I suppose it is not something that could be done digitally you would have to retake the shot, so I expect either a slightly smaller aperture or if there is space move back and zoom in more would that help bring a background into focus a bit more or would the additional loss of DOF make it negligeable, I was just playing around shooting closeups of flowers this morning and noticed how with even f8 diaphram the background was out of focus but mind you just softly out of focus not blurry so it might work ? I've not really done any portrate or many closeups

[habakuk]

Thanks, Simon. I appreciate your thoughts!

cheers
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