Maternity photoshoot experience

[Iren]

Ive been given the opportunity to shoot expecting couple that i dont know and have met only on the day of the photoshoot.

ive exchanged few emails in advance to discuss their preferences and advice on what to wear etc. It was cloudy morning and then the sun came out :/ as i was shooting everything in manual, i could not adjust my settings properly, but still got some nice photos in the end.
It was great experience and the biggest thing i have learnt from it is not to rush and take my time to pose them and adjust the settings.

P.s. I know i could do with a proper laptop and photoshop/lightroom for postprocessing, doing it on mobile device is not easy or professional, so thats my next step

Here are frew photos, c&s welcome

 

[wezza13]

You've certainly taken the advice on board

The glaringly obvious thing I would say, is to clone that duck out of the last one!

 

[Peter B]

What Wez said, but really to say that cropping will improve the photos. In the second one the empty space on the left has a massive pale path that is dominating the photo and can be cropped right out to improve the exposure balance and the colour strength, which would be good as I think this is her best facial expression.

 

[Iren]

You've certainly taken the advice on board

The glaringly obvious thing I would say, is to clone that duck out of the last one!

Thank you! I still have a long way to go, but its encouraging to see the progress and what i need to improve
I dont have full version of photoshop and dont know how to clone things...yet! saying that, girl did not mind the duck and they commented that they like the fact you can see ducks on the background (in multiple photos)

 

[Iren]

What Wez said, but really to say that cropping will improve the photos. In the second one the empty space on the left has a massive pale path that is dominating the photo and can be cropped right out to improve the exposure balance and the colour strength, which would be good as I think this is her best facial expression.

Thank you
I do agree that its very bright. The reason i left the space on the left is that the guy is turned to the left, so acording to the rule to leave space where the person is looking at/turned to. However, i can see now that its might not be the case here
Cropped version

 

[wezza13]

Thank you
I do agree that its very bright. The reason i left the space on the left is that the guy is turned to the left, so acording to the rule to leave space where the person is looking at/turned to. However, i can see now that its might not be the case here
Cropped version
View attachment 69732

See, that looks miles better.

He isn't looking off in to the distance though, so you wouldn't need to leave space for him to look to. They're only general guidelines though, nothing that says you have to use these rules!

Nice to see that you're acquiring focus properly now

 

[Peter B]

Thank you
I do agree that its very bright. The reason i left the space on the left is that the guy is turned to the left, so acording to the rule to leave space where the person is looking at/turned to. However, i can see now that its might not be the case here
Cropped version
View attachment 69732

A definite improvement for me Irina, plus you can give them the original one as well, so that's all good.

 

[Iren]

See, that looks miles better.

He isn't looking off in to the distance though, so you wouldn't need to leave space for him to look to. They're only general guidelines though, nothing that says you have to use these rules!

Nice to see that you're acquiring focus properly now

Yes, agree, it looks much more of a portrait now and much better close up. I'll try to experiment with the crop in the future.

I get eyes in focus most of the times now. After the one2one with the photographer i figured out why my recompose technique was not working and decided to switch and choose single points myself instead for now

 

[Iren]

A definite improvement for me Irina, plus you can give them the original one as well, so that's all good.

thanks!
I gave them original already and emailed cropped version this morning.
Their favourite was photo nr one (not this one exactly, but other from this set, where they both look to the right) and now they want large print of it. So i would need advice regarding photo size and megapixels if it would be enough for good quality large print.