Hi Tanya, Nice work with the child portraiture. Shooting kids that age is
never easy. I could see how the little model and the photographer got more and
more comfortable with one another as the shoot went on. It was quite noticable
in the quality of expression in your photographs. The flash problems you
describe are much less of a distraction to me than the backgrounds of most of the
pictures.... I'm the first to admit that I am no expert with flash but there are
simple flash attachments that will help soften the light. These can be
attached with velcro right on to the flash... and they are not overly expensive...
Back to the backgrounds. I think the shots that show background would
benefit from a much shallower depth of field. If these were shot with a longer lens
and opened up to F2.8 or something like that, the background would really
soften up. I think you would be much happier with some of the results. I don't
know what lens you used here (maybe your 28-200.) The problem with these zooms is
that they are relatively slow lenses and you begin to lose the ability to
really soften the backgrounds. The background is also a little hot for my liking.
I suggest moving around as much as possible to get the subject in a position
that has a more pleasing background.
Other than that, keep up the good work...
Vic
