Reply To: Please Critique My Work

[cameraclicker]

Even if shooting to raw files, white balance that’s all over the place is easy to achieve.  With raw files, it is easier to correct.

As EyeDocPhotog said, focus is a problem.  I didn’t get through all the photos either.

The studio shots (Danaille’s Dance Academy) don’t seem to have enough light.  Part of that could be white balance.  Part could be light placement.  Part could be light power.  Part could be the number of lights.

https://www.facebook.com/571765246215809/photos/a.711014405624225.1073741845.571765246215809/711015028957496/?type=3&theater, for instance, looks a lot better if you reset the white balance using the bottom of her tap shoe as your reference.  It seems you used a couple of softboxes that were level with her head.  Usually lights should be up high.  I suspect continuous lighting was used.  Moving one light closer and one further away will affect how much each contributes and shadows.  Most studio strobes, speedlites and high end continuous lights allow power to be adjusted.  Lights without power adjustment can only be moved to increase or decrease brightness at the subject.  This works against your modifiers which need to be close to your subject to produce the softest light.  Light falls off at the square of distance, so a close light will be much brighter near the light than it will a few inches/cm further away.   As you get further from the light, brightness is more consistent, but the source appears relatively smaller, so shadow is harsher.  All things you can play with to achieve the desired effect.

https://www.facebook.com/571765246215809/photos/a.711014405624225.1073741845.571765246215809/726810884044577/?type=3&theater, has the same lighting position problem going on.  I’m assuming this was a session of a bunch of kids at a dance studio?  So why did this little one get the ghoul lighting treatment, suitable for Halloween?  Most people don’t look their best with light shining up at them.  The backdrop has wrinkles.  Sometimes a smooth background looks good.  Some backgrounds are meant to be wrinkled, instead of rolling them, you stuff them in a bag and they have lots of irregular wrinkles.  You shoot your subject well in front of the backdrop with a lens open enough to blur the backdrop, which smooths out the wrinkles but provides some random patterns.  Shooting a backdrop with a few random sharp wrinkles just says you didn’t take care when setting up.

Focus, lighting, posing, white balance, all need work.  Moms love your photos because they are photos of their kids.  They could be much better photos.