Christmas dinner

[smcrews]

My wife and daughter at Christmas dinner
C&C welcome

[JPS]

Hi Shawn,
the only C&C I going to give is....don't change anything, I think it's spot-on.
Fantastic.
Well done.
Hope you all had a lovely day.

[pentaxpete]

To be 'Nit-Picking' --crop off that part of the hand on bottom right. Really very good family Portrait.

[Mike Buckley]

That's an informal portrait that the family will cherish for decades. You're lucky to have such good looking models. I also like the blurred lights in the background.

If you have the necessary software skills, consider toning down the hot spots in the mother's face. Notice that they aren't present in the child's face, which makes for a more appealing portrait.

The hand on the right doesn't bother me, though I understand that in this context it's not "connected" to Mom. I love tight crops but tightening this one more wouldn't work as well for me. If anything, I suggest showing more of that hand, partly to show the bonding between the two people.

[CLK]

Love the blue sparkly finger nail polish and those beautiful smiles. They seem to like the camera as well as it like them.

[Loose Canon]

Hi Shawn!

Now if that ain’t a Merry Christmas I guess I don’t know what is!

Super nice of Wife and Daughter.

I personally think if the hand bothers you, you could do a 5:4 crop to just above the hand. I don’t think it would be too tight, would lose a little head space, and get the eyes closer to the upper third. Plus have a nice 10x8 for framing (or even an 14x11 possibly).

I think I would tone down the background a little and maybe daughter’s hands a tad bit if it were me. (I guess that is daughter! I thought they were sisters! [and you may tell lovely Wife I said that!])

I think I would be inclined to go with the hot spot removal as suggested, but that’s just me. I might see about whether I liked cooling the color temp a tad or not to reduce the slight yellow cast.

I would give this one my best retouching efforts (hopefully subtle since it is an informal type of shot) and then I would haul it off to print and get it on the wall just as quick as I could!

What I really like about this shot is that they look so happy. Their heads are tilted just right and makes their eyes form diagonal lines rather than simply straight across. A fantastic look that makes this shot so dynamic!

Beautiful stuff Shawn! If we fail to record everyday Beautiful Memories in our happy Pursuit of Photographic Perfection, then we will have missed the point entirely! This, to me, would be more valuable than any squillion dollar landscape/wildlife/supermodel magazine cover/ I could ever shoot!

Well, that is to say if I were ever good enough to shoot any squillion dollar shots!

[BCrose]

This is beautiful. A touch warm but I think it works for this particular shot. Definitely print worthy.

[MaggieR]

Frame it! It's a keeper.