Love the way the reflection from the water lights up the child's face. Excellent image.

Hi Lindsey

Sparkling water and crisp focus.  A little tip, try not to clip the top of the head off and if you can, try forced flash to light the face.  As you say she is photogenic and using forced flash would have evened out the lighting on that cute face.

Welcome and have a great time.

Cheers

Again such a beautiful little girl - but thinking through your shot before hand would have placed her more centrally (actually off centre is good but you need to have space all round the main subect) the light is good, but slightly too much water at the bottom of the shot which leaves the photo being unbalanced. This photo would benefit from a very tight crop and if you haven't any processing software then Picasa is a free download from Google and will give you all the basic tools.

Good luck with your adventure. Remember we all started out making huge mistakes and some of us still make huge mistakes. Enjoy it and you will improve as you alreay have the desire to do well. Plan your shots a little more and they will be superb.

This could have been an absolute stunner! The exposure is just right. It is sharp, and the composition is good. In my opinion, and I don't often disagree with Angie or Steve, is that the lack of headroom does detract from an otherwise great photo. The water in the foreground establishes the location. If there was just a little more space above the child's head, I reckon it would be just about perfect. Sorry Steve, in this case flash would have ruined it. The modelling on the girl's face is just right for me.

Just shows how subjective photography really is I suppose.

With a bit of work in Photoshop, the headroom problem could be overcome. I reckon it would be worth it.

I agree with Kidder.

Worth a salvage job with just a touch of lightening of the pupils only to bring the colour out a touch.. cloning a bit more water above shouldn't be too worrysome.

Needs less than three percent of water above the head to do this, just bringing the head into frame.

Hi Lindsey

Well there you go, different strokes from different folks.  I suppose the opinions of folk will differ and of course the more response you get, the more opinions will suggest different things.

I suppose the best bet for you, is to go to the galleries of your commentators and see what you think of their work.

Good luck, great fun init!!!

I love this photo too.  It could have done with a bit more space above the head.  I don't think fill flash would have improved it, as the reflections lighten the face but still leave it soft and chubby, how a childs face should be.

I also like the fact that there's more water at the bottom of the picture as the sparkles and on the ripples help to make the photo help to set the scene.

She's a beautiful little girl by the way!!

Viv

Super zdięcie.