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Art in general is learned by copying and there is nothing wrong with that so keep copying what you like and it will eventually turn into a more individual style.
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Jun 9, 2017 07:10
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I disagree about taking out the lifeguard tower. The beach is what I like about it since it contrasts the boats with their big apparent size vs. the tiny little beach people and if he cut out the tower he would lose too much of the beach to make it relevant. That beach shot is actually a very nice go for just starting out with photography - keep looking for interesting things like that and study composition so you can know how to exploit them and present them in interesting ways to look at. 2nd photo and 3rd didn't fare as well. There are no subjects and just a lot of nothing in the third one and the second doesn't have an interesting subject the way you present it. Also, as it was said above, you have to keep your horizon straight. Just do that 100% of the time from now on - once you get used to it you wont be able to unsee crooked horizons and you can laugh at the professional wedding photographers who do it on purpose all the time. Contrary to some opinions, I don't think you actually always have to have a subject, at least in a concrete sort of way, but it is a lot harder to make that successful and at the beginning it is incredibly helpful to try to learn the most traditional ways of creating successful images which is rule of 3rds and subject placement. After you are strong with that then you might be able to make a night sky picture work, but if that is unfamiliar to you then you end up with just nothing there to make anyone want to look at the photo. And yes, you will need to post process to get things to pop like you want them to. Good news is that you can just shoot jpg while you work on your composition and other basics. But, and big but here, you will have to move to raw and post processing eventually. There is just no way around it for the majority of photography, and the cases where you might want or need to shoot jpg are not situations you will be dealing with right now. Shooting raw will also make you more critical because you wont want to process every lovely picture of the sky or whatever (no offense, I did the same thing) and will want to only focus on processing the keepers. Keep working on it - good start and everyone can do it if they work hard at it and develop a critical eye.
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Aug 4, 2017 03:03
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Ron Jeremy posted:I am a rookie, take a million pictures and hope some come out kind of dad. My kids rarely want to be posed. Can anyone point me to a resource for me? You can't pose kids sometimes, if at all, and a lot of the time you will get better pictures not posing them. What you can do it trick them into facing good light and wait for a moment to happen. Get down on their level too or point your articulating screen up and lower the camera. Your picture is a good example - I will take pictures of my daughter like that because it is my daughter and I don't care if I am taking great photos 100% of the time and just want the picture to remember the moment. Like if it were an event or paying work I would not even take the picture. As a dad it different though. So when I want the moment AND for an acceptable picture I will try to trick my daughter somehow into moving into the light how I want her to. If you have to deal with other peoples kids with paid work then it gets easier because you will come up with ways to make it work as a job rather than settling on something subpar artistically because it is your kid. And I don't mean that in a harsh way - it is just something I noticed about my own shooting. The light is sometimes the only thing you can try to control with kids to get a good picture.
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Aug 18, 2017 23:48
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joedevola posted:
In that situation tell him to "smile for the camera because it is going on the internet".
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Sep 4, 2017 01:21
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President Beep posted:
Top of the head doesn’t matter as much with a shoulders up portrait. This is because with the horse one there was a lot to look at and focusing on the head ends high in the frame as they shot it. With shoulders up often you are using the eyebrows at or above the top horizontal rule of thirds line and the top of the head is more to frame the face than something that needs to be considered in the composition. Those rules can all be broken of course. I was going to download the picture to crop to show what I am trying to say since it is easier to see than to two about but can’t with it on flickr so I hope that makes sense.
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Dec 7, 2017 17:12
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President Beep posted:
Unless you bracket I don’t think you have much of a choice regarding the balance between the sun and the foreground. You could raise the exposure of the foreground but it would probably start looking unnatural.
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Jan 22, 2018 05:19
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Agreed about the vignetting - that was my first thought. There’s a fine line of what looks good and this is pretty far past that line. Basically if you can see the shape of the vignetting then it is too much. Of course heavy vignetting can work sometimes but anything can work if it is good and that is just a guideline. An image shouldn’t really need vignetting anyway. Regarding the shits themselves they look like snapshots and as if there isn’t much thought about composition or making an image or thinking about much, just snapping a shot (hence the name). Not trying to be discouraging though, keep doing it! And just because they are snapshots doesn’t diminish their worth to you and the people you know. Normal people don’t care about composition if their kids are in the photos and/or if they are in the photo and think they look good. Actually making a good image by thinking about composition, changing angles to actually choose your background and learning from experience (and critiques from people who don’t exist in hug boxes like Flickr) is something people might appreciate if they see that kind of image vs. someone who snapped a shot with their cellphone but really no one cares and you can see that in the photos of the “professional” family photographers who have their first dslr, the their friends that they are now professionals, call themselves “Precious Moments Photography” and get hired by all of their friends. But hey, more power to them if they are making money because the vast majority of good photographers aren’t since everyone is a photographer these days. I know this thread isn’t super active but if you want any more advise feel free to post away. I owe this thread a lot since it was active back when I started and a large part of how I shoot now was because of the critiques here so although I might not be here often I will always try to contribute with advice. Oh regarding the snowflakes I don’t think you need to edit them out in this case. If you were putting this up on a wall, printed large, or having someone pay you the yes I’d get all into that but spend your time shooting rather than working on that kind of post processing for now. Try to get it all right in camera too and set a burst of at least three images if you are in a situation like this so that if one shot has a passing snowflake in a spot you don’t like then you will have at least two others to choose from.
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Mar 23, 2018 04:56
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That was my first thought too - there’s not usually any good reason that sepia will be stronger than a good black and white conversion.
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Mar 25, 2018 18:12
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One thing to keep in mind is that with mundane beautiful things like flower photos require good composition beyond almost everything else to be interesting. Otherwise they are just snapshots. And even with good composition someone has likely done it already and done it better. I don’t mean that to be discouraging because it is a nice challenge to try to take interesting photos of those mundane beautiful things to try to make them novel but the first priority is composition and treating the photo like almost an abstract photo.
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Apr 27, 2018 18:22
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Yes but did he bait that ladybug?
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Apr 28, 2018 04:54
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Orions Lord posted:
I thought the bokeh looked familiar even before I saw your text. I haven’t used mine for ages but when I was first getting into mirrorless like 6 years ago I used it - this is one of the only images I have online with it. The bokeh is so harsh but it’s kind of cool 
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May 1, 2018 02:16
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Cannon_Fodder posted:My first go at showing photos I took. Composition is king so you’ll want to start studying it. It’s not a rule you have to stick to in the long run but understanding and being able to implement the rule of thirds is important. The picture with the people cut off on the left side of the frame is a good example. Anything that is in the frame should be justifiable so when you have some element like that hanging off the side of the frame it automatically makes the photo a snapshot, like an afterthought rather than a thought out photo. You are basically creating an image as a photographer vs. hitting the shutter button at something you think looks cool - that is the distinction between snapshots, which is the majority of what you see nowadays since everyone has a cell phone and photographers who carefully consider what they are doing and study how to get better. This is not a knock by the way - just something to think about if you want to improve. Keeping a level horizon is also an important part of creating an image. Unless you have a distinct reason to tilt the frame (you usually won’t) then the horizon should be level and not crooked. A little more to the technical side, you’ll want to watch out for blown highlights. This is where bright spots appear bright white and is where the camera’s dynamic range runs out. You can see that prominently in the sky in one of your photos. You can recover those blown highlights in post processing sometimes, more so if you shoot raw, but learning to see and identify them is a good first step. Most of the can be accomplished with a cell phone. Often people think “when I get a better camera I will get better”. That might be true but only if you put in the time to study what you’re doing. A better camera will give you more options but will not inherently make your photos better. The good news is that if you like photography then learning about it is really fun! Wherever you show photos for critique expect some harsh criticism at first. Many people lose motivation when they are emotionally attached to an image and someone tears it down from a tech idea perspective so try not to get too attached to your shots. You might want to get the book “Understanding Exposure” as it is a good starting point. Good luck!
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Jun 3, 2018 16:24
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InternetJunky posted:I'd appreciate any critiques people want to offer for these shots, but what I'm really looking for specifically are comments about the colour balance. I have a whole series of bear shots that I'm really struggling with where they are either coming out with a green tint or a magenta tint, and I just can't get it right. I think the first shot has a slight magenta tint to it and the second shot is way too green fwiw ... just wanting a second opinion. I think the second might be tending towards green but I’m on my phone and would need to check on my monitor later to be sure. I shoot Fuji so I’m also dealing with that tending towards magenta and will have an easier time telling on the monitor I work on. Is the hue and tint the same in your settings between the two photos? If not, the first one looks good so maybe you just use your color balance from that one on the second since the lighting looks similar. I really like them - they are very cute family shots.
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Aug 5, 2018 21:31
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President Beep posted:My pleasure! This ought to work. It was uploaded as a raw, so I’m assuming it’ll download as the same. I actually really like this unedited. It has a moodiness to it, looks very natural compared to the edit and the light is great.
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Jan 4, 2019 06:37
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 11:14 |
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InternetJunky posted:Thanks for the feedback. I played around with a closer crop and a 2:1 crop, both which I think are better than the original but I'm finding I need a sliver of sky in there at least otherwise there's no horizon and the slope of the beach makes for a confusing scene. I prefer the first. The second doesn’t add anything to the photo and I don’t think justifies that composition. However this is just on my phone - printed or viewed large perhaps the lines in the ground would be interesting enough to go with that crop. I just think the first suits the subject better and there’s not much else to feature in terms of the background. rio fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Feb 4, 2019 |
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Feb 4, 2019 03:33
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