Photography Critique

Godsservent · 12-19-2005, 02:30 PM

Here's my some of my pics

RipVanWinkle · 12-19-2005, 04:04 PM

Candence...I love that picture. Great tones and composition! (nice burning too)

Heres one from a series im doing called "Figurative Language: Timeless Expression"

PontiusPirate · 12-19-2005, 05:20 PM

I quit.

Cadence · 12-20-2005, 02:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PontiusPirate

I quit.

How come?

ApparentlyNothing · 12-20-2005, 04:24 AM

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Originally Posted by PontiusPirate

Dun dun dun...

I always love your photos. You get great black and white shots.

ApparentlyNothing · 12-20-2005, 04:29 AM

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Originally Posted by redbaron

apparently nothing: my take on the second photo is that you lost some of the definition due to the sharpness of the film, but the lack of contrast on the snow. I'm wondering if some filters would have helped that (i.e. yellow/orange). Are you shooting DSLR, and have that option, or are you shooting a point & shoot?

DSLR. I'm not sure what you mean by using filters though.

I'm not too sure I agree with you on this one though. It also does look better printed out. But I'm going to explain the intentions of these photos in my next post.

ApparentlyNothing · 12-20-2005, 04:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cadence

This one doesn't really do much for me. I like the candidness of it, but it leaves more to be desired.

Also those two black things are distracting. Photoshop

A lot of times, I'm very hesitant to photoshop parts of shots. I thought about photoshopping it out, but part of me wanted to keep it because it was part of the environment she was in at the time. They are steps that were covered in snow. Part of me felt like if I took them out, it would give you less context about where she was. I should try taking it out and see what it looks like though.

As for more to be desired, these photos were 2 of a series of 5. Though some in the 5 can be taken more by themselves, they were also chosen based on how they fit with the others. So perhaps if you saw it in reference to the rest of the series, it would work better?

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I like this one a lot. This definitely is a story telling picture. Great shot!

Thanks! Yeah, that was what I was going for.

The series of 5 was based on an idea from the movie Memento. Basically, I tried to capture shots that referrenced the way you remember someone who has been gone for a long period of time. It's the little details, the bits and pieces and not so much the full on, conventional portrait style shot you remember. Plus, things aren't always in focus, it's not so perfectly lit, etc. My shots are either relatively soft focused or the framing somehow hiding a majority of her face. Perhaps that puts things in context a little more for the first shot? Also, here's another two:

**Gustin** · 12-20-2005, 07:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApparentlyNothing

I love this shot. It's very good. My only problem would be the hair over the eye isa little distracting, but it's not that big of a deal in my opinion. Very good.

**redbaron** · 12-20-2005, 01:50 PM

Apparently Nothing: I will try to start up a thread about lens filters when I get home tonight so we can all get in and discuss them. Used properly they will make your photo's that much better, but used poorly you won't like the results.

**Gustin** · 12-20-2005, 01:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by redbaron

Apparently Nothing: I will try to start up a thread about lens filters when I get home tonight so we can all get in and discuss them. Used properly they will make your photo's that much better, but used poorly you won't like the results.

Great! I was actually about to ask a couple questions about filters, but I'll wait for this thread.

PontiusPirate · 12-20-2005, 09:16 PM

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How come?

I never get critiques.
grwarghahegh.

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I always love your photos. You get great black and white shots.

Why thank you, Jon.
Here are some color shots.
I realize the night shot is crappy....which is why I am posting it.
I need some serious tips on night shots.
Thankee.

ApparentlyNothing · 12-20-2005, 09:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PontiusPirate

I never get critiques.
grwarghahegh.

Probably because no one knows what to say other than "Oh, that looks good." But I'll try on the next two.

Quote:

Here are some color shots.
I realize the night shot is crappy....which is why I am posting it.
I need some serious tips on night shots.
Thankee.

I love the color in the first shot. It looks nice. Though I'm not sure what that bar is there for on the right. I can't decide whether I like it or if I think it should be cropped out.

The second shot is the one you said you want tips on. The best night shots I got, I had to set the ISO pretty high. If you look through my past photos, which you can do if you're not familiar with them on my deviant, the ones I took at the arch and the highway overpass shots were all taken with 1600 ISO setting. They were also all taken with very large aperatures, in the 4-5 range relatively. The shutter speed was set according to the meter to get the best exposure. Even with the ISO and aperature so large, I got pretty slow shutter speeds just to expose the picture correctly. Thus, a tripod is an absolute necessity. If you're not taking a picture of something moving, then your shots should come out pretty good with these settings. But if you're taking a picture of a person or a moving object, you'll still get a lot of blur. Also, you'll notice you'll get a bit of noise with such a high ISO setting. This tends to be an unfortunate downside that most people have just learned to live with. I don't know if this helps any, maybe if you could be a bit more specific on what you need help on?

Godsservent · 12-21-2005, 01:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PontiusPirate

I never get critiques.
grwarghahegh.

Why thank you, Jon.
Here are some color shots.
I realize the night shot is crappy....which is why I am posting it.
I need some serious tips on night shots.
Thankee.

I love the first one it has very rich colors and great contrast between the background and the flower. The chair in the second pic is not strong enough to be the subject, if you would of had a stronger subject it would have been good pic.

GraceAnailer · 01-19-2006, 10:18 PM

i love these two pictures of mine.

on the first one, i cut the airplane wing out, enhanced the rest of it, and it turned out quite nicely, i thought

what do ya'll think? criticize as needed, please!

ApparentlyNothing · 01-20-2006, 01:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GraceAnailer

i love these two pictures of mine.

on the first one, i cut the airplane wing out, enhanced the rest of it, and it turned out quite nicely, i thought

what do ya'll think? criticize as needed, please!

Well, since you asked....

The first one, there's no real color contrast. It's just all pretty much blue. Do you have Photoshop? That's something that might be able to be fixed with "levels". You can adjust the levels for each RGB channel to get better color in your photo. It's worked miracles for some of my photos.

The second one, the silouhette idea isn't bad, but you just don't really have much of a subject in the photo. Or what is supposed to be the subject isn't very interesting. A different angle might work? Or maybe just finding a different thing to photograph. I don't know.