C’mon, just admit that you’re fishing for compliments, right??
They’re fantastic photos, not that I’m a pro, but they look bloody good to me!
Very nice and technically good photos.
You need more interesting subjects, though. If I were you, I’d seek out a local interest group and accompany them. Let them point out interesting stuff to you and try to capture it. For instance, tag along with a local nature study group and let them point out all sorts of interesting details to you to photograph. Anyone can see butterflies, but it takes knowledge to point out details in moss, bark structures, or the details of the insect life in the undergrowth.
Or tag along with a group to an exhibition. Go to a model train exhibition, and photograph the models and the people interacting with them. Do what a photographer accompanying a journalist does. Got to brass bands practice, shooting ranges, any place where people won’'t mind you shooting pictures, but photographers seldom come. It will sure get you more interesting subject matter.
Not at all, but thanks. You can see only maybe about 8 of the images on there have ever received any comments on flickr, so I haven’t really had any feedback. I mean, I show them to my friends, who seem to like them, but that doesn’t always necesarily mean anything, so I figured I’d get some more neutral feedback. But thanks everyone for the compliments anyway.
Would you mind being more specific? Which photos specifically would benefit from recomposing?
I think rule-of-thirds and offcenter subjects in general are overemphasized in photography. There are definitely times when they work - when you want to place a subject as a part of a larger context of an image, it can work very well. For instance, the cowboy in the Cow Crossing shot wouldn’t have worked nearly as well if I had centered him.
But there are other times when your subject takes up most of the frame, or if you’re isolating your subject from the background and they are essentially the whole picture where there’s nothing (IMO) wrong with centering them and making them the focus. For instance, this butterfly picture. The subject and foreground is pretty well seperated from the background, they completely dominate the image, and there’s a nice symmetry to it. Now I could’ve zoomed out a bit and recomposed it so that the main subject was off in the corner following the rule of thirds, but I don’t think that would’ve helped anything. I think it would’ve just been arbitrarily trying to meet some “never center your subjects” rule.
OTOH, in this one, the relationship between the subject and the foreground is such that it makes visual sense to put the subject off center, so I did. Technically I suppose I could’ve shifted the perspective slightly left, so that the flower was centered but the butterfly was even more off-center, but I think the composition works as is.
There’s also a technical reason for some of them. When I’m shooting a quickly moving target like a bird in flight, I use center point focus only. Sometimes in those situations the camera picks the wrong thing to focus on, and I can overcome it with skillful tracking and a single AF point, but even then it’s hard. (As you can see, some of those seagull pictures where they snatch the fish out of the water are focus misses, but I posted them anyway because the timing was really good). Now technically you could just do 1-point focusing on some off-center focus point, but it’s hard enough to track a rapidly and unpredictably moving target like a bird, so it’s most natural to try to center them.
I do have fireworks pictures with longer exposure times in there. this one is 6.5 seconds with a longer burst. Some were just attempts to isolate a single firework, rather than a big burst, like this one which I rather like - the single firework becomes its own focus, that shot would’ve been ruined with a longer timer with multiple bursts IMO.
As far as the horizon, I think you guys are only talking about this one, because the horizons are flat on all the other ones. I generally do feel a strong need to level my horizons, but in this particular one, let me explain what I was going for. I was sitting behind some rocks right at the water’s edge, occasionally getting a big wave to come in and splash me. I was adjusting the focus on my manual 28mm, not ready yet to take a shot, but I saw a big wave coming in. I snapped a quick picture as it was coming in before I pulled the camera back (it can take getting splashed just fine, but I didn’t want to have to wipe off the lens). The result was sort of a raw, uncomposed picture - the image is front focused, the horizon isn’t level, but IMO the picture gives a really visceral feel of being hit by a wave. I tried a version of that picture where I levelled the horizon but it lost that visceral feeling.
Anyway, I’m not adverse to criticism, I appreciate it, I would just like if you took specific examples of the images you mean in regards to composition and told me what you’d have done instead with that particular image and why.
These pictures are truly gorgeous and look very professional.
What page is the photo of that electric cord out on your patio?
To follow up on my last post, take a look at Ansel Adams’ Taos Pueblo Church picture.
Computer reproductions really don’t do it justice. I’ve seen it in person and it’s magnificent. There are a lot of different visual elements in the photo: rounded forms and harsh rectangular forms. Vertical elements and slanting elements. Light and dark. The shadow on the left of the church moves from the harsh rectangular wall to the soft rounded base, tying those elements together. The rectangular top elements rest on the soft round elements. The slanted element spans both the harsh rectangular and soft rounded elements. The slanted element itself is neither rectangular nor rounded, but somewhere between those two, perfectly bridging those 2 types of elements. The different level of horizon lines on either side of the church also adds visual appeal.
I don’t feel like I’ve done a great job of explaining this because the composition is a FEELING, not a thought. And unfortunately, the feeling really doesn’t come through in this reproduction.
J.
I’m no photo expert, but I’d love to frame some of those scenery shots you took. To me, you have a good eye, and your choice of angles, lighting and scenery are excellent.
I’ve been shooting since I was 14. I’m 50. I make a living with my left eye as a professional cinematographer ( weirdly, I shoot left-eyed ).
The framing is hit and miss, and by that I mean a reference to the post that cited Ansel Adams. Look with a very critical eye. A lot of the work is almost there. There’s a clear eye, a sense of composition but the critical tension isn’t quite there.
Your work is very lovely. I’d ask you to consider every frame as a stolen moment, not a set of Metadata to be filtered and cropped in post. Leave the color alone. Life delivers such a remarkable palette to us unaided.
And take the suggestions from photographers- like myself- who take this a seriously as breathing, parenting and nurturing a partner. There’s tremendous stuff there, just let it flow.
It’s almost… getting out of one’s own way and letting the camera and lens be placed where it must.
Thank you for putting yourself on the line and sharing all of this work. That takes nerve, and a desire to improve and expand. Kudos you to, seriously.
Cartooniverse
It’s a little difficult for me to comment on your photographic ability in general when there are so many photos and I can’t be sure which ones you think represent your “best photographic effort” and which ones you consider simple snapshots (although sometimes it’s pretty clear–like the Cleveland stadium parking lot pictures).
If you picked out say, 10-15 images that you considered representative of your best work I personally would be better able to make useful critiques. Even better would be seeing the raw images before any cropping or processing. In a way, that wouldn’t be fair because it’s sort of like seeing you “naked when you’ve just rolled out of bed”. But for me, it would give me a better idea of your thinking at the moment you capture an image, and thus a better idea of your stronger and weaker points as a shooter.
Getting a shot, choice of subject matter, how you compose it, how you expose it, whether you choose a long or a wide lens,etc., is what I would be interested in (and somewhat capable of) critiquing. How you decide to post-process your images is a different subject–one I could have opinions on and give feedback on, but to me, the two “disciplines” should be considered and critiqued separately.
Having said all that, I’ll still make a few general comments (if you’d find it helpful). These thoughts are pretty long-winded, idiosyncratic, and unforgivingly honest. Sorry about that, it’s just how my thought process worked.
The technical quality of your shots is very good. The focus and exposure seem to be spot on. The biggest problem I have with much of your work is the composition. There’s nothing wrong with it in terms of simply conveying visual information, but aesthetically, your composition choices leave your photos less compelling than they might otherwise be-- the composition generally lacks any meaningful tension or “interplay”.
The lack of interesting “interplay” (a term I just thought up) touches on another area that could be stronger: subject choice. In this case I’m not referring to “choosing mountains” or “choosing sunsets”, etc., I refer to something that’s somewhere in between “subject” (what you choose to shoot) and “composition” (how you decide to place the elements of your subject in your frame).
“Interplay” could be how the positive space in your photo interacts with the negative space and how that interaction adds dynamism to the shot. Or it could be choosing to juxtapose different elements in your shot to convey action/reaction and “tension”. An example of this could be including a foreground element in a landscape shot. In an ocean sunset photo, for example, including a boat on the water, or a lifeguard chair silhouetted on the beach.
Of course a boat or a lifeguard chair doesn’t “react” to the sunset’s “action” in the way one would normally think of human interaction. But, if the image is well-composed, there is a visual counter-point–a certain interplay introduced that is compelling to the eye and the brain and not entirely on the conscious level.
I did really like the photo called “Amish Paradise”. An interesting shot with a pleasing mixture of several different elements, and decent composition. The photo just to the left, “Headlands Beach Silhouettes”, has even better composition, and the one swimmer with her hands in the air makes an excellent counterpoint to the other subjects. The jet-ski in the deep background gives the image depth-context and the fact that both the “arms-raised swimmer” and the jet-ski are set-off and highlighted by the sunlit portion of the water gives the picture that extra something special. Your best photo by far, in my opinion.
Okay… I’ve just read all of my prattling and realized I’m getting into this more deeply than I intended. I apologize for any confusion or if I’ve come down too hard on you. I’m going to take a breather now.
To add briefly to the end of I Love Me, Vol I’s post. I sincerely hope that you took my post- and are taking all of the serious responses here- in a positive light. ( Pun intended ! )
Anyone passionate about an art form is excited to meet someone else passionate about that art form and to discuss their art with them. For my part, your work is inspiring and while there’s stuff to discuss and analyze and recommend, it is a body of carefully made art, not mindless snapshots. We get that, and it’s good to dig into work in a positive manner and see others doing the same.
This is the best of what the Dope can be. 
I actually think HDR has a potential as a technique, but it’s often badly done, and those are the ones that have become associated with HDR, so people think badly of it. I’ve dabbled in HDR but not much. The dynamic range of the K5 is such that you get an insane amount of shadow detail, 14 stops in total, so you can get HDR performance out of single images.
For example, this shot is exposed to preserve the detail in the sky, as per usual with strong backlight shots, the foreground is all in shadow. I actually went too conservative and underexposed even the sky. But lifting up the shadows in PP (right image), you can see an incredible amount of detail is preserved in the shadows. Only a very few cameras can do anything like that, otherwise you’d need a fill flash or a reflector. I actually haven’t taken any pictures using a flash except for some test shots - I’m going to see if I can go through life without using one. A fill flash could’ve been used in that picture, but lighting on the leaves would’ve been destroyed and IMO the shot would’ve noticibly had that unnatural flash look on the foreground. I much prefer what I actually did.
Or a better example, this shot wasn’t deliberately unexposed - I just screwed it up, but just to see what would happen I lifted the exposure in post. A black subject that was completely covered in shadow still retained fine enough detal to leave individual feathers clearly visible.
With results like that I haven’t really needed to play around with HDR. I’ve taken bracketed shots in tricky lighting situations that I never ended up running through photomatix because I was able to work with the middle exposure one.
BTW, I know I have too many pictures of Lake Erie in there. Those were all from where I grew up, and I miss it - so I photographed it entirely too much. Still, I like them - the sky textures and sunset are interesting.
… :: all a flutter ::
I’m sorry, the thought of bringing up a portrait 14 stops just gave me heart palpitations! 
And the thought of going through life without flash damn near put me into cardiac arrest!!!
Check out my people portfolio:
Everything on there was shot with flash in some way or other. Most were a single flash, off camera, either held by someone or on a lightstand. Very little time was spent on post in each of these images. The flash and the triggers only cost about $150.00. Learning off-camera flash was the biggest single thing I did to improve my photography in the last two years. I would really recommend that you at least take a look at the techniques: it never hurts to have another weapon up your sleeve. Light is light: and it doesn’t matter if its coming from the sun, a street light, or from a flash. Its about understanding what light is and how best to use it to enhance your photos.
I echo the comments of** I Love Me, Vol. I: ** put together a selection of ten to fifteen of your most recent images that you think are representative of your work and post that up for critique.
Alright, as far as putting up a specific list of images that I think represent good work.
Landscapes:
Desert Road - I like the scene alot, the winding road, the unusual rocks, and it was an unusual day for a desert sky giving great clouds and somewhat more diffuse lighting. On the other hand, the dirt across the road and the tire tracks are a distraction - I would prefer it were cleaner. I could take a stab at photoshopping that out I suppose, but I’m leery of changing images that much.
Low clouds over red rocks - I know, my names are creative. That one was actually tricky to PP because it’s a complex interplay between red/orange/yellow. It may be underexposed. I tend to take my landscape pictures darker than most people seem to like. Same great clouds as the previous image, taken on the same day.
Panorama from RMNP. There’s no particular part of this picture that’s striking, but I rather like it as a whole.
Lake Catamount Panorama - I like the angle of the lake and the way the water extends outwards on both sides. The yellow tree in the right foreground may be distracting rather than adding depth - maybe I should’ve walked 50 yards left to take that shot.
Foreboding waters - the water is so contrasted that it looks like I overdid it in PP, but the photo actually came quite like that out of the camera. I like the result. Interesting sky texture, the splashing just has just the right amount of blur that it isn’t droplets frozen nor too blurred. The wavebreakers add a little texture to the foreground.
585 - I never ended up giving this one a name, and I can’t think of one now. This was one of my first shots when my compact Canon, and it’s straight out of the camera with no PP, so one of my earliest works, but I still rather like the composition. I like the way there are several layers of depth, but the lines all converge towards the center of the image. I may create the shot with better lighting and my DSLR - one nice thing is that my compact geotags the pictures. I’m going to grab a GPS unit for my DSLR some day, just a bit pricey right now. Very handy for landscape shots.
People:
M & J - just uploaded today. I haven’t taken many shots of people but that’s probably my favorite of the bunch. The expressions are pretty natural (I hate fakey smiley photos), the background is pleasant, and they’re cute together. That was taken with my 50 year old 50mm.
Sparks - this was a picture taken with my compact canon or I’d have probably shortened the DOF, but I like the subject.
Wildlife:
Butterfly set -I rather like all the butterfly pictures I posted, but I can’t pick the best one, so I’ll just link the 5 picture set. The DOF on these shots is very narrow, so much so that often not all of the butterfly is in focus, but I think it adds to the somewhat dreamy effect along with the smooth backgrounds and vivid yellows and greens.
Seagull in flight - Seagulls aren’t the prettiest birds but this is one of my best technically good captures. I should’ve widened the DOF half a stop maybe, since the closer wingtip is out of focus.
Squirrel with nut - when I walked by this little guy I heard him yelling pretty loudly. He wasn’t moving, but making a lot of noise, and he looked like his claws were stuck in the tree. I was trying to figure out how I was going to mount a squirrel rescue 15 feet up in a tree, but it turns out he was just a spaz. Anyway, he’s looking at the camera and squirrels are cute, so there you have it.
Raven in flight. I actually don’t like most of this picture - the background is too busy and harsh. I wasn’t prepared to take this picture at all - I was taking landscape shots in the desert when he darted past me, so I had all the wrong settings. I didn’t have time to change much and just snapped up a picture as fast as I could. But the angle that I shot the bird from is somewhat unusual for bird in flight shots and it looks cool.
Misc:
Cow Crossing - wasn’t sure if I should make this landscape or people, so misc it is. This is one of the few pictures I’ve touched up with photoshop - there were some skid and paint marks on the road that were distracting. Legitimate cowboy, open plains, mountains in the background - it just oozes “the west” to me.
Ethereal Tentacled Creature - my favorite of the fireworks shots. Just by chance, the 3 fireworks together look like they form some sort of creature like out of The Abyss. The smoke at the bottom may be a bit distracting and may be a candidate for photoshopping. But not too bad.
Richardson demolishes Coleman - this shot has motion blur and is technically poor because of it, but the timing is awesome. Comes from this play, you can see the winged helmet flying off.
Amish Paradise (Tonight we’re gonna party like it’s 1699) - another compact camera image, it’s one of my few themed images. I tried to keep anything modern out of the composition (you can tell the buildings are modern but not so obviously so) and of course gave it a sepia tone.
Damn, I forgot to add the /lightbox part of a bunch of those links. You click the image to get it enlarged and against a black background, it’ll look better. By the way, if you happen to want to comment on any of the pictures themselves, flickr is a yahoo thing, so you can sign in with a yahoo id.
Some of your links are all messed up -
Sparks - same picture as M&J
Raven in Flight - same picture as M&J
Squirrel with a Nut - is actually Pipe (3696)
Ethereal Tentacled Creature - same picture as Cow Crossing
Amish Paradise - also Pipe (3696)
Weird, not sure how I did that. I’ll redo it and ask a mod to fix it.
I think your photography is GREAT. I know nothing about photography but I liked what I saw. Especially the fireworks pictures.
I don’t know anything about photography, either. But I really enjoyed these pictures.
Idle Hands was nice enough to go back and fix my links back in #32, if you want to take a look.
Anyway, I know, not being there and seeing the overall context it’s hard to say what you might’ve done instead for any particular picture, but specific criticisms or suggestions about how I took specific images would be welcome.
Great photos - as to the centering vs. rule of thirds comments, the best way to figure this out is with an 8 x 10 photo and some extra mat board. Move the mat pieces around, and see what you like, what’s more dramatic, what tells a story. For example, would your butterfly images be more powerful with more space in the direction they’re facing? Or if multiple flowers were included?
Play around, and participate in critiques…but ultimately, do what pleases you!
Not centerpunching leads to more interest. Literally. Our eye is pleased by ratios that are not 50/50 vertically and 50/50 horizontally.