For some reason I love narrow DOF (depth of field) photography… so I like this one. As a photography newbie with zero training (I am just an enthusiast) I have no idea what it’s other merits or criticisms are so please criticise to your heart’s content.
There are much better watefalls than this one in the Isle of Man’s many beautiful glens. This was taken in one of only two glens within reasonable walking distance of where I live. It was taken with the camera resting on a fence… with the shutter open for ten seconds (or was it five? I can’t remember) in Shutter priority.
Macro experimentation. Not groundbreaking, but I like the bits that turned out sharp and in focus.
A reversed picture of some random flower. Out of focus.
A crop of the very first picture I took (of some wind-chimes resting on my desk)
Nice content; pretty good observation and composition; need to work a bit on the technical side; the sweet wrapper is great - I would have preferred the whole wrapper to be in sharp focus (but not the planks upon which it rests.
Try the ladder shot again, with narrow depth of field again, but focus on a the second rung down.
The flower I would have shot in portrait and cropped closer (although I’d still have kept the stem off-centre). BTW Did you know gorse(furze) flowers smell of coconut?
Wind chimes. I like it; nice observation of pattern. A very promising start, I would say.
I’m a big fan of extreme ranges. Some work is very shallow DOF, other is deep-focus with all apparently sharp. ( Not all grain-sharp, but apparent to the eye ).
If you were to go back and re-visit the shot set-ups, as it sounds like you can here, you might think about how you approach each shot. Many are “stacked elements” like the rungs. I like Mangetout’s ideas a lot, very thoughtful stuff. In addition to his comments, perhaps you can approach the elements from different angles. This might allow you to separate even more distinctly the main focus element from the fore- and back-ground elements.
With the candy wrapper, I wish the red patterning in foreground were better lit. You might explore the use of very small bounce cards when shooting this stuff. An 8x10 piece of white foam core, with aluminum foil taped over the back side of it. Some close up work benefits greatly from either white reflected light from your natural source, other images benefit from a harder shinier reflected light. ( hence the tin foil use sometimes ).
I thought composition wise that the water picture had a very distractong top area, with the stones taking away balance from the lower part of the picture. Nice job with the exposure.
I very much like the ladder shot, particularly the indeterminate background which adds some air of mystery.
The waterfall shot is a cracker, especially the boiling water effect in the foreground. Like cactus waltz I initially thought the background was distracting but at less than full screen the “horizon” is well placed. Maybe a sunnier day (with some above the fall) could be interesting.
I really like the windchimes but in large part due to something my nephew showed me. He is a professional photographer and has galleries of hundreds of shots of textures and colours and shapes that he photoshops into other photos. He would like that one.
The other two just seemed very point and click but I 'd happily steal the rest from you.
I’m not sure whether to mention this (it may be now a despised and worn-out cliché), but do you know about the rule of thirds?
It works like this: In your imagination, divide the frame up into nine equal-sized rectangles (three columns by three rows, hence thirds) - when you’re composing a shot, rather than placing the horizon in the middle, place it roughly at the top or bottom third; if it’s a sunset you’re shooting, have the horizon at the top or bottom third and the sun at the right or left third (rather than in the middle); if there’s a lamp post in silhouette against your sunset, zoom (or use ‘leg zooming’) so that it stands up along the opposite vertical third line from the one the sun is on. Maybe even crop the picture so that the illuminated part of the lamp post is on an intersection of a vertical and horizontal third line and so on.
It’s not an absolute rule; sometimes, smack-in-the-centre symmetry is beautiful; other times, other composition works better, but it’s worth playing around with and can even be useful in photographing people (where the most common mistake is to place their head in the centre of the frame, cutting them off at the knees, but leaving acres of blank sky above them).
I do know about the rule of thirds. I have many shots taken with it in mind… Most not really worth uploading. Hopefully with the new camera I can get some worth uploading.
If I remember, I’ll shoot the ladders again with the other rung in focus. Thanks for the critiques everyone.
Don’t underestimate the value of ‘leg zooming’ though (i.e. altering the composition by walking to a different spot) - I suppose it should be called dollying or something, but I’m going to continue calling it ‘leg zooming’, with quotes.
The effect is not the same as optical zooming (where everything in the frame just gets bigger), so it’s worth experimenting with; for example, physically moving the camera closer to the top rung of that ladder will make the top rung look a lot bigger than the bottom one; moving the camera far away and compensating with optical zoom will make all of the rungs appear roughly the same size.
Some times, you need to break the Rule of Thirds. You have a great eye for pattern and colour, but you tend to stay safe in your composition. Since you’re using digital, experiment. Try quarter frame framing, top leaning comps (esp for ultra close ups), and total frame filling comps where you leave us wondering what is just outside the frame.
You have a great talent. I always enjoy viewing your photos. But, break out a bit. Don’t stay so tame. O’Keefe things every now and then. And, Henri things up a bit, too (WHERE ARE THE PEOPLE?).*
The ladder shot is marvy fab. Just beautiful. Shoot it again, still in narrow focus, but with the absolute dead center rung in sharp focus, letting close and far blur.
Or, you could mollify NurseCarmen and some of the rest of us by draping a naked breast over the fourth rung. Really, whatever works for you is fine with us.
Perhaps this isn’t the right place, and perhaps I should open another thread, but I’m interested in photography as a hobby - but have zero experience with it. May I ask what sort of camera you use, Lobsang? Is it possible to achieve good results with a moderately-priced digital camera?
And does anyone know how to recondition rechargeable digital camera batteries to hold their charge for a decent amount of time?
