Lunch this weekend C&C Please

[realitycheck3907]

Hey guys shot these while at lunch at a japanese restaurant today. Let me know what you think.

1. A memorial outside the restaurant to the people fighting for our freedom.

2. Flag outside the place, nice and breezy today.

3. Some Japanese fire, hehe.

4. This one happened by accident but thought turned out pretty cool.

 

[manaheim]

I love it when they do that tower of onions thing.

Overall the shots aren't great, to be honest. Not trying to bash you, just being honest.

The memorial one lacks any real interest... some more interesting angles or different positioning in the frame might have been interesting... perhaps some close-ups or interesting lighting might have helped as well. Try to capture some of the emotion, if that's possible, etc. As it is, it's a centered capture of an object.

2. Flag pics are frequently dull and cliche, unfortunately. Too bad because they can be kinda neat in theory. Yours happens to have a large rather scraggly tree next to it that kind of takes over the picture. The sky is also unfortunate, not that you can exactly control that, but it's a big washed out cloudy sky. Sky with some level of drama would be better- either staggeringly blue or with funky colors or cloud patterns.

3. The fire is kinda neat, but not overly interesting otherwise. I do like onions! Maybe a different crop or interesting angle. It is what it is... fire!

 

[realitycheck3907]

Thanks manaheim for the info. Three didnt turn out the way I wanted it to. I think I needed a faster shutter speed to capture the flame better. Four was just something weird I thought.

I do have a question though for anyone that can help. When I walked up to the memorial there is an inscription that circles the whole thing explaining what it is. The badges on the top are u.s. army (logo) "thats not what its called I know". So what would be an interesting arrangement for shooting that memorial, from what you can see?

 

[tirediron]

The memorial would a difficult thing to photograph artistically. IF you could (and I doubt it's possible) I would bring in a ladder and set it up so that I could shoot straight down on the monument from above so that the crests on the top were in sharp focus and the ground was soft. Failing that, I would suggest shooting it from which ever aspect(s) offer the best backgrounds, and use a very shallow DoF to minimize distractions.

 

[realitycheck3907]

Hey guys do you like this one better of the memorial? I shot it the other day also but didnt like it as much until I went back and looked at it again. Tirediron, I wanted to add also the reason I didnt shoot from the top down was because it was covered in bird poop.

Memorial