Why are my pictures no good - been reading up too!

[DwainDibley]

Thanks all! I think the first things I'm going to conecentrate on will by my composition, and expolore Photoshop and learn how to adjust levels, and brighten up etc. landscapes and the like. Then I'll work on different apetures and try to work on the brightness of my images

I do tend to have crises of confidence, I want to be instantly good at something and get frustrated when I'm not - but of course it doesn't work that way, you have to practice at something to get good, which I'm determined to do with my photography!

 

[ksmattfish]

Went out and took a few photographs today, and coupled with other recent ones my shots seem rubbish compared to many other peoples!

If it makes you feel any better this is how Ansel Adams started out too. He liked hiking in the wilderness, and took photos to share and remember the grand sights he'd seen. When the photos came back they weren't so hot, and definitely did not convey the grandeur he felt when actually at the location. He studied and practiced to take better photos that would impart to the viewer what he saw, and more importantly what he felt at the actual scene, and eventually ended up as one of the most well known photographers ever. Even if you aren't a fan of AA's work, I think his story can be at least a little inspirational for the new photographer enthusiast.

Keep shooting. Keep learning. Keep looking at photographs and art. Keep talking to photogs and artists. Keep thinking. Always keep thinking. When you look through the viewfinder ask yourself "Is this photo going to be any good? What could I do to make it better? What am I trying to do/say/accomplish by creating this photograph?"

I do tend to have crises of confidence, I want to be instantly good at something and get frustrated when I'm not - but of course it doesn't work that way, you have to practice at something to get good, which I'm determined to do with my photography!

Good attitude. Keep it front and center. Photography is not mastered by achieving certain things, or taking particular steps. It's a life long learning experience.

 

[The_Traveler]

On second thought.

A little bit of discipline that helped me was to cut down on my flexibility so I could concentrate on the technical issues.
I started taking pictures using a good sturdy tripod and a single focal length lens. That made me stop 'snapping'.

 

[sabbath999]

The other folks here have great ideas.

I know the approach that I take... you can judge for yourself by looking at my stuff if I do a very good job of it.

To me, it is all about the image. Nothing else really matters. The image is composed of light hitting a subject, and painting it. Everything that is NOT the subject is a distraction.

So, what I do is decide what the subject of the picture is. I (since I mostly do wildlife) arrange myself so that the light paints the subject nicely (whether natural, flash, whatever), and then I take a picture of the SUBJECT... minimizing everything else that is not important.

Now you might say "easier said that done," so I would advise you to start with simple subjects that have backgrounds that are easy to reduce. Pay attention to two things, framing your subject and lighting. If you can master these two things, you have figured out the secret of making great photographs.

I would start small, and work with that for a bit.

Personally, I think that the technical stuff (photoshoping and such) is totally overrated in importance. You don't need to be proficient in it to make great photographs. If it interests you or you enjoy it, then by all means have fun with it... but photoshoping will not turn bad photographs into great ones...

My two cents (or should I perhaps say pence) worth.

 

[DwainDibley]

It's encouraging to hear that a well-reknown photographer felt the same as me when he started! My camera goes everywhere (almost!) with me, so hopefully it'll be fairly easy to get it out when I have a spare 10 mins and have a little experiment with composition.

@traveler - a good idea - I might try going out one day with just my (well, technically my wife's!) tripod and my nifty fifty lens and see what I come up with!

 

[Iron Flatline]

Lots of good advice here, I will repeat some of it so that it drives the point home:

Take your time. Work a scene or a shot. If you like shooting a street or people, find a spot, and wait. Someone interesting will walk into the shot.

The spot should consider composition - so sit somewhere from which you can shoot something with lighting you like, and a background that helps explain or isolate the subject.

Take only one lens. Get to know it.

Leave all that HDR stuff out for a while. Just do basic adjustments - crop, contrast, some color and brightness, that ought to be good enough.

Have fun.

 

[tempra]

The chief exec where I work is a bit of a madman, but his current advice - and I tend to agree with him - is that people are not born great, they become great with practice, deliberate repetitive practice.

Take a race driver, knows how the car works, knows how the corners are, but he'll practice both with the car and with the track. A corner is a corner, but a driver will practice until he finds the optimum braking point before it, the optimum line into it, the best apex point for it and where to hit the accelerator out of it and what sort of line that will leave him for the next corner.

He'll set the car up to get through the corners and down the straights as fast as he can, but he'll make small adjustments, try it, adjust, try etc until he's gone too far, then bring it back to what was good.

It's exactly the same for anything else - photography included, deliberate practice is what makes you great - and the beauty of digital is that it's cheap as chips to take a photo.

As has been said above, don't worry too much about photoshop, get as much right in camera as you can - it'll never be perfect, but it means that you are reducing the amount of PP that you need.

When you look through the viewfinder, don't just look dead centre - if you are Jim Bowen, then bullseye is for you, otherwise stay away from it (the prizes were always crap anyways) - look up, down, left and right and have a look at what you're taking and compose it.

I'm not good by any means, but like many, I'm practising

 

[DwainDibley]

The chief exec where I work is a bit of a madman, but his current advice - and I tend to agree with him - is that people are not born great, they become great with practice, deliberate repetitive practice.

Take a race driver, knows how the car works, knows how the corners are, but he'll practice both with the car and with the track. A corner is a corner, but a driver will practice until he finds the optimum braking point before it, the optimum line into it, the best apex point for it and where to hit the accelerator out of it and what sort of line that will leave him for the next corner.

He'll set the car up to get through the corners and down the straights as fast as he can, but he'll make small adjustments, try it, adjust, try etc until he's gone too far, then bring it back to what was good.

It's exactly the same for anything else - photography included, deliberate practice is what makes you great - and the beauty of digital is that it's cheap as chips to take a photo.

As has been said above, don't worry too much about photoshop, get as much right in camera as you can - it'll never be perfect, but it means that you are reducing the amount of PP that you need.

When you look through the viewfinder, don't just look dead centre - if you are Jim Bowen, then bullseye is for you, otherwise stay away from it (the prizes were always crap anyways) - look up, down, left and right and have a look at what you're taking and compose it.

I'm not good by any means, but like many, I'm practising

And Bully's special prize.... always a speedboat! :lmao:

Anyways, good advice - it would make a lot more sense to get things right with the camera first before playing around with Photoshop. Hopefully I'll have the chance to do a bit of experimenting tomorrow with composition, even if it's just with something simple like a pen or other household object!

@Iron - I'll leave the HDR stuff alone for now (probably wasn't doing it right anyway! ) and next day or afternoon I have spare I'll take a walk with that Canon nifty fifty and see what I can do

 

[DSLR noob]

Every time I post in the critique section I try to include that if someone feels neccesary I encourage them to be brutally honest ebcause I come back again addressing the harshest point best I can and fell like I am getting better. When I joined this site in February I had had may first camera for 2 months. ONly 2 months! It's still only been 7 months (5 months later) and my photos have improved significantly. When I see someone post phenominal work here I don't get disappointed, I ask myself what they did that I can learn from, so that one day I may be able to post somehting that deserves as much respect. Look on my profile for topics I started and try to find open critiques. then open my first thread and see my "2 month of experience" photos and compare. I know I'm not the best but I am learning and proud to admit it. Hang in there and you'll love the proud feeling you get when you look at that rear LCD or on the moniter and say to yourself "I got away with THIS shot.... in THIS lighting... with THESE COLORS!" Or maybe you'll look at it and say "hmmm the horizon DOES draw your eyes to the subject" etc. Point is you'll notice others advice turning into your own second nature. They say to learn the rules of photography, and know when to break them. Photography is subjective, not everyone likes the same stuff. Find what works for you and what moves your targeted audience the most. Good luck, the only way to get better is to snap away. I've already put maybe 3,000-5,000 (more or less I don't keep up exactly) shutter clicks on a camera with a relatively low shutter life. I may need to replace my camera body in a few years but the skills I receive by being fearless of my own expansion are worth it. Have fun, snap away, improve, and impress.

 

[spyder]

there are tons of photography rules such as the rule of thirds that are good to know and follow, but for me i find the most effective way to get good pictures is to give myself alot of pictures to choose from. on my east coast trip i took just shy of 600 pictures 100 of which kept. dont be afraid to take lots of pictures even of the same subject.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

Patience and experience has alot to do with photography.

 

[darich]

When you look through the viewfinder, don't just look dead centre - if you are Jim Bowen, then bullseye is for you, otherwise stay away from it (the prizes were always crap anyways)

I don't think everyone will know who Jim Bowen is!!!
If you crop a couple of images with the subject in the middle so they're off centre, it'll be a case of "let's have a look at what you could have won".

Main subject off centre often works better.

 

[Hertz van Rental]

I keep saying this but no-one ever listens. Which is strange because I know this works as a teaching/learning method.
The first step to taking better pictures is to know why you are taking the picture in the first place.
Think about what it is that makes you want to take the photograph.
This can be anything - colours, mood, light, memory... - just so long as you have some idea. It gives you something to work towards.
If you are taking a picture without purpose then you get rubbish (unless you take a huge amount in which case the law of averages should give you something useable every few hundred) because you have no idea what you are looking for. This is why when people go out with the vague hope of finding a picture opportunity it rarely happens.
If you know what you are looking for then you will recognise it when you see it.
This does mean that you often have to go out with a singleness of purpose. If you try taking too many pictures of lots of things in different ways on the same shoot then you often confuse yourself.
Plan ahead.
If you know of an event coming up that is of interest to you and might present some photo ops then get organised. Think a little about what sort of pictures you want to get out of it. Look at other photographer's work in a similar vein to get ideas. And then go there and try them out.
Being keyed up and prepared with some idea of what you want will give you a head start and you will find more opportunities.
But don't expect too much.
Be critical and expect your first attempts to not quite make the grade.
Learn from them. Select what works and what you like and keep that in mind. What doesn't work you will know not to try again.
Then re-shoot at the next opportunity.
You also need to post pictures here for encouragement and gentle criticism.
By thinking, persevering and putting in the hard work you will start to find your pictures will improve.

 

[ryyback]

Some of those could actually be quite nice with a little photoshop work.

I'm no expert, and I will get some of photo's up on fliker or photobucket soon, and I not only agree with the above statement, but I also would say to take alot of pictures of one 'subject', not just 1 or 2-. Keep shooting and it will come for sure, just like most things in life. I have 1800 pictures this year alone, while that may seem low to some, but to a 'noob', it's a start-

 

[DwainDibley]

Wow, so many tips and advice, I've got plenty to mull over now! :hail:

I don't think I'm taking enough pictures at the moment, though time can be a constraint. Haven't had chance to take any today, though will take my camera to work and might try taking a few on my break with my 50mm lens fitted and see what I come up with.

Going to post up some more pictures when I get the chance too and get more feedback on them