A Day at the Beach I

[FanBoy]

What's good and what's bad?

1.
View attachment 19259

I can tell you that the young lady holding the camera on the beach without the strap around her neck can be very bad!

Seriously, you seem to be interested in people/action photography. Great and interesting area of photography. Do as others have suggested--read about that kind of photography and take some shots.

 

[jhodges10]

They're mostly pretty dull. Partly it's the subjects and compositions, just not very interesting -- we don't know these people or this dog, and they're not doing much interesting to us, and you haven't done anything to MAKE them interesting, you just shoved them in the center of a rectangle. If you look at them carefully they're graphically dull as well, not much bright colors, bright tones, dark shadows, that kind of thing.

The guy cooking the corn is kind of awesome, though. He's doing something interesting and a little mysterious to us. The fact that your dumped him more or less in the middle of the frame matters less, because he's doing something interesting, AND there's visual drama there with the bright flame, the bright corn, the dark shadows and charred corn husks and so on. The later one you posted with the silhouette and the sparks flying is another good idea. I don't think either one is great, but you've got more elements working for you in those than you do in the other photos.

I mostly agree with amolitor's take here except that I think if you had applied the rule of thirds to the corn roaster and framed him to the left it would look a lot better.

 

[syamantak]

ok guys,everyone's point taken. Thanks.

 

[Fred Berg]

Don't worry too much about the rule of thirds; if you find yourself looking at your photos and wondering why they seem a bit static, you can think about compositional conventions a bit more, but you seem to have a fairly good feel for things already.

My thoughts about what might be done differently:

The children playing in the waves could do with a little more contrast.

The dog lying on the sand could be cleaned up a little (there are some fibres at the top) and maybe you could remove the two figures to the left in the background, leaving only the darker solitary figure.

The man with the maize might be more effective if we could see his face (the photo in your original post, not the later silhouette).

Don't be put off by the tone of some of the comments you've received.

 

[syamantak]

Don't worry too much about the rule of thirds; if you find yourself looking at your photos and wondering why they seem a bit static, you can think about compositional conventions a bit more, but you seem to have a fairly good feel for things already.

My thoughts about what might be done differently:

The children playing in the waves could do with a little more contrast.

The dog lying on the sand could be cleaned up a little (there are some fibres at the top) and maybe you could remove the two figures to the left in the background, leaving only the darker solitary figure.

The man with the maize might be more effective if we could see his face (the photo in your original post, not the later silhouette).

Don't be put off by the tone of some of the comments you've received.

Thanks! Will keep those points in mind, even the last line !