Advice on some pictures?

[matt.garnett]

I'm new here and I just wanted to see what some other people thought of my photos...

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6 (this one is a little noisy...)

 

[BlackSheep]

I find the first one and the last ones interesting. Especially the last one, it's neat!

But, I think that you've posted too many photos, with too many different subjects for people to give you much constructive feedback, though. You might want to pick a few that have similar themes/subject matter, and then ask for specific C&C (i.e. on exposure, composition,...whatever you want to work on).

 

[WesternGuy]

I am sorry, but these do very little for me - they just seem to be basic, fairly good, snapshots, #1 may be the exception.

Cheers,

WesternGuy

 

[matt.garnett]

Thanks for the feedback!
WesternGuy: How would you propose I try to compose these photos to make them better than just a "snapshot"? Better angles? Better placement of subjects?
Blacksheep: I agree, none of them are closely related, but I was just trying to post a few pictures to see what others thought of them in basic terms. I'll try to get more related pictures next time though!

Cheers

 

[bazooka]

#1 Almost half the image is black and the only part of the image that's interesting is where the guy is about to get stiff-armed. Fill the frame with the action! We know it's a football game and we've seen it all before, so there isn't any reason to show the other players and the stadium when you have this awsome action that's happening in a very small part of the frame.

#2 Kind of humorous and it shows you are seeing. But I think it's too busy. You have a good white balance for everything behind the counter but in front of the counter is strong tungsten. This is mixed lighting that you can't do anything about while shooting. In post, you can convert to black and white but then you lose the strong red in the cape which adds weight to the kid, which is the subject, so it's a good thing. You can take out some saturation on the yellow channel, or white balance for the tungsten and let the background go blue.

Or, as much as it pains me to say it, try selectively coloring the cape and desat the rest (not necassarily completely).

Her dress is really hurting this image, strong color, lines, shapes, very busy, very distracting. Again, nothing you could have done unless you perhaps waited for her to walk out of frame and then you would have a slightly different story which may or may not have worked better.

It's also tilted without purpose.

#3 A teen humping a chair. Bad white balance and the light direction is creating racoon eyes. The tilt adds to the chaos of seeing what I'm seeing so it kinda fits.

#4 Good job isolating the subject with a shallow DoF, but the image is underexposed, particularly their faces. The pants are almost at correct exposure. Some post work can help this if you have the RAW file. You chopped the feet off at the ankles. If you're going to have the ankles, you might as well include the feet.

#5 I think this would have worked if you would have included the guys entire head and not chopped it, and gone in tighter overall. No need to see the black sky at the top, seeing bench at the bottom would be more appropriate in my opinion. Also consider converting to black and white because there are a lot of colors here that don't necessarily contribute to the feeling you are trying to communicate.

#6 Simple, clean, effective. Lose the writing on the shirt. I would also remove some head room. Otherwise, cool shot, and it shows again that you are seeing.

 

[matt.garnett]

Bazooka: thanks for all the advice, it's very much appreciated. Everything makes sense! I'm excited to try some of this out to out tonight at my high schools football game!!

 

[bazooka]

My pleasure, I look foward to seeing your progress. If you want me to C&C your follow up, feel free to PM me with a link. Posts tend to fall off the 'most recent' page pretty quick.

 

[matt.garnett]

I agree, it's a pretty active forum here. But I will do that, thank you!

 

[WesternGuy]

Thanks for the feedback!
WesternGuy: How would you propose I try to compose these photos to make them better than just a "snapshot"? Better angles? Better placement of subjects?
....
Cheers

Bazooka has given you his comments and ideas on how to potentially improve some of these (all of which I agree with), so I won't repeat a lot of what he has said. A lot of "making better pictures" is related to composition - do you want to take pictures or make pictures(?). There are two aspects of "composition', there are the Elements, which are all the components or parts of the image, and there are Principles, which some call "rules", although I don't like the term "rules" myself, which describe aspects of how to arrange the "elements" in the image. For me, a lot of this is about awareness; being aware of what/who I am shooting, being aware of the elements that make up the image that I am trying to capture, and being aware of the elements in the image and their placement, not only of themselves (e.g., rule of thirds) but also relative to each other - one I just came across was something the author called "The 4Cs" - meaning the four corners of your picture as you see it in the viewfinder of what ever - the point he was trying to make was to check the "four corners" of your image before you push the shutter to check that there isn't some extraneous thing(s) in the corners that would detract from your image.

For example, take image #3, what is the story you are trying to tell here - surely not something about "a kid humping a chair". What is it about the "kid" and the "chair" and what ever he is trying to do with it, or to it, that made you take the picture? Only you can answer that question and if you can't, then why take the picture at all...you get the idea...

You might do well to read up on composition - there are thousands of pages on the web that cover some aspect of composition, as well, there are dozens and dozens of books on the subject, some of them very general, some of them discussing composition in some area of photography, e.g., landscape, portrait, etc. I would suggest you have a look at Bryan Peterson's book "Learning to see Creatively" and Freeman Patterson's book "Photography and the Art of Seeing". For a website or two, check out Photography Composition Articles Library and a series of web pages by Ron Bigelow - Advanced Composition -- Part I. There are three web articles all together, with the link to the next one at the bottom of the first, etc. As I said there is a lot more stuff our there on composition and "principles" - check it out.

Remember though, that there are also the technical composition aspects to any image as well as the "artistic" composition - focus, lighting, exposure, etc.

Hope this helps a bit...

Cheers,

WesternGuy

 

[gsm275]

#1 Nice capture of action, but you are trying to capture a bit too much in this shot which kinda distracts away from the story of the conflict going on. I would have loved to see this show with a close up of the quarterback and some of the action going on in the background in a nice dof.

#2 I like the atmosphere and there's a hint at charm, but missing the faces disconnects you to the people and the charm is lost (especialy with you not being able to see the childs head at all)

#3 Again hints at a charming photo but the crooked composition distracts and there's a touch of motion blur in this that degrades it a bit. Needs a bit of post work to fix some of the exposure and highlighting.

#4 Too much environment going on here that doesn't offer much and the crop where the feet are amputated is a bit distracting. A bit dark too.

#5 Great concept here! Would have done a little less depth of field so you can get a bit more in the background and wish the head wasn't chopped where it is. Might as well get the entire head in there although i do like him looking away.

#6 Best of the batch. Very cool concept, i think i'd lose a bit of the empty space though and maybe crop it in just a little closer so that his eye falls around that "rule of thirds" sweet spot.