Beginner looking for some advice :)

[bchevriaut]

Hey !

I am a beginner and i am looking for some advice about photos i took.
Composition, post production, it is hard for me to find my mistake by myself that is why I am requesting assistance

You can see a part of my work here bastien chevriaut’s albums | Flickr - Photo Sharing!.
Do not hesitate to share what you think about it.
Thank you !

 

[pjaye]

Post one or two pictures here. You won't get much critique on a link and multiple pictures.

 

[The_Traveler]

I looked at your albums and you are clearly at a specific point in the photographic path.
You can work the camera and get decently exposed pictures but you actually know little about what makes a picture good beyond some technical issues.

There is one rule and three corollaries that I go by.

The rule is always know exactly what you are taking a picture, what is important and what isn't.
The three corollaries are:

• Put important things in important places
• Maximize aspects of the photo that improve the imapct
• Minimize aspects of the photo that detract from the impact.

In most of your shots, you've pointed the camera and pressed the shuuter, seemingly without too much thought.
Look at the pictures of all the people, all in the center, losing all the relation of them to their environment.generally aware and interacting with you and very little with their environment.
In the animal pictures there is one that is a very good example of missing the point.

Most of the right side and much of the top is not contributing and the maonkeys, that should be important are darker than anything.



Framin it so that the monkeys are more prominent and much of the rest is cropped away makes the shot much better. You are hindered by the DOF, this would have been wonderful shot at f2.8, thus throwing the stature more OOF.

Decide what is important then frame, compose and edit around that.
Ditto the seal lion

The animal was dark and everuthing else was brighter.
Lots of empty space.

Crop so that the shapes of the rocks and the animal reinforce each other, lighten the animal, dark everything else.

The camera is working fine, now it is your turn to learn about composition and editing so that the picture on the screen matches the one in your head.

There are no shortcuts, just work and experience.

11 Tips for Beginning Photographers - How to Start Taking Pictures

 

[tirediron]

Post one or two pictures here. You won't get much critique on a link and multiple pictures.

This!

I did take the time to look through your albums and in addition to Lew's excellent tutorial, I will add this: There are two common issues running through almost all your images. Virtually every image in your 'People' album would have been improved had you shot it vertically ('Portrait' orientation) and most of your landscapes and animals have un-level horizons. Fixing those two issues and working on your framing & composition will bring about huge improvements in the quality of your work very quickly.

 

[Designer]

Post one or two pictures here. You won't get much critique on a link and multiple pictures.

I agree.

Please post one or two (I prefer only one per thread), state your objectives, and what you did to try to achieve them. If you post directly from your computer, the EXIF will remain attached, which is a big help to us in knowing what you did.

You can ask specific questions about a certain photograph, whether it is about the composition or exposure, or post0capture editing.

 

[bchevriaut]

Wow, thank you.
I wasn't expecting that help but it is great !
Finally, i was afraid about post processing (too much contrast, saturation ...) but it is more about composition.
I will follow your advice and try to think more before taking a photo.
Next time I will try to post only one or two picture, it will be easier

 

[Designer]

Finally, i was afraid about post processing (too much contrast, saturation ...) but it is more about composition.

I agree that overall success depends a great deal on adopting good composition principles. Do you have access to some books about composition? There are some helpful tips online as well.

Here are some sources that I would recommend:

Amazon.com: composition and art and photography: Books

 

[bchevriaut]

Since now, I was only looking on tips on the internet but I maybe need a book. I will check that

I worked on the monkey picture.
I cropped the photo, turned it, played with exposition and tried to blur the background. And finally, it looks really better.

I really understand now that I need to have a deeper reflexion before taking a photo . Well, that was really good advices, thank you all !

 

[Derrel]

I looked at all your photos. First off, the people gallery...lots of landscape oriented shots, when the camera really should have been turned to "portrait" orientation. Shooting shots of people in a landscape orientation can be dome successfully, but watch out for the way it tends to crop people off, and watch also leaving too much top space above the heads when shooting. A camera with a 3:2 aspect ratio is tricky for framing people. The tigers also...framed in landscape orientation, so the feet cropped off...not good.

Your landscapes, the largest collection at 25 images, looks VERY much the same; you need some lens focal length variety, desperately. Using the standard kit type zoom lens in the 18mm-28mm range leads to lots of landscapes that look boring. The short end of the 18-55 lens range makes the foreground large, and the mid- and far range areas SMALL, and uninteresting. You NEED some telephoto shots, and also some CLOSE-in landscape viewpoints. What your photos would benefit from is some skill in what used to be called lenswork.

Saturation is high, but not overly much. But your images would benefit a lot from some burning in and dodging of selective areas, and some corner vignettes or edge burn-ins to visually direct the eye; every image appears to have been processed "straight". Using the dodge and burn tools would be most helpful.

You need also to shoot photos in better, more interesting light; all these high noon type shots with blue skies grow tedious. Early AM, later PM, night-time, different weather conditions, more moody light, some side-lighting, some back-lighting, more variety in lighting "type" would be nice.

 

[bchevriaut]

Thank you for your time.

Yes, I definitely need to buy an other lens to try something else. I will follow what you said, I will try to take photos from different kind of light, it will be interesting.

Next days, I will manage to take portraits in 'portrait mode'. You and tirediron are right about that, I can see the mistake so I will try to improve in the next few days.