Can I get a little C&C on these shots please

EJRPhotos · Nov 28, 2012

All camera no PS as of yet. i have to get pse all over again.

EJRPhotos · Nov 28, 2012

EJRPhotos · Nov 28, 2012

EJRPhotos · Nov 28, 2012

PhillipM · Nov 28, 2012

Well, I don't understand the shots. Lighting is just bad. Composition is questionable at best.

My advice. Start over, and think about what you're really trying to convey...

Regards,

EJRPhotos · Nov 28, 2012

it was just an quick shoot with a cheap flash by sunpack i had just purchased at wallmart. i have no good equiptment as of yet.

PhillipM · Nov 28, 2012

I have a friend in the Pacific Northwest, that has all the latest Canon Lens's, Bodies, and lighting you would ever need, yet, talking with him yesterday about a shot he took, based on one of mine, he didn't like it. I asked why. He couldn't tell me. We picked his image apart, and compared those pieces to mine, he then started to see, and understand why he didn't like his,

Funny sometimes how folks don't like an image they took, but can't explain it why they don't like it.

You don't have to have pro equipment to shoot something nice. Most newbies "think" that, but that's so far from the truth it's funny.

Learn to see light. Natural and Artificial. Learn to move light where you want it, and to remove/block it where you don't. Learn composition. Composition has nothing to do with the gear in your hands. Neither does lighting in my opinion.

Find an image you like, and reverse engineer it in your head to figure out how it was done. I've been shooting with a Canon 1D Mark ii for 13 years. It's not a state of the art Camera. Don't get caught up in the "gear" trap. Expensive Gear and Photoshop cannot save you.

Good Luck

EJRPhotos · Nov 28, 2012

i do understand. and i have been working on honing in my skills and it is important to get this kind of feedback from others so i have a better idea of what areas i need to work on. I have done very little portrate work and that is the one area that is critical to starting a business in photography..

thank you again.

SCraig · Nov 28, 2012

The cheapest, worst, little point-and-shoot camera made today is infinitely more advanced that anything Ansel Adams ever used during his career. It's more advanced than anything any of the shooters for Sports Illustrated or National Geographic had until about 20 years ago.

EJRPhotos · Nov 28, 2012

other than the lighting how are the pics?

EJRPhotos · Nov 28, 2012

i am a little more partial to the pictures due the the subject being family i think.

SCraig · Nov 28, 2012

EJRPhotos said:
other than the lighting how are the pics?

You can't really separate the lighting from everything else because the lighting is a critical component of every photograph. It appears that most everything is in focus. The exposure isn't that good in any of them (underexposed in a couple, and one with a very bright hotspot on the child's face). The one with the hotspot has a lot of unnecessary space around it that would have been gone had you used portrait orientation (there is a reason it's called "Portrait" orientation). The second shot has a very good expression on his face, but you cut the top of his head off.

Keep at it, you'll get there.

ManualMode · Nov 28, 2012

My only advice is to read, read, read and look at a lot of photos... start by finding things you want to emulate and then do your best to make it your own. These shots have very little merit, aside from the fact that he's a cute bugger (but this isn't a cute kids forum

)

amolitor · Nov 28, 2012

Two of them are quite dimly lit, and appear "muddy" on account of that. The one with the kid in a sea of blackness, brightly but only partially lit, has some potential.

He looks sort of gloomy in all of them, but not very strongly. These images don't evoke much feeling from me, overall.

EJRPhotos · Nov 28, 2012

He had just gotten out of a temper tantrum and I took the opportunity to get his expressions. I was going with landscape because it's a shoe flash and the way the light was from the side on the same shot seemed off. The other downside is that I have to use my digital lens and presets on the camera with that flash so I am also at the mercy of the camera on that note.

I have also posted another one of my portrayed shots on another thread I will get the link its with the ocean as a background on the beach during sunset. It was our last night in San Diego before we moved to va.