Colby (10 Pictures) C&C

[WardQ]

My friend came up from Niagara Falls this week, so she let me use her son as a guinea pig to practice on. Here are the results:

1. DSC_6997 by CWardQ, on Flickr

2. DSC_6986 by CWardQ, on Flickr

I wish I hadn't cut off his shoes in this one:

3. DSC_7000 by CWardQ, on Flickr

I'm not sure whether to go colour or B&W for this one:

4. a) DSC_7053 by CWardQ, on Flickr

4. b) DSC_7053(2) by CWardQ, on Flickr

 

[WardQ]

5. DSC_7077 by CWardQ, on Flickr

6. DSC_7093 by CWardQ, on Flickr

7. DSC_7104 by CWardQ, on Flickr

8. DSC_7105 by CWardQ, on Flickr

The first five were taken with my 55-200mm, the last three I was testing out my new 50mm f1.8. I find them a bit soft, but I'm not used to manual focusing just yet.

 

[TWright33]

Not that they are "bad" pictures, but these do not seem like something to do a C&C of.

 

[The_Traveler]

what do you think is good and what is bad?

 

[WardQ]

what do you think is good and what is bad?

I think I need to move around a lot more. #1 and #2 could have been better if I'd been at less of an angle. A few others I didn't include have that problem, too.

#3 I cut off his shoes.

#4 The orange sippy cup in the background is distracting. Maybe getting a different angle on this one could have saved it? Although there's a street with a lot of cars behind them, so I would need to be on the completely opposite side from where I took the picture. I also think I should probably crop the right side to get that tire out of the picture.

#5 looks a little crooked, upon re-examining it.

#6 I would like a larger DoF to include mom.

#7 and #8 are out of focus, and #8 looks a bit cool.

Am I on the right track?

 

[The_Traveler]

OK, If you are bruised to tears by actual straight talk without any grace notes this is the time to stop reading. I just don't have the time or energy to figure out how to say everything in the sweetest possible way so just accept that I mean this well and in hopes of helping you.


You are sabotaging yourself.

It is tough enough to get viewers to look at your work seriously when you have one or two decent pictures but when you put up ten with a wide variety of pictures with an almost infinite number of things that could be said, no one knows where to start and the responses would end up being either sketch outlines of comments or a book.
So you have to understand how to get your pictures looked at and responded to in a way that helps you the most.

1) Post one or two pictures, maybe three if they are related.
2) Put up only pictures that are as good as you can get them.
3) If there are deficiencies and you know how to correct them, don't post those pictures.
4) If you know there are shortcomings - and you want help with them, mention them. Give potential writers a place to start so they know they aren't wasting their time.

In general, the color and the framing needs improvement.
Specifically let's look at #6 and #4.

What is the interesting part of #6? It's surely not the mom with an indifferent expression; if you want to make a picture out of a snapshot, it's the interaction of the boy with the fountain.
Figure out what you want to take a picture of and frame and compose around that. Make important things big in the frame.

It's OOF but let's skip over that now. You know how to fix that.

Your comment about #4 was that you didn't know whether it was better in color or B&W.

I look at this and, for the life of me, I can't see what you are finding interesting about this shot.
The woman is in an unflattering position, the faces are unhappy and there is really not enough interesting or enjoyable to consider doing anything to it.

In order to progress you need actually to look at the images you take.
Try to be objective; discard ones that don't show what you want to show - and you must have an idea about why you keep and show any and every picture.

If you don't know why you took the picture, your viewers won't either.

 

[WardQ]

Sorry for the late reply. Haven't been on TPF much at all in the past while.

No tears here. I welcome the chance to learn. Thank you for the advice. I will be referring back to it often.

The more I look at #6, the more I realize I wasn't looking at the picture, but remembering the moment. I've deleted it from my computer. You're right, it's not a very good picture at all.