Critique?

[MyaLover]

Chill out, its one post, one forum, on the internet. Surely you have more important things to occupy you time, concerns, and frustrations with?

When you are on a forum,and ask for a critique, you will get it, from all sorts of different personalities. How can you take it personal when all it is, is you sitting in front of your computer screen, another person sitting in front of a computer screen, typing? Not everyone is going to looooove every photo you take, agree with every comment you make, its life. You stated your opinion, he (or she) stated theirs. Just as you have every right to yours, he (or she) has every right to theirs. Dont get so offended. Some of my best C&Cs come from harsh, terrible comments. It makes me learn, they stick in my brain, and I GET BETTER.

Remember you are on the internet where people feel they can hide behind their computer screens. Internet personalities, i find, differ greatly from real life personalities. And just as you didnt appreciate them "implying you were stupid", Im sure they didnt appreciate you implying they "dont work with the public" or have many clients.

**ALPHA** Thank you for having the bal*s to put something out there that may put you in hot water. Whether you are hiding behind your computer screen or not, your comment on this post was a brutally honest opinion, and for what its worth, I agreed with it.

 

[Senor Hound]

Chill out, its one post, one forum, on the internet. Surely you have more important things to occupy you time, concerns, and frustrations with?

When you are on a forum,and ask for a critique, you will get it, from all sorts of different personalities. How can you take it personal when all it is, is you sitting in front of your computer screen, another person sitting in front of a computer screen, typing? Not everyone is going to looooove every photo you take, agree with every comment you make, its life. You stated your opinion, he (or she) stated theirs. Just as you have every right to yours, he (or she) has every right to theirs. Dont get so offended. Some of my best C&Cs come from harsh, terrible comments. It makes me learn, they stick in my brain, and I GET BETTER.

Remember you are on the internet where people feel they can hide behind their computer screens. Internet personalities, i find, differ greatly from real life personalities. And just as you didnt appreciate them "implying you were stupid", Im sure they didnt appreciate you implying they "dont work with the public" or have many clients.

**ALPHA** Thank you for having the bal*s to put something out there that may put you in hot water. Whether you are hiding behind your computer screen or not, your comment on this post was a brutally honest opinion, and for what its worth, I agreed with it.

For the record, the only reason it bothered me is because he was INTENTIONALLY being rude and his post served no purpose other than to be critical in a non-constructive way. His post towards me served NO purpose whatsoever, other than to be rude and assert his feeling of, "I know more than you do," It would be different if I asked for his opinion, but I didn't (nor would I). Even if my critique didn't serve a purpose to him, its not his place to say so, its the OPs. And if the OP said that, I would not be upset.

Perhaps we should all shut up and critique the photo.

BTW, nothing Alpha said was ballsy other than how he said it. It was simple criticism, but with the tone in his words it seems all daring and on-edge. Its the Simon Cowell syndrome.

 

[MyaLover]

You put a comment on an internet board, when you do that, same with a photo, be prepared for someone to counter it or disagree, thats all Im saying.

Although you do have a valid point...

Onto the photo....

The first 2 dont seem very sharp to me. And it might be a personal taste of mine, so feel free to disagree, but when I incorporate smoking into my photos, I try not to have them look "trashy". I feel these do. Like stills taken from some angry teenage movie about rebellious teens who steel their abusive moms Virginia slims and wander around the woods talking about how much they are "misunderstood", if you were going for that they are right on.

As for the second one, Im all about the contrast between the some pretty flowers and the skulls on her skirt and the general darkness about her. I like that. I like the one where shes blowing the dandelion, we have established its cliche, but it shows a softer side to her. the first one seems awkward to me, her facial expression and the way shes holding it are weird, maybe its just me. But the 4th photo is cute. How does she like these??

 

[Alpha]

in reality I don't want to know how to make this exact shot better, I want to know how to make other similar shots (portraits, landscapes) better in the future.

Herein lies your problem. How do you intend to advise if you can't even identify what you're supposed to be advising on? I'd rather not have any such pretensions.

 

[dslrchat]

Herein lies your problem. How do you intend to advise if you can't even identify what you're supposed to be advising on? I'd rather not have any such pretensions.

So unless we are Perfect, or Pros, we should not comment?
I comment (advise) on some photos, what I FEEL would make it better.
I may be completely wrong, but that is what the forum is for, the next poster may correct me or even support my comment if I was correct.

I like to comment and critique others and then follow the thread to see if I was close or not.
This help me learn and contribute.
JMHO

 

[Alpha]

So unless we are Perfect, or Pros, we should not comment?

Of course you should.

I comment (advise) on some photos, what I FEEL would make it better.
I may be completely wrong, but that is what the forum is for, the next poster may correct me or even support my comment if I was correct.

I like to comment and critique others and then follow the thread to see if I was close or not.
This help me learn and contribute.
JMHO

Which is good. Rarely are things so cut and dry, right and wrong, close or far away. You have only to identify such areas of change or improvement.

 

[kundalini]

There are many different ways to capture someone smoking that will evoke an emotional response from the viewer. I feel you missed the mark on these two. These are not great by any stretch of the imagination but here and here are a couple of examples.

*... now, where did I put those rose colored glasses this time?...*

 

[Alpha]

I understand you're a professional and all,

Who told you that? I appreciate the compliment but I'm no pro. Check my bio in the mentors thread.

 

[manaheim]

Alpha can be a little hard-edged but he has some astounding advice. My advice to anyone is not to get offended by him. Talented people can often be a bit edgy.

'course watch Alpha blast me for this now. lol

Peace, man!

On the photos...

I find that anything related to smoking in pictures has a tendency to make people look dirty and ugly. I think this is so in these pictures, and I think that your choice in muting the colors (if it was a choice) amplifies this. If this is what you were going for, then rock on, if it wasn't...

I also agree with what Alpha said earlier, so I won't rehash it other than to say +1.

 

[DRoberts]

I can't believe you turned this post into an argument. Totally disrespects the OP.
I like the shots and the model.
I agree with Alpha on the PP comments though. That is one thing as a noob I have learned. Minimze the PP to touching up, rather than trying to create something that the shot just didn't capture.

 

[neverenderr]

Okay, as I have been away from my computer the past few days, let me try and get to all this at once, ha.

First let me say, the little argument type thing that went down, I didn't exactly appreciate, because it took people's focus away from critiquing me [as selfish as that may sound, ha]. Which I guess is fine, they all got back to it and I'm new here so I'm not really sure how things work around here, so its whatever.

Someone asked how the model liked these, and she really likes them, she's by no means a professional model [we've determined that there's no way I could work with a professional considering the quality of my work haha], but she really likes what's been done.

A lot of people think the smoke pictures look trashy, and that wasn't my intent on these, so I guess I kinda screwed that one up, ha. I honestly didn't do too much PP on the smoke ones, because of the time of day it was and the fact that I didn't use a flash, they turned out pretty dark anyway. So I guess my best choice would have been to leave them as is or maybe even lighten them. Or maybe they were just bad to begin with? Ha.

As for the last two, I still like those. She does look slightly stiff in the first one, but that was at the very beginning and she WAS trying to pose for me - the second was after I told her that she really didn't need to do that. I like the second one.

And I understand that both of the concepts are really cliche, I knew they were while I was shooting them, but seeing as I'm new to this, and I'm still learning, I figured why not. I'm trying REALLY hard to get this whole technical aspect down and one of my methods I've found that works pretty well is imitation. You see something, you try and imitate it with a little bit of your own style. Maybe that's not a good idea? I don't know.

At any rate, I do appreciate all the comments and critique I've gotten on these, thank you all, this is really what I need to go further :]

 

[TrickyRic]

You should take a little more care with the image borders. The composition of the bottom 2 would be great if it wasn't for the chopped off fingers and arm.

I also quite like the dull look of the top right image, it creates a sense of disgust similar to that used in the quit smoking adverts. The first shot is too generic for my liking though.

Your background alignments could be a little better too, to be honest.

 

[neverenderr]

You should take a little more care with the image borders. The composition of the bottom 2 would be great if it wasn't for the chopped off fingers and arm.

I also quite like the dull look of the top right image, it creates a sense of disgust similar to that used in the quit smoking adverts. The first shot is too generic for my liking though.

Your background alignments could be a little better too, to be honest.

Framing is something I'm pretty bad at, thats something I'll readily admit.
I'm trying though :]