My 1st C&C

[jsull86]

EXIF:
ISO 200
17mm
F/5
1/250

Walking down the road and the card in the spokes caught my eye.

 

[AxelMoney]

Learn the rule of thirds. google it. NEVER have your subject in the middle of a photo.

 

[bazooka]

Learn the rule of thirds. google it. NEVER have your subject in the middle of a photo.

Riiiiiight. :???:

This would be a really boring shot but the sign creates a story. That's good. The background is distracting though, and I feel like there is too much blank space to the right.... the trash can and bike, both important elements in the shot are really throwing it out of balance. I would have shot this in portrait so you could get the entire bike in and cut out unnecassary stuff. It looks like you shot at max aperture. The only other thing I'd recommend to lose the background is to use a longer focal length... you were using 17mm. The perspective between the bike and trash can would change, but I think it'd be worth it. Also, the shot looks really blue to me. I'd warm it up.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

NEVER????? OMG!

 

[jsull86]

Thank you all for the input. I'll do my best to keep everything in mind.

I used cs4 to warm up the image and I noticed the difference it made.

I Just started using PS 3 days ago so I have no clue as to what I am doing, so if anyone knows any good beginners tutorial that would be awesome.

 

[DScience]

Learn the rule of thirds. google it. NEVER have your subject in the middle of a photo.

WRONG!

 

[jsull86]

Learn the rule of thirds. google it. NEVER have your subject in the middle of a photo.

WRONG!

you know... I'm under the impression that DScience *may* think the advice that AxelMoney gave you was inaccurate....

Rules are meant to be broken every now & then. In my case AxelMoney seems to be right , But Ottor made his own rules and it worked beautifully. http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...rum-photo-gallery/199093-new-rule-center.html

 

[sojourn]

WRONG!

you know... I'm under the impression that DScience *may* think the advice that AxelMoney gave you was inaccurate....

Rules are meant to be broken every now & then. In my case AxelMoney seems to be right , But Ottor made his own rules and it worked beautifully. http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...rum-photo-gallery/199093-new-rule-center.html

Yep, I tend to agree...while ROT works well in most cases, some images just need to be centered!

 

[bigtwinky]

Learn the said rule of thirds and understand what it means, dont just apply it. Once you understand it, you will know when you place an image in the center and when not to.

Careful about cutting off key items in the image... I dont like how the bottom of the tires are cut and how the edge of the trash bin is also cut. Either zoom in more or keep more of your main subject in the frame.

 

[burstintoflame81]

I used cs4 to warm up the image and I noticed the difference it made.

Does anyone else get mildly irritated when people toss around terms like "Warm up" ? It drives me nuts. Its the same thing in music recording. "Will this vocal preamp give my voice a nice warm tube tone" ?


Anyway, I agree with everyone. Learn the rule of thirds. You don't have to ALWAYS use it, but more times than not you should. Also, the background is very distracting. Either use a wider aperture to try and blur the background, change the background, or move your subject further from the background and your camera closer to the subject to increase that blur.

 

[Jeremy Z]

I think burstintoflame said it best so far.

For this image, I'm not sure the rule of thirds would have helped much. This, to me, is more of a portrait.

The in-focus background is distracting to me. Use a larger aperture next time to blur it. IT adds nothing to the photo.

The photo would have been better if it were vertical, IMO.

Maybe not an award-winner in any case, but who knows?

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

Learn the rule of thirds. You don't have to ALWAYS use it, but more times than not you should.

You also have to learn why and when centering works. Just like learning how to work with square crops. Not nit picking you, bursty. I just see that phrase (learn it before you can break it) thrown around too often, which sounds like a disregard to the "rules" of centering.

 

[Gaerek]

Just to add something to this discussion. I made a blog post about this very subject several months ago...might be worth a read.

Rich's Photo Blog: There are no rules in Photography!

 

[jsull86]

I used cs4 to warm up the image and I noticed the difference it made.

Does anyone else get mildly irritated when people toss around terms like "Warm up" ? It drives me nuts. Its the same thing in music recording. "Will this vocal preamp give my voice a nice warm tube tone" ?

I can understand how that would be irritating haha.

Thanks to everyone for the criticisms, I learned a lot just from this thread!

 

[BRIANxJDM]

The picture looks interesting.