New Orleans, French Quarter C&C please.

[shrutebucks]

i really like angled shots sometimes...i think you pulled it off nicely with these pics. love 4, 5 and 6!

 

[Geaux]

The first thing I noticed was that none of these photo indicated that you were in New Orleans to me. I am not familiar with the area, so while this building may be well known, I would have no clue where it was without your saying so.

I can appreciate the attempts at making the subject more interesting with your compositions.

I think a great exercise for you would be to spend an entire weeks worth of shooting, focusing on filling your frame (viewfinder) with your subject. For example, if your subject was the dude on the horse, you'd at a minimum have him hat to hoof, tail to hoof, in the shot.

If you're not familiar with the area, what shot would I have taken to portray New Orleans to you? The church I shot is in the heart of the French Quarter and a google image search for 'New Orleans' yields one picture of that church on the first page lol. I'm not trying to be a jerk btw, just asking.

I appreciate your exercise suggestion and I wish I had the time to do a weeks worth of shooting like that lol, but I just don't have it. A question though ... Since I've been on this site, all I see is "use rule of thirds" or "this picture isn't worth b/c it doesn't follow the rule of thirds", so what am I learning from filling the viewfinder with the subject? Thanks again and can't wait to hear what else you have to add.

 

[Geaux]

One shameless bump for a little more critique before this falls into the oblivion of the forgotten on TPF

 

[Dominantly]

Well, as bad as it may sound, I would probably only really recognize popular scenes on Bourbon St. The second floor balconies, the restaurants, the architecture, Jazz bands, etc.

The week suggestion wasn't meant to be literally one week of straight shooting, more so just spending a bit of time focusing on the exercise.
To help explain I am going to quote Bryan Peterson from his book Understanding Photography Field Guide (page 204).
"Getting the right balance and arrangements of picture elements sounds easy enough, yet ineffective composition prevails, and the number one reason why is that photographers are constantly "blowing things out of proportion." Your brain constantly does this, seducing you into thinking that everything looks good when you look through the viewfinder. Your brain has this uncanny ability to make very selective "image magnification," deliberately eliminating the clutter above, below, to the left of, and to the right of your subject. This quick read enables you to identify what you're looking at, in effect making you believe that there really is only that "moose" in what is actually a very cluttered landscape.

As for the rule of thirds, it's just important to know when to use it and when you shouldn't worry about it. Once you have a grasp of the rules, it's perfectly acceptable to bend and break them. Most people who scream about the rule of thirds and the ones who know nothing else.

 

[Geaux]

This is just for you It's nothing special, but it 'screams' New Orleans from the way you described it lol. (BUT it's angled lol)

Thanks for the suggestions though, I'll definitely work on it

 

[Dominantly]

Yup, that screams New Orleans to me!

 

[er111a]

#2 the logo looks fake

 

[Geaux]

^ trust me, it was really there.

 

[ShootHoops]

Next time, I'd like to see pictures of the characters that always hang out in the quarters. Jackson Square has been photographed way too much.

The fence is pretty distracting on #5 but I like it anyway.