New to Photography, need critique.

[sm4him]

Okay, well, I missed all the apparent initial drama about a portfolio. So, moving on:

1. That's a very cool field, and I can see why it attracted your attention. But the composition is lacking any real compelling interest. Much of that, imo, is due to the fact that the horizon is smack in the middle of the picture, so in this photo that should probably be primarily about the two sides of the field, HALF of the image is filled with the sky, and because it's brighter than the field, it draws the eye more. Cut a lot of that sky out, make the image more about the two-toned field, and you'll be getting somewhere.

2. Again, I can see why you were attracted to this. And while it may "just" be a picture of a leaf, it's as good a place to start as any. In any image, the eye tends to be drawn to the lightest part of that image. So here--you've got an extremely bright, almost white (what we'd called "blown out", or very nearly so) spot on the leaf, and you've got the brightness of the fence and sky in the background. Both of those things draw the attention away from the color of the rest of the leaf against the green of the grass. I'd crop out MOST, if not all, of the fence and sky, leaving mostly grass and leaf. Then I'd work on exposure, so that you can shoot something like that without getting such a bright spot on the leaf. Shooting at a different time of day might have helped--or simply using something between the leaf and the light of the sun to shade it a bit and keep it more evenly lit.

3. I agree that this is the best photo in terms of the "idea" of it, but again, composition is lacking. It's not JUST that you cut off the left side; for me, it's more that EVERY side is cropped off differently. The right side, we see the whole tire. The left side, a tiny bit is cut off. On the bottom, it's nearly all cut off, and on the top, about half of it is cut off. This would be much stronger if the whole tire was cropped off evenly. Don't know if it would be possible to get the shot without losing as much of the tire on the bottom, where the shoes are, but I'd say it would be OKAY to have the tire cropped off, as long as it is evenly cropped off on every side.

4. Just nothing here. Sometimes what we SEE simply doesn't translate to a good image. This is a total miss, imo.

5. This one confuses me, because the REST of the shots are pretty much the average, first-time-with-a-camera kind of shots. But then there's this--clearly thought out, a fairly evenly lit (though probably a bit off on the white balance), non-distracting background...not at all what I'd expect from a first time with a camera sort of picture. I do think you missed the focus a bit though--it looks to ME like the earbud inside the shell is more in focus than the one in the foreground.

Keep shooting!

 

[Ironlegs]

Thanks for your very well wrote feedback, stuff like that keeps me going. I will definitely not stop and i will continue working on myself. I see you took a lot of time to write this and i am very thankful, i feel like i learned a lot from these comments now.

About the tire, you know its a swing right ? It kept moving and i was like "doesn't look bad but i won't waste time here"... that was a big mistake. If i just knew it would be one of my best pictures...

 

[Designer]

GL

 

[Ironlegs]

Sm4him, i made a new picture of the earbuds in the seashell, different lighting.

 

[minicoop1985]

Ironlegs, in the Beginner's forum, there's a sticky thread full of photography tutorials. I've found it to be incredibly helpful. Things like the Rule of 1/3s, how a camera actually works (in this case, that actually helps to know), tips on composition, and lots of others can be found in that thread. This is my favorite:

ManualMode.info | Digital Photography : Made Easy

I'm trying to get my wife to read it. She's got the whole composition thing down, but doesn't quite get manually operating her camera.

 

[pgriz]

You’ve got a bunch of good feedback. In my case, there is a certain disconect between the first two sentences in your post, and the images.
You have a reasonably subtle watermark in the lower right corner. Watermarks “usually” don’t occur to people who picked up the camera yesterday. And when they do, they usually are garish, and distracting. It “usually” takes some time before the photographer figures out when their use is appropriate, and how much is just enough.

You have a subtle vignetting along the frame perimeter on most images. Vignettes would “usually” be considered an advanced technique to direct the attention of the viewer in some way. In this case, the vignette appears to be applied to the image as part of the post-processing, and post-processing is “usually” not something that is apparent as necessary to someone who picked up the camera yesterday.

Knowing how to use “depth-of-field” is something that “usually” takes a while to figure out. The first image shows a deep depth-of-field, with everything from the foreground to the background in reasonable focus. In the second image, the depth-of-field is narrow, focusing the attention on the leaf, and throwing the background out of focus. In the third image, feet and tire are both in focus, so the depth-of-field is appropriate for the image. Maybe, just maybe, you’ve lucked into a good understanding of how to use depth-of-field in your first day holding the camera, but it would be highly “unusual”.

The earbud in shell image has a (1) clean background, with minimal shadowing, showing that a rather (2) large light source was used, (3) off-camera. So there are three things there that “usually” don’t occur to someone who picked up the camera yesterday.

Yeah, there is a disconnect between your statement of how little experience you have (picked up the camera yesterday), and the images you’ve shown. Not to mention the business of setting up a website... If these images were shown by a new-comer at one of our photo-club meetings, I’d guess you have 2-3 years of experience with enough knowledge of how to set exposure, choose the right aperture, pick the appropriate focus point, and have some basic post-processing workflow.

On a more positive note, you’ve had some good advice in terms of composition, subject selection, and subject placement. On a technical side, you need to work on managing your highlights vs. shadows dynamic range (images 2, 4, & 5 all have hot-spots that don’t have to be there). You’ll need to also be more selective about the light you choose to shoot in – harsh, directional light (#2, #4) can be tricky to work with, as it tends to create a high-contrast which isn’t always the best way to light subjects. And... you need to work on setting up your composition or framing so that the image is interesting to a viewer who knows nothing about you, or the subject matter.

 

[Ironlegs]

I appreciate the time you took to write this long feedback and i agree it looks odd...
The watermark and vignette and stuff like that, i am a graphic designer... i just made a template for 5k pictures and was just throwing them in, edited the colors a bit and then saving it.
To be completely honest, this was my first time holding a lot more decent camera in my hands... everything i done before was, that i was a "photograph" on birthdays and such...
Now i am going out to try and take the picture of the field once again.

EDIT:
Minicoop, thanks for the link, very useful


I took this picture yesterday, took me a few hours