Ok guys..hit me with your best shot CC...looking to improve daily!

Yeah you are so right..I'm gonna go back thru and pull it down a little. When you guys were starting out did you just feel like you would never get it right? Ugh sometimes I think I should just quit, but I really enjoy it!

Your edit looks much better to me. If you could crop it a little to limit that big white upper right corner I think it would help some to, but I don't know how much room you have in the original.

I mentioned somewhere tonight that cameras have evolved so much since the late 60's that there is really no comparison. When I started in photography we didn't even have built-in light meters much less something that could compute and adjust the camera for a proper exposure. So, to answer your question, Yes! I frequently felt like I'd never get it right. The other advantage you have is that we had to shoot on film, not digital, so it wasn't virtually "Free". We had to pay for every shot we took, good or bad.

People starting out in photography today truly don't realize the benefits they have over the "Bad Old Days". Whatever camera you have it's probably better than what many of the Old Masters of photography had to work with. Your camera will assist you so much and tell you so much that it allows you to focus more on composition and getting the appearance right. Use those features. Take advantage of everything that your camera will do for you and enjoy the learning curve.

Trust me that at some point it will all start to make sense and you'll honestly wonder why you spent so much time worrying about it. If you apply yourself to learning what is happening and what is going on you'll see the shot, the way you want it to look, before you trip the shutter. You'll understand what the light is doing for you, and what it is doing to hinder you. You'll understand how to avoid the pitfalls before they happen because you'll see everything you need to see in a split second and know what you have to do to make everything work they way you want it to.

Also, please don't fall into the rut of making your photos look like someone else's simply because that's the way "They" (whoever "They" may be) do it. There isn't anything wrong with emulating other photographers but adding tint or overexposing or tone mapping simply because others do it isn't the way to learn. Learn the way to make a proper exposure, and THEN develop your own style from that. Forget about the fads and the fauxtographers until you have learned the proper methods. If you want to deviate at that point then go right ahead, but learn the right way first.



somehow i missed this post! Thanks for the great advice, and you are right, I have thought about how much harder it would be back in film days. I'll just keep working till I get it right!
 
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Love this pic. I've just made some correction to it. Let me know your reviews :)

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Thanks guys for all your help, I'm going back through and bringing all the exposures down a few stops. The are both extremely white, especially the baby. I have had a hard time with their skin tones.
 

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