Old Photography that ive liked... General Advice?

[kittywolf13]

So photography has always been an interesting hobby of mine. I love to capture small details, or capture events or my hobbies in photos. (i had over 6,000 photos in my iphone recently.) Admitting my quality and desire to shoot good pictures went down the drain when i got myself a phone with a decent camera. (cause i always grabbed my phone cause it was always on me.) Hubby recently got into photography and got himself a DSLR, that we share... so its kind of spurred me to start taking photos again. since we cant use his camera at the same time, ive decided to get re-familiar with my old camera again. i thought id post some of my favorite old shots to get some comments, inspiration and maybe some advice on how to improve. Keep in mind some of these were taken several years before i figured out things like (i shouldnt resize photos so small) and stuff like that. so some are kind of small. or grainy or whatever. those are all things ive learned over the years... but yeah tell me what you think? Most of these are shot with my Panasonic Lumic DMC-fc18, a few probably with my OOOLLLLD Sony Cybershoot (i think it only had like 3 megapixels old. lol.)

Crow by kittywolf13, on Flickr

Horned Owl by kittywolf13, on Flickr

Green Macaaw by kittywolf13, on Flickr

bug005 by kittywolf13, on Flickr

Alone by kittywolf13, on Flickr

Old car by kittywolf13, on Flickr

4thofjuly_2009_061 by kittywolf13, on Flickr

4thofjuly_2009_sunset_005 by kittywolf13, on Flickr

4thofjuly_2009_sunset_027 by kittywolf13, on Flickr

Obon2009_0101 by kittywolf13, on Flickr

Obon2009_0113 by kittywolf13, on Flickr

butterfly010 by kittywolf13, on Flickr

morikamicasual042 by kittywolf13, on Flickr

if there is a picture limit please let me know. hopefully these arnt too bad. i dont consider myself a pro by any means. i want to get into some portrait photography or photography people... but i really dont know where to start with that. so go ahead and tell me what you guys think... and hopefully it wont be too horribly harsh. ^_~

 

[mmaria]

there's just too many photos here for me to have any useful comment, so I'll just bmp this and we'll see, someone will tell you more for sure

 

[paigew]

I like #1&2. I think #2 is underexposed....try bringing that up so we can see more detail in the shadows.

 

[kittywolf13]

I guess I should say that that these are all OOC/out of camera save for resizing. I've never really messed with exposure and stuff. I have an old photoshop. (8.0 I think?) and when I burrowed a friends dslr it wouldn't even read the raw formats for some reason??) any suggestions of where I can look for that kind of stuff besides YouTube. YouTube is hit or miss because my machine and software are so old.

 

[The_Traveler]

what kind of stuff are you referring to?

 

[kittywolf13]

what kind of stuff are you referring to?

I guess info on post editing the photos? (Though I'd love more info on composing and stuff like that too.) I mean I know how to do the basics of color, brightness and contrast and that. But I don't know anything terribly technical in that aspect. I'm completely self taught and all of my photoshop skills are mostly for illustration use.

 

[Derrel]

I'd say keep on shooting, keep on taking photos of interesting things that you see, in your life. Look for interesting subjects and take photos. DO not be too quick to discount the cellphone or smartphone camera as a camera, either; most today are every bit as as good or even much,much better than the early digital cameras were. As far as post-shot editing, these days the big thing is the $10 a month deal Adobe offers: Photoshop CC AND Lightroom 5, for $9.99 a month. Heckuva deal!

There are also so very low-cost or free alternatives to Photoshop, which you could Google search for. As far as composing...search for "elements and principles of design", and read up on that, then go out and see how those things actually exist in the real world. ANd whatever you do--enjoy it.

 

[kittywolf13]

Thanks Derrel. I plan on getting some more photography going lately. I ordered some new stuff for my camera because it was a good deal and hope to take it more places with me etc.