Photograph Review Requested

[samrigby]

I will be attending college this fall and would like to update my portfolio. I have not shown any of my photographs to other photographers is a couple of years and would like some critiques on both my photography and editing. Please keep in mind that all pictures I have taken were done within the confines of a "starving student" budget. I will be posting more picture in the next week. Thanks

1. Beach Sunset

2. Spiderweb

3. Jerusalem

4. Shell Lined Walkway

5. Water Lily

6. Ferrari

7. Lambo

8. Orphanage Bathroom (shared by over 50 children)

9. Ukrainian Orphan (product of Chernobyl incident)

 

[julie32]

Wow Sam. Some very powerful images you have here.
I think you have an excellent eye for photography. Good luck in school! The only critique I have is in the spider web photo. My eye is drawn to the upper right hand corner of the shot where it's in focus, rather than the web. It's a busy photo.

 

[TamiyaGuy]

Very good shots. To be honest, I wouldn't have guessed that you had a "starving student" budget unless you told me. I agree with Julie32, though, that the spider's web could do with a lot of cropping.

 

[tirediron]

Welcome! Critique per req:
Overall, a nice collection of images which are well exposed, and follow the the textbook rules of composition. A few thoughts:
1. I think this image could have been improved by a slightly different shooting position to eliminate the hedge, beach chairs and such which don't really add anything and are somewhat distracting, and rather dark. I do like the light on the sand however.
2. Again a different position which would have put you less edge on to the web. Judging by what appear to be large broken patches, I'm guessing it's no longer used, in which case the old "instant beads of dew out of a spray bottle" trick would have made for a nice shot. As well, the large almost focused leaves on the right need to be cropped.
3. Nicely done, however I think you should have been a little farther forward or zoomed in just a shade more to eliminate the small foreground area which is out of focus. A crop would also solve this.
4. My feeling is that the focus on this should go from soft in the foreground to sharp at the back. A touch more saturation wouldn't hurt.
5. Nicely done, however I would prefer to look more into the bloom. The white bloom to the image left is rather distracting; be cognizant of these sorts of things when framing the image.
6. I would prefer too see the whole mirror and none of the driveway below. I do like the emblem however.
7. This one doesn't really work for me; too many elements other than the car (driveway, background, etc) as wellthe reflection in the centre panel is distracting.
8. Nicely done.
9. I suspect this may be a case of take what you can get given the situation, however it would have been nice to not have the other two "part" children in the image.
I think both 8 and 9 might be interesting as BW conversions.
Hope that helps - Just my $00.02 worth - your milage may vary.
~John

 

[andrew99]

Looks like you're on the right track! Your photos portray emotions, which is the most import thing. Also going from the photos of the cars to the orphanage really makes you stop and think.

Some general suggestions:
- Watch your horizons, the first one is a bit crooked.
- Not sure what software you have, but some tweaks with the Curves command in Photoshop or Gimp would help to add a little extra contrast. Also some sharpening might help a bit.
- Always look at how you could crop an image. Removing dead space can really help to keep the viewers eyes on the subject. And don't worry about keeping the same aspect ratio.
- If you haven't already, google for "photography composition", you'll find tonnes of stuff to read and rules to break!

And take all this with a grain of salt, all art is subjective. Like I said, I think you are on the right track!

 

[samrigby]

Here are some changes I made per suggestion.

10. Beach Sunest, I rotated and cropped to straighten the horizon and crop out the beach chair.

11. Beach Walkway, I increased the saturation and contrast. I obviously couldnt do much about swapping depth of field.

12. Jesrusalem, I cropped in a little closer

Per suggestion of Tiredion, here are BW conversions of 8 and 9. As assumed, these were both from a "take what you can get" situation. I had a winsow of seconds to take them. My main goal was trying to convey emotion (I have many other, more graphic pictures as well).

13. Orphanage Bathroom

14. Ukrainian Orphan

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With this picture I wasnt exactly sure how to work with thirds. I really like this picture and would like to include it in my portfolio, but before I take the time to edit out the umbrealla in the upper right, I wanna make sure its worth it.

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These are more car pictures. Theyre not my favorite, and I definately over saturated the second, but I figured I throw them out anyways.

 

[JIP]

I think your images are generaly nice. The only thing I would change is you need to either adde people to the beach shot and the path shot or take them out completely. Those 2 shots look like really nice backgrounds for a edding photo or some kind of portrait. You really need some kind of subject in these images they just seem to lack something technically they are excellent as I said they just look like they need a point of interest.

 

[christopher walrath]

If you are going to add any of these images I would limit them to the lily and the orphan. The others are really plain and not worthy of putting forth as your best work IMO. Since you asked for it. If this is the best you have you have more work to do compositionally. When putting together a portfolio you need to be YOUR OWN WORST CRITIC. Not to be hard on yourself, but to learn from your own past endeavors in order to improve on future ones.

 

[frfefarfearz]

nice editing with the bathroom and the orphan

it was a nice idea B&w the orphan pic for the drama..

 

[samrigby]

I think I see what you are saying, Christopher, about the Lily and the Orphan pictures being the only ones with points of interest. I will keep in mind for now on when I am shooting to stop and think, "what is this picture going to be of?"

I don't believe these are my best. They are just my favorite quick picks available to me immediately. I haven't sorted through my pictures to pick out the best in over two years. So I am just now slowly doing so.

Here are four more pictures I came across. Three are straight out of the camera with no editing and the last I just converted to BW.

I took this one outside when it was pitch black with no flash