Pushing up from beginner level - C&C Please

[Trever1t]

:thumbup: :hug::

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

You have my respect. :thumbup:

 

[Derrel]

Which "plant" do you feel was the worst of the set? To me, it is clearly the ashtray shot...

 

[eswarpr]

Which "plant" do you feel was the worst of the set? To me, it is clearly the ashtray shot...

I have to (grudgingly) agree with you. It is like reading a badly written story, albeit with an interesting premise, on a badly made paper.

 

[MLeeK]

Made a recent trip to Italy with my Nikon D90. Thought I would get some expert opinion on improvements I can make.


This would be an interesting shot if the underexposure didn't make the hand the only thing in fairly decent exposure thereby making it the focus of the image and not the connection between the pigeon and the hand feeding it.


This just fails miserably for me. I am sorry. It's about an ashtray and makes me wonder why because even the printing on the ashtray is only half there. The composition is dead center and probably would work that way had you truly made it dead center on the building/alleyway. The buildings are tilted to the left and need to be straightened. I THINK you were aiming for the cafe table juxtaposed against the italian buildings and to give the soft, lazy feel of it, but you kind of missed it. A wider view with the table and perhaps a chair pulled out from it a bit with the rest of the cafe and buildings out of focus probably would have done it, but the ash tray is actually kind of a distraction and draws your eye down to it and makes you wonder what the point was in all of that. If it's a photo of the atmosphere it's not there. If it's a photo of the ash tray it's got a ton to many distractions.


This one is a toss. you have half of a gondola in the back that is making your viewer look there instead of the gondolier in the front gondola against the buildings. Without the last gondola it would have been a great image. It is so dark and completely black in HUGE patches that when it does print or view those black patches are going to suck your eye right to them. I think you need to calibrate because if you see those as simply dark, they aren't. They are REALLY underexposed.

On the above I know I made a mistake on the light. I wanted to show a general out of focus, blur to indicate the general mood of the atmosphere there (in a good way). I tried to focus on the front spiking part of the second boat, so I can get the DoF to blur out the other parts slightly. I don't think I achieved that. How would you have done it?


This one is interesting... but the sign in the background is a serious eye draw. I am not keen on the dead center composition, but it kind of almost works OK here. It's boring, but you are getting what you want. It is also underexposed, but not half as bad as the others were.


This one you can't even tell what it is. The noise on what IS visible is horrible. Do you not see this as 95% complete black?

Many thanks

Cheers!

 

[MLeeK]

Which "plant" do you feel was the worst of the set? To me, it is clearly the ashtray shot...

I have to (grudgingly) agree with you. It is like reading a badly written story, albeit with an interesting premise, on a badly made paper.

I have to say it's a toss up between the ashtray and the last one. I can't even tell what the last one IS.

 

[MLeeK]

OK, I think the whole thread veered to a place where I really didn't want to go and I don't blame anyone for it, but myself. Reflecting on it, I believe it was simply the "on the face" answer that I am not used to that got me all riled up. I now realise Echo had his heart in the right place, and I am sorry for not being open minded enough to his/her comments. I need to learn how to be less jumpy and sensitive, and I am sure I will learn.

I still believe art is subjective, so what one finds attractive may not be so for others. I am not hiding behind the statement, I truly believe in it. In fact I don't need to hide, because I know the pictures I took, and I took it for a reason, although it didn't come out so well as I intended to. Maybe that is where my mistake is, not relating it to an experience or explaining it well enough to the audience. I guess I am foolish to believe that the picture should speak for itself. Maybe I am not there yet on it. That said I will take everything you all said on board and see if I can improve myself on it.

Now to the photos. I deliberately took what I feel was the worst of the set and put it here solely so it can be critiqued. Thanks "Ottobergmark" for your valuable and productive comments.

I know the pigeon needs a bit more of light, but I also think it was the best I could have done, considering pigeons are so temperamental and they don't like flashes, but I also didn't want to overexpose the scene. The scene is after all the dusk part of the day and the sun was almost down, lighting the scene up would have made it look unnatural. The detail was not my intention, the mood was. However, I wanted the reactions of diverse people seeing that picture, because that is how I know how people are looking at my images.

The ash tray one: It was my intention to show loneliness that comes with old age and changing world. But someone suggested a smoking cigarette butt would have made it more interesting.

The boat: I know I messed up the light and the focus, but thanks for pointing out the better way of doing it.

The chain: This was taken in Veronna in Italy, which is supposedly the place of Romeo and Juliet. The chain in the central square of that town made me think that it is very interesting. On one hand it is the city were you talk about love and romance and on the other there is this old chain hanging in the center of the square which, probably was used to tie up people. It is empty, so it indicates freedom as well. Thought that is a good contrast to the setting.

The lock: It was a deliberate underexposure. The key subject is the lock with 2 peoples names on it. The placement of the locks are in this legend about Romeo and Juliet and how if you name you and your love and lock it up and throw the key into the river, no one can separate you (!?). So for me that focus on that lock was purely coincidence. The fact that it was in a good position to grab some natural light was why I picked it up.

I hope I have cleared the air. But thanks to all for making the effort to help me - especially "Ottobergmark" - for your comments. Will try to deal with criticism better next time.

There lies your problem. Your photo should speak for itself 100% you don't get to explain your photo when it is put into a book or in a gallery or on a wall... It has to clearly speak for itself. You have to look at your scene and find a way to tell the story in ONE shot. one picture. No words. Photographs are the whole story.
These are vacation pictures that invoke a memory for YOU. You have to take ART photographs that create the memory for someone who hasn't experienced that moment in that place with you. To someone other than you? These are kind of pointless.

 

[eswarpr]

So do you think the below is a better exposure?

 

[MLeeK]

Overall exposure is better, but there are some HEAVY blacks in this one too. In print those black blobs are going to suck your eye right into them.

 

[Scuba]

I like this image better. I can't speak to the printing aspect, as I don't print images much. I like how the writing fades into shadow. Maybe the slightest bump up in exposure.

 

[eswarpr]

Overall exposure is better, but there are some HEAVY blacks in this one too. In print those black blobs are going to suck your eye right into them.

I agree with your assessment, although I wouldn't think of printing any of my images and never intended them to be.

 

[eswarpr]

Sorry one more on the locks, this one I did meter so the overall scene is lit.

 

[MLeeK]

Excellent points. Which lead to what could be some amazing discussions.

I don't feel you can compare the sport shot with the portrait well. You have to be able to understand the emotion in the game and not all people are.
The man can touch most humankind, the emotion in the sport doesn't touch a spot within everyone.

You are very right in that I am only looking at the journalistic-for the most part.
I have stopped shooting the blah studio style portraits if I can avoid it because of exactly this. It doesn't show the person or people as who they really are. I much prefer a natural environment and to spend more time interacting with my subjects and shooting less because of it. My style. Does that mean that studio portraits are bad, wrong or anything else? Nope. They are great, I just prefer the story. It's all about what you want your image to say.


In these images what do they convey? Do they convey what the shooter intended for them to convey? No, he admitted they do not and that it needs a story to accompany it.
MANY great images have an awesome story to accompany it that does not show in the image. But the image does tell a story in a clear way. I have a ton of wedding images that if I told you the story behind them they'd have a WHOLE different meaning, but I am SO glad that doesn't show in the image because I created the image to be what it is. A beautiful story of the "perfect" wedding day. And believe me NO wedding day is as perfect as it appears in photos.

 

[gsgary]

It's a good job i have not commented on them if you think the other poster was being too hard

 

[eswarpr]

Not really, that was just me being taken aback by the bluntness of it all, and the fact that it was too short and didn't explain what am I supposed to do to get it corrected if it was that bloody boring. Got my bearings on now, so throw anything at me - *shields up*. The worst that can happen? I will delete my Flickr account and drop my Nikon from 5 floor building and never take a picture again