Reviews needed for a Portrait Photographer!

[AmberAtLoveAndInk]

Hello! I am new to the forum but I have been professionally photographing for the last year (numerous years of experimentation and photo/art hobbies) My name is Amber and I joined the forum to learn some new techniques, get insight from more seasoned photographers and lend my advice to those who think it will be useful. You can check out my website: Love & Ink Photography or my facebook page: http://facebook.com/loveandinkphotography

Criticism and/or Compliments are appreciated! I strive to learn something new everyday about this business.


Shooting with a Canon 60D


One of my favorite images
View attachment 62300

 

[Braineack]

I'm not sure if it's fault of the resize/upload, but it's very soft and overexposed. Looking again, the girl is well within the focal range, so it appears you were a little overzealous with the smoothing. The Bokeh in the BG also looks computer generated.

I think this shot could use a bit of a crop to remove the distracting foreground and get the subject out of the very center of the frame. I'd almost go as far as to just below her hands, just above her head, and remove most of the tree from the right.

 

[AmberAtLoveAndInk]

Braineack,

Thanks for the feedback! I think because of my awful laptop screen (I do all my editing on it) the image appears to be darker to me and not so overexposed, where as on my phone or tablet the colors and lighting is off. I did add in a bokeh (still experimenting, have only made my own bokeh in photoshop a handful of times) to cut out some of the distracting background, but perhaps a good cropping would've worked better like you suggested, thanks for the honest words. I just hate cropping! I feel like I'm cutting out all the good parts haha.

 

[Derrel]

Hello! I am new to the forum but I have been professionally photographing for the last year (numerous years of experimentation and photo/art hobbies) My name is Amber and I joined the forum to learn some new techniques, get insight from more seasoned photographers and lend my advice to those who think it will be useful. You can check out my website: Love & Ink Photography or my facebook page: http://facebook.com/loveandinkphotography

Criticism and/or Compliments are appreciated! I strive to learn something new everyday about this business.


Shooting with a Canon 60D


One of my favorite images
View attachment 62300

This background is unappealing to me. I think the overexposed bright background hurts the overall shot. I would definitely burn down the background brightness, at least a little, or at the very least, in the upper left corner and along the top. And the lower, right corner is also too hot. I would burn that down too. I went to your Facebook page and clicked thru about 50 pictures I would estimate. You have some decent stuff, and seem to be delivering 50-50 good versus newbie type stuff. You're still making some beginner mistakes, like cropping off hands of the mom and the father in the baby on the front porch swing, but you are also doing a pretty good job on coming up with some CUTE poses on your smaller groups! Your pictures have a certain light, airy, "girly" type of feel to them, which makes sense, since it's proven that women control the scheduling AND the purchasing decisions on family photography.

My suggestion would be to invest in a lens/camera combo that can help you better throw out of focus some of the more distracting backgrounds, and render them as very soft, very out of focus. With the 60D, that would entail getting a very fast wide-angle, like Canon's 35/1.4-L, and maybe the Sigma 50mm f/1.4, or the Canon 85mm f/1.8 lens, so you can create nice, lovely bokeh. Background control and background rendering are the two areas I think your pictures could use more polish in. You are ahead of MANY Facebook shooters that I have seen, but behind some others. Your work seems to have good emotion, good expression, but the technical mastery seems kind of 50-50, or maybe 60-40. But let me say,again, I do think you're ahead of many FB peeps!

 

[Braineack]

I just hate cropping! I feel like I'm cutting out all the good parts haha.

I've embraced it. I have an issue not shooting wide enough still.

 

[manicmike]

I looked at your page and came away with a few thoughts. The watermark is really really distracting. My eye goes directly to it in most of the photos. Also the skin smoothing is a little excessive in some of the pics. They seem pretty sharp and exposure seems to be right on. Lighting looks good to me. FWIW.

 

[AmberAtLoveAndInk]

I've embraced it. I have an issue not shooting wide enough still.

I guess I'll just have to suck it up for my works sake lol. Thanks again!

 

[AmberAtLoveAndInk]

This background is unappealing to me. I think the overexposed bright background hurts the overall shot. I would definitely burn down the background brightness, at least a little, or at the very least, in the upper left corner and along the top. And the lower, right corner is also too hot. I would burn that down too. I went to your Facebook page and clicked thru about 50 pictures I would estimate. You have some decent stuff, and seem to be delivering 50-50 good versus newbie type stuff. You're still making some beginner mistakes, like cropping off hands of the mom and the father in the baby on the front porch swing, but you are also doing a pretty good job on coming up with some CUTE poses on your smaller groups! Your pictures have a certain light, airy, "girly" type of feel to them, which makes sense, since it's proven that women control the scheduling AND the purchasing decisions on family photography.

My suggestion would be to invest in a lens/camera combo that can help you better throw out of focus some of the more distracting backgrounds, and render them as very soft, very out of focus. With the 60D, that would entail getting a very fast wide-angle, like Canon's 35/1.4-L, and maybe the Sigma 50mm f/1.4, or the Canon 85mm f/1.8 lens, so you can create nice, lovely bokeh. Background control and background rendering are the two areas I think your pictures could use more polish in. You are ahead of MANY Facebook shooters that I have seen, but behind some others. Your work seems to have good emotion, good expression, but the technical mastery seems kind of 50-50, or maybe 60-40. But let me say,again, I do think you're ahead of many FB peeps!

Thank you for the constructive criticism! I am an artist of all trades (canvas art, sculpting, pen & ink, still life charcoals) photography really stuck me because after having my son I seemed to always have a camera in hand to capture all of his "firsts" I decided to invest in a SLR for my son's sake and then quickly after I was approached by friends and family to "do" their pictures. With a push from a high school friend I launched in March and have been trying to learn and grow as much as I can. Figured it was time to join a forum and get some seasoned insight.

 

[AmberAtLoveAndInk]

I looked at your page and came away with a few thoughts. The watermark is really really distracting. My eye goes directly to it in most of the photos. Also the skin smoothing is a little excessive in some of the pics. They seem pretty sharp and exposure seems to be right on. Lighting looks good to me. FWIW.

It's a new watermark, mostly created to highlight my business name so people might be more inclined to check out my actual site instead of just my facebook (since I totally built my site and spend hours upon hours updating the damn thing, I would like more organic website viewers lol) but yes, my fiance has said it is very distracting. Something I will probably switch to just a logo and use a more submissive tag instead. Thank you for the kind words! I am still learning!

 

[AmberAtLoveAndInk]

My son, the inspiration to my business
you can critique the editing and shooting skills of course, BUT he is adorable and makes for an awesome subject, that fact will be not be argued with haha.

 

[Luke345678]

Welcome to the site.

 

[smalltowngirl13]

Welcome aboard!

 

[frommrstomommy]

Welcome! I looked at your site briefly.. I agree with Derrel that you are well ahead of many I've seen on FB. I'm like you, just starting out and learning learning learning. Trying to soak up as much as I can and I feel like in some way every shoot I get a little bit "better" if you will. Stick around, I think I've made huge strides in the last year because of this forum. I'd post a last year vs this year but it might be embarrassing. lol

 

[DiskoJoe]

View attachment 62304
My son, the inspiration to my business
you can critique the editing and shooting skills of course, BUT he is adorable and makes for an awesome subject, that fact will be not be argued with haha.

The quality here is better than the shot above. Looks like your shooting with a kit lens. You didnt mention any lenses and the DOF does not look very shallow. Please correct me if Im wrong.

I would also suggest hiring a designer to have a vectored image of your water mark made. This will prevent it from resizing like it is doing here where it looks all blocky.