The Great Sphinx of Las Vegas

[tanya7x]

Just flipping through some old vacation pictures and came across this one I really love. It was taken with my old Nikon Coolpix S220. Its one of my favorite pictures I've taken. Wanna know what you all think. C&C Welcome





Las Vegas 059 by tanya7x, on Flickr

 

[tanya7x]

Nothing at all?? :/

 

[iPhoto17]

sorry, but i dont get anything out of it

 

[Tuffythepug]

Tanya
I wasn't going to comment but since you are wanting feedback I'll just say this. It isn't a "bad" shot but it does have a couple of problems. Mainly, it just doesn't have much pop. It's rather bland and doesn't really have much in the way of contrast and the color just doesn't have any punch to it. The composition is fine.

I wish I could explain it better. There's just not much there to capture the interest of this viewer. Just needs more color and contrast

 

[invisible]

In addition to what Tuffy said, you attempted to photograph a scene with two different white-balance zones: the subject (in the shade) and the sky. I don't have access to your EXIF data, but it looks like your white balance was set to daylight; as a result, the temperature of the sky is fine, but the temperature of your subject looks cold, because it's in the shade. There is nothing you could've done to avoid this while in the field; however, you could try to warm the subject a bit in post so it looks more natural.

Other than that, your subject looks fairly well exposed, or maybe a tad underexposed. There was such a high dynamic range that part of the sky is overexposed. Again, nothing you could've done out there to avoid this. (A solution would've been HDR, though.)

 

[PhotoWrangler]

It looks like a vacation snapshot taken with a P&S. Its under exposed, and poorly composed. The front paw in the foreground takes up half the photo and half the potential interest.

 

[Parker219]

If I took this snap****, opps...snapshot, I would delete it off my camera, even before it was uploaded to my computer.

 

[invisible]

If I took this snap****, opps...snapshot, I would delete it off my camera, even before it was uploaded to my computer.

Then again, you didn't delete this one. What gives?

The OP asked for some feedback. It looks like she wants to learn – probably to walk first, and then to run. Dismissive comments will not help her (or anybody), even if such comments make the commenters feel good about themselves. Dismissive comments coming from people who are too chicken*** to even post their own photos on the forum are worthless.

 

[Parker219]

^ Thank you for the laugh. I posted a picture of my vacation 7 minutes before you posted this comment.
I didnt delete that other photo, because the only comment I got back was positive.

 

[tanya7x]

If I took this snap****, opps...snapshot, I would delete it off my camera, even before it was uploaded to my computer.

Then again, you didn't delete this one. What gives?

The OP asked for some feedback. It looks like she wants to learn – probably to walk first, and then to run. Dismissive comments will not help her (or anybody), even if such comments make the commenters feel good about themselves. Dismissive comments coming from people who are too chicken*** to even post their own photos on the forum are worthless.

Thank You Invisible. You are right. I am just learning and trying to get better. I'm barely starting out with teaching myself the manual settings on my new camera. Parker, I wasn't asking anybody to be rude. If you dislike it that much you should just not comment on it.

 

[Tuffythepug]

If I took this snap****, opps...snapshot, I would delete it off my camera, even before it was uploaded to my computer.

Then again, you didn't delete this one. What gives?

The OP asked for some feedback. It looks like she wants to learn – probably to walk first, and then to run. Dismissive comments will not help her (or anybody), even if such comments make the commenters feel good about themselves. Dismissive comments coming from people who are too chicken*** to even post their own photos on the forum are worthless.

Thank You Invisible. You are right. I am just learning and trying to get better. I'm barely starting out with teaching myself the manual settings on my new camera. Parker, I wasn't asking anybody to be rude. If you dislike it that much you should just not comment on it.

Tanya
when you post pictures here you're going to get good, bad, rude, helpful and irrelevant comments. Try to learn from the ones offering advice for how to improve and ignore the ones that are rude or irrelevant. We were all beginners at one time and some our our early efforts were no better than yours. Don't be discouraged; keep taking pictures and trying new techniques and unusual angles. Now and then you'll pull off a real good photo and it makes all the failures seem inconsequential. Buy some books on basic photography and learn what you can where you can. Photography is no different than any other human endeavor; you have to practice to get good at it.

 

[Fred Berg]

I also think the subject is a little underexposed and flat. Perhaps it would have worked better at another time of the day, with the sun behind you or at an angle to the subject; that way you could have got a more even exposure, perhaps had a little shadow to play with, and brought the colours to life.

 

[Jaemie]

Besides the technical issues already mentioned, the Luxor Hotel directly behind the subject really takes away much of the "pop" by destroying the outline of the Sphinx.

Don't be discouraged. Las Vegas is full of cool subjects, but they're mostly a challenge to shoot for a variety of reasons, such as cluttered backgrounds, numerous mixed light sources, and the difficulty in accessing a good place from which to shoot. Plus a million distractions and your friends and family who would rather be in the casino or shopping while they wait for you to do your photography. :roll:

 

[tanya7x]

Thanks for your guys suggestions! I will definitely keep them all in mind next time i am out shooting photos. Turfy, are there any books in particular that would suggest??