You got my attention........

[thereyougo!]

Here's my photo of the day. Experimenting with shutter speed and exposure. I figured snow was a good way to practice not over exposing my photos.

Sorry to be blunt, but why are you pretty much always shooting portraits in landscape orientation? Her eyes take me out of the shot. I'd rather look at what she is looking at than the background. Don't be obsessed with bokeh. It isn't bokeh that makes an image look professional.

Because I don't have a studio...... ??

You're misunderstanding me. orientation is to do with how the camera is positioned, not location. It's called Portrait orientation as the camera is usually (but not always held so you have a vertical shot. Sometimes Landscape orientation (the "normal" way to hold a camera) is used if you want to draw attention to something in the background to give the shot some context. Most portraits are taken with the camera positioned sideways. This would have enabled you to get more of the little firl in the shot rather than the OOF background. Taken wide enough you might be able to see that her feet are in the snow and you wouldn't have cut off her hand.

 

[cgipson1]

^THIS! People are a vertical subject... we are long and skinny on a vertical axis (except for Roseanne!) So make the viewfinder fit that subject.. like I mentioned in a previous post! Shooting people in landscape is a NOOB thing to do, unless there is a really good reason! And NOT knowing better (when you have been told) is not a good reason.

 

[Elizabeth30]

Well I think I'm going to spend more time learning today than arguing in these forums!

 

[thereyougo!]

Well I think I'm going to spend more time learning today than arguing in these forums!

I like many of your ideas, but before you charge for work, you really should least master the basics. I'm still not sure that you understand why you should use the circle of confusion (so-called bokeh) as a compositional tool. The fact that you take a portrait that has more OOF area than subject tells me that you still need to read composition 101 as you don't understand why portraits are usually taken in portrait orientation. What was your aperture on that shot of your little girl in the snow? What you also need to remember is that just because a background is out of focus, it doesn't mean it's not distracting, so you still need to minimise it in a shot like this one. The shot has potential, it looks like it could have been a fun shot, but you left us out of the story because her eyes are looking out of the shot, and you've cut her in half.

Take slower steps. Read, read some more, practise and be objective about your photos: post us a few of your practise shots from learning about composition, and tell us what you like, what you love, what you don't love and what you wish you could change in a shot. You have some great ideas, but you need to allow your learning to catch up with your ideas so that you can put them to their best use. Don't even think about challenging the 'rules' until you truly understand them and have mastered them.

You will as you have learned get very upfront feedback here. Not all of it will be right, not all of it will be wrong. Trying things out for right or for wrong is part of the learning process. If you don't like a suggestion try it out first and if you still don't like it, say why.

I work in the music industry and most criticism I get is unconstructive and from people who can't do it themselves. I have to sift through the chaff and pick out the gold. There's less of the chaff here, I assure you. Some are opinionated but the internet often brings out the worst in people because they feel they can hide behind a keyboard. There are some great people and some of the harsher critics like gsgary are great at what they do.

 

[MLeeK]

Well I think I'm going to spend more time learning today than arguing in these forums!

How about stepping away from the editing for 2 weeks and getting a basic grip on the basics of exposure and maybe some composition. In that time get a calibrator so you can see what you are doing when you edit.
You are most likely seeing things incredibly brighter than they really are which is why you are pushing the contrast so high-that's typical on a laptop. It is almost impossible for us to help you when your monitor is not showing you what your photos really look like.
In the mean time order just a few prints of the images you posted in this thread and your other for cc. Order them from Mpix.com and get a set from WalMart so you can see a few things that will help you way more than we can right now. Those things:
1. The quality at WalMart is horrific and will make you look baaaaaad. Really bad. Seeing the comparison to MPix will make you never want anyone to get one of your photos printed at WalMart again.
2. You will have an idea of what we are seeing
3. You will have something to look at as you grow and motivate you forward
4. It's something for you to watch every day and see your growth

 

[bazooka]

I think my head just exploded.

Fortunately this is an online forum so none of us have to clean it up. :hug::

 

[cgipson1]

Do you want to make a MAJOR change in your PP and how you see your photos right NOW? Buy a monitor.. a good one (IPS preferably).... and hook it up to the laptop. Don't know what Video Display the laptop has.. but this will be at 1000 times better than your laptop screen! And then calibrate that..

 

[Tee]

What I'm hearing you say is you want to have an original style. What I'm seeing you do is attempting to recreate that 2 chicks and a hen website or whatever the heck it's called. The style you are representing in your photos is not original at all. It's the type of post processing 99% of new photographers do. Listen to those who recommend getting monitor calibration. Lastly, learn how to get it right in the camera so you're not relying on photoshop to get you that style.

 

[cgipson1]

What I'm hearing you say is you want to have an original style. What I'm seeing you do is attempting to recreate that 2 chicks and a hen website or whatever the heck it's called. The style you are representing in your photos is not original at all. It's the type of post processing 99% of new photographers do. Listen to those who recommend getting monitor calibration. Lastly, learn how to get it right in the camera so you're not relying on photoshop to get you that style.

YEP! Facebook is RIFE with it!

 

[KmH]

Well I think I'm going to spend more time learning today than arguing in these forums!

That's the ticket. :thumbup:

 

[Elizabeth30]

Well I think I'm going to spend more time learning today than arguing in these forums!

How about stepping away from the editing for 2 weeks and getting a basic grip on the basics of exposure and maybe some composition. In that time get a calibrator so you can see what you are doing when you edit.
You are most likely seeing things incredibly brighter than they really are which is why you are pushing the contrast so high-that's typical on a laptop. It is almost impossible for us to help you when your monitor is not showing you what your photos really look like.
In the mean time order just a few prints of the images you posted in this thread and your other for cc. Order them from Mpix.com and get a set from WalMart so you can see a few things that will help you way more than we can right now. Those things:
1. The quality at WalMart is horrific and will make you look baaaaaad. Really bad. Seeing the comparison to MPix will make you never want anyone to get one of your photos printed at WalMart again.
2. You will have an idea of what we are seeing
3. You will have something to look at as you grow and motivate you forward
4. It's something for you to watch every day and see your growth

Yea, I already have printed once at Walmart and without even seeing a what a good printing would look like I will NEVER print there again!!!! HORRIBLE! I've had another person recommend Mpics. I will print some through them just to see the difference. Thanks.

 

[Elizabeth30]

2 chicks and a hen website or whatever the heck it's called.

LOL You rock!!

And you're right I do tend to try and recreate her style with PS when I should be doing it in camera.

 

[KmH]

Here's my photo of the day. Experimenting with shutter speed and exposure. I figured snow was a good way to practice not over exposing my photos.

A quick edit - 1:1 crop, corrected the underexposure on her only and left the background dark. Her OOF face cannot be made in focus.:

 

[MTVision]

LOL You rock!!

And you're right I do tend to try and recreate her style with PS when I should be doing it in camera.

Look up Lensbaby and see how Sarah gets those crazy photos you like.

 

[onelove]

Professional Photographer vs Artist.

Both are valid and worthwhile endeavors and are not mutually exclusive, but they are different.

An artist with true talent can make a living while doing only the work that they want to do. But that is rare. The typical venues will be galleries and art fairs. If people like the work, they might want to hire you for a shoot and give you full creative control. Again, that is rare.

People are called starving artists for a reason.

A professional photographer may have a style or particular subject matter that they specialize in, but they are essentially hired guns to perform a particular task. And that task is whatever the client wants. A professional will be ready and capable to handle any task assigned to them. That means having the technical skills as well as talent.

I started out being an "artist". I did portraits and landscapes. People hired me to do natural, environmental portraits of their families. And I had a landscape architect that needed a portfolio. He liked my artistic approach to landscapes. All was good. I was a working pro! I was making money with my camera. That is until my landscape client referred me to his friend. The guy called me up and said he heard wasa pro photographer and that he needed a product shot of a few boxes of office supplies. It seemed simple, put the boxes on a table and shoot them. No big deal. Long story short, there were so many mistakes such as bad focus, bad lighting, bad exposure that the guy came close to shoving my camera into a place on me where the sun don't shine. As he stormed out he asked how I dared to call myself a pro when I couldn't shoot a simple box of paper.

That is when I decided that if I was going to make a living as a photographer, I better learn what I was doing. For the next 18 months I shot nothing but 4 different shaped blocks of wood...a cylinder, a cone, a square block and a sphere...all painted white. I set them up on a table by the window and started shooting. I learned exposure, composition, DOF and lighting. I added a fill light. I moved into a studio and started working with one light, then two, then three etc. Different backgrounds and bases. My output was contact sheets only, no darkroom manipulation. It had to be perfect in the camera or it got done over.

I forgot about trying to be an artist but worked on mastering my craft. The art could (and did) come later. And when I did start getting artistic again, I had the skills to produce what I was seeing in my head accurately and quickly. The Zen of photography comes when you forget that you are making photos and totally lose yourself in the moment. You won't even notice the camera and neither will your subject.

That won't happen until the basic skills are as automatic as breathing. No matter how good your natural voice may be, you need to learn to talk before you can sing.

It ain't easy, but no one ever said that it should be.

onelove