Need a good hard critque by profesionals

[george_jonathan]

<p>To start of my name is George Jonathan and I'm an amateur in hopes of going professional one day. At the moment I'm studying marketing, promotion and anything else that will help my business grow. My first question is how did you professionals get started in this industry? I know my market, and I'll be entering senior portraits. Its highly competitive I believe with my style and the right marketing I can make a name for myself. As well I need professionals to critique my work so I can't use the criticism to help fix any weaknesses in my portfolio. Here's a link flickr.com/george_briseno. Hope to hear some great feedback and thank you for your time.</p>

[dhbebb]

<p><em>At the moment I'm studying marketing, promotion and anything else that will help my business grow.</em><br>

A very good idea! Business skills and self-belief are as important as producing high-quality imagery. As regards a hard critique, the first thing to say is that posting 198 pages of images on flickr is NOT the way create a professional image - there are many interesting images among these, but far too many in general and also far too many close variants of the same shot. You have a good eye for a picture but you really haven't decided yet how to present yourself - if you had your own website with just a handful of your best shots on the opening page linking to galleries, each with a portfolio of 10 to 20 shots, this would make life MUCH easier for viewers.<br>

I don't quite understand the phrase "senior portraits" - does this mean portraits of senior citizens? If so, I can't find any among your pictures! I think your work is promising, the way you present it needs to be radically tightened up - this process would also help you to crystallise what interests you the most and what you most want to put before potential clients. You have some fine contemporary fashion shots - the desaturated color shots I feel sometimes work, sometimes not - desaturated b+w definitely doesn't work for me, and if you're going to present b+w, I would do it as a body and not just the odd shot here and there.</p>

[Lou_Meluso]

<blockquote>

<p> I know my market, and I'll be entering senior portraits.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Then learn how to assemble a portfolio to reflect that. Cats, flowers and a multitude of images of the same model from the same shoot lost me on page 4. I'm sure you have enough images in there to get started but your presentation is amateurish. You need to be BRUTAL in your editing and only show your FINEST images. Edit that hodgepodge down to 30 images or so and come back. Study web sites of accomplished professional doing what you want to do and take lessons from them on <strong>presentation</strong>. There are plenty of free website tools to make a decent low cost site. Good Luck.</p>

[david_henderson]

<p>I have no idea whether you'd be successful at Seniors Photography or not, because you don't seem to be showing us any relevent work. When you get further into your course in Marketing you will almost certainly conclude that</p>

 

<ul>

<li>showing photographs of a completely unrelated subject type might not be the best way to attract business. You need to keep the portfolio you show people strictly on the subject, otherwise you are likely to confuse potential customers at best, alienate them at worst.</li>

<li>If you want people to give you a critique, then directing them to almost 200 pages of random and unrelated stuff on Flickr is arguably not tha best way to motivate them.</li>

<li>Have you looked at the sites of established practicioners in your desired market? Assess what you'll be up against. Are you as good as they are? How do you know that as you say "I know my market".</li>

</ul>

<p>Understanding how I got started is not going to help you at all. </p>

[starvy]

<p>Take all the advice from above. Please don't show this flickr gallery to potential clients, especially the lingerie shots.<br>

The best craftsman only displays the very best work that would get them more work of that genre. So focus on having ten very strong photographs displaying a range of situations that are common in senior portraiture. Study the work of your rivals, especially, those who appear to be the most successful.<br>

Marketing is not rocket science. It is more about common sense. It is not a bad idea to have done some work on it in the past but I would now suggest that you concentrate all your efforts in creating a strong portfolio as well as working on your inter-personal skills. How comfortable are you with models who don't know you?</p>

[daverhaas]

<p>George -</p>

<p>Use the search function to find "Senior Photographer" or "Senior Photos" on this page - lots of posts on the subject.</p>

<p>The biggest things are: <br>

1) show them you are current and hip - the kids want what their friends have. What's cool today won't be next year. Two years ago - you literally had to shoot around other photographers at a train track near my home / studio. Last summer / fall - No one was shooting there at all...</p>

<p> 2) RELEVANCE - Your photos have to be of seniors. Not of people who were seniors two - ten years ago.</p>

<p> 3) Variety - male / female. And don't make it look like you shot them both at the same location and time - even if that is what you did.</p>

<p> 4) In seniors - 1 bad image - your fault, the kid's fault or the yearbook's fault - can ruin your year. A local yearbook botched up a photo of one of my seniors in the 2012 book - The photo / image itself is a great capture - but when they printed it - they bleeped with the color and saturation. Of course everyone knew who shot that image, so now I have to rebuild my business at that school.</p>

<p> 5) Anyone can make the star or popular kids look great - the challenge is taking a 17 year old who is insecure and has an skin issue and making them look like a star. Learn posing, lighting and editing techniques. You're going to need them all.</p>

<p>With all that being said - Senior Photography is a great area, but it has it's challenges and demands - just like everything else.</p>

[dcstep]

<p>Your need to develop a Senior Photo portfolio first. I see little in that Flickr site that's going to turn on the mothers and fathers to you style. You need to put together a portfolio with a variety of models, using accurate colors that will fit into senior yearbooks. Set up a site dedicated to that business and don't link to your Flickr site.</p>

<p>After you put an appropriate portfolio together, then as for critique again.</p>

[dhbebb]

<p>Dear George,<br /> Thanks for your response via PM - I appreciate it. I hope you don't mind if I make a public reply - it might draw some useful responses from others.<br /> I checked out your website http://www.georgejphoto.com. Among the sequence on the opening page I found some images I really liked - in particular the horizontal b+w shot of the girl on the bed has a nice classic look to it. BUT ... when I went to the other pages, I saw images which I also liked in terms of composition and mood but which were all presented as extremely desaturated. I assume this is deliberate, but it doesn't work for me. That is absolutely not to say that you shouldn't pursue color distortion as a personal signature (what used to be achieve with color film by cross-processing slide film as a negative), but images bleached out as much as yours are look as if the web pages were authored with an out-of-whack monitor.<br /> Which brings us to the question of style! I have viewed a number of senior pictures by various photogs - obviously the average is fairly conventional, not least because the pix have to be approved by school authorities. Fashion pix can be an inspiration, but you can't apply this approach directly to senior photography. In many cases, the intention of these other photographers has clearly been to portray the students as nice attractive boy/girl next door types - I feel you are shooting for something different. Your sisters will no doubt prove valuable advisors here - as American teenagers, they're closer to the action than I am as a 64-year-old Brit, even though I've worked in media as a photographer and writer all my life. If your sisters are showing your pictures of them to friends and the friends are saying "Hey, can your brother make me look like this?" then you've definitely got it! David Haas observes " What's cool today won't be next year" - wise words! The hotter you are at any given time, the greater the risk that your customer's taste will move on. Or not - your pictures remind me to a certain extent of the work of the Brit Nick Knight - he's sustained a career for 30 years!<br /> Advice in short:<br /> 1) As I and others have said, show far fewer pictures, and only your very best.<br /> 2) Re-examine the desaturated look (for me, shots like the one on the first page of the website of the girl with the pearls around her head and the heavily out-of-focus background work, but a lot of the others don't).<br /> 3) Maybe (if you like) pursue a classic b +w look, taking the pic I mentioned earlier as a benchmark - it's good but you need to show that you can take more than one picture like this!<br /> That's probably enough for now! Regards, David H. Bebbington ABIPP</p>

[dhbebb]

<p>PS: I have just found that on George's website, clicking on a desaturated small image leads to a larger full-saturation image. But if I didn't realize this immediately, others might not either!</p>

[coolmotions]

<p>Lets give you a respons as non-professional, as for you work, non-professionals will judge it and maybe want it or not.<br>

I took a glimps at your website and I liked it, liked it a lot. Easy navigation, portfolio like features. No fuzz, just the pictures. <br>

I like the style of your work, its recognizable. The way of processing, composition, uniques looks. I think its important that you have your own unique style and stick to it. Don't forget, its a matter of taste and maybe fashion.<br>

If I were a student right now, I defenitely wanted you to make my picture.<br>

I wish you all the luck with your business. Marcel</p>

[menandar]

<p>From what I saw on your flickr account I would say better start working out your lighting and composition. Forget about this weird post-processing technique you are applying to most of your images. There is still plenty work ahead of you but if you invest enough time and effort it will start paying of. Then once you establish visually appealing style, by compositing and lighting your subjects better, you can start approaching potential clients, hopefully successful (the competition is big out there). I hope I've been helpful, somehow. </p>