amy_hoy

I like this as a digital composite, but it's obviously not a photograph (which is not necessarily a bad thing). I only have 2 suggestions to possible improve this: the black thing (is it a hole? is it a shell?) in the middle is distracting and I can't tell what it is; I think it ought to be replaced with a pretty shell instead. Also, I'd like to see a little more water before the crest. Otherwise, beautiful!

Awwww. I'm all warm and fuzzy, just like the squirrel. I agree, this is just like a serious portrait, only of a cute furry creature instead of a person.

For focusing at night you might carry a pocket flashlight, light the subject, focus, then turn it off. I really think this picture's great, and as far as color cast, I wouldn't change it one bit. It wouldn't be so eerie or unique-looking otherwise. You also might consider getting one of those little table-top tripods to carry around whenever you take your camera, they're better than nothing.

This is an amazing photo, I don't think I've ever seen closeups of dragonflies before, at least not this close. The only thing I don't like is the green background but I don't suppose there's very much that can be done for that.

You've got a great subject there. I hope that it's close to you so that you can go and shoot it again, because this could use some improvement. First of all, I would shoot it in B&W because the color is really not a major player here, and with B&W you will get that special look that you don't get when shooting a "greyscale" subject w/ color film. Also, Royal Gold 100 is not a very fine film in terms of resolution and such, I would shoot with "pro" color film if you're going to shoot color. Another thing I would do is crop it so that the trees in the background are out of the picture (because they are the only very colored thing, and they stand out), or reshoot with a narrower depth of field so that they are very out of focus. Lastly I would take several new shots from different angles; the bottom to middle of this shot is great but near the top of the rock it gets confusing as to what is what, and there is probably a better angle for that so it makes more visual sense. This is very good considering your beginner status, but I think that you may find you come out with a better shot if you try my advice. Keep on shootin'!

It doesn't bother me that his *nose* is out of focus, because it's a black thing and generally you don't want to see every little wrinkle on a dog's snout in the first place. But there is a sharp line demarcating the out-of-focus fur on the muzzle behind the nose and the fur on the face, which is visually distracting to me. Otherwise, I love this picture.

Haha. I love it. I don't care if it's "set up," anyone who complains that they don't like "set up" photographs is snobby. This is a technically good picture with good composition, good subject choice, and a real honey of a joke!

I like the reflections. I love close-up pictures of old cars, they're simply so beautiful, and this one is a nice example (of a photograph). Everything in the era of this car was shiny, so why shouldn't it be? :) PS - as I read your catch line to draw people in "Thanks for viewing!," I was thinking to myself, "Thank you, drive through!" and was highly amused when it turned out the picture was of a car.

Is this one of the paths from the "dancing rocks"? Or am I confusing my dry lake beds? In any event, very neat, the high contrast makes it.

Certainly not a bad start and technically very good. The composition is neither great nor bad, but somewhere in the middle above your average snap shot. I think one thing you may wish to do is to use a better film than the Kodak MAX stuff, for instance Kodak Portra (requires refridgeration) or possibly even a more "consumerish" film like Fuji Reala or Fuji Superia. The quality is hugely different because of the nature of consumer vs professional or even semi-professional films. Also, you don't need to shoot 800 speed film, try to stick to slower films such as 200 - 400, maybe even 100, to get finer grain.

Great picture! I think the slight fuzziness probably adds to the mood.

I know how it feels to have only an instant to take a photograph and then have it not turn out well. I'm afraid this is the case here. Rippling water is not interesting enough by itself and the bird is too small and unfocused to hold the picture up on its own.

Color is nice but it is not usually able to carry a picture all by itself. The leaves are not striking enough visually to be a main subject, especially off on the edge of the picture like that. Try choosing more interesting leaves, or maybe a single leaf, and get closer. That's much more likely to turn out something better than just an off-center snapshot.

But despite all the digital messing with, I'd like to know whether or

not other photo.net users think this is a good photo how it is. If

other people think it's nice this way I am going to see if I can

reproduce all the digital effects in the darkroom. Thanks for your

input.

Great portrait. As for the harshness of the light... being born is pretty harsh too so it fits!

I think the bag helps form the idea of movement, of the dice just spilling out. Technically it's a very good shot but I don't think there's a lot of emotion there, but that's more than OK for a beginner. I also think it would be easier to judge this picture if the medium version you uploaded wasn't so large! It doesn't fit entirely on my screen and the compression artifacts are pretty obvious and distracting. If you uploaded a smaller version, I could get a better feeling for the entire composition.

This would have made my day for sure. It's too bad the center area of the sunset is blown out but it's hard to get everything in a sunset shot like this. Great job.

It's not very striking. There is practically no visual contrast in this picture. When taking pictures, don't just point and shoot, ask yourself "What exactly am I trying to say here?" This picture says nothing.

The one on the right looks like a sister to me. And with the name Mariana? Gotta be a girl.

I much prefer the color version. There's not enough visual contrast without the color contrast. As for the bluish tints in the poles, you can as easily fix that in PS as you messed it up in the first place! Simply open up the non-adjusted original and pop into QuickMask mode by typing the letter "Q". Everything you paint will be in red and when you pop back out of QuickMask (by typing "Q" again), everything you painted will NOT be selected. So you paint the poles in QM mode, drop back out, then apply the changes you originally did. Voila. PS is a beautiful thing.

I agree with Jill on several points. I think the shadows are fine but the blue tone is bad, I'd use Sepia instead to warm the photo up. Also the uploaded image is too huge! It doesn't fit on my screen, and thus is difficult to appreciate as a whole composition.

Beautiful start for sure. I agree that the white house on the left should be cropped out, but be sure to leave the streetlamp-lit wall next to it for effect. I also think you should upload a less JPEG-compressed version because I think the poor quality of the JPEG makes it look like the original photograph is perhaps worse in quality and focus than it is.

I think this composition is great. Though I love B&W it certainly is refreshing to see some color once in a while! As for the hunk of wood, I'd have to see side-by-side with and without versions to decide, it certainly didn't bug me until I started reading the comments of others and then I went "hmm." I think in either case the rest of the picture more than compensates for that stray piece of lumber.

I don't think this is the typical baby/family shot. Typically, they're all in focus with some goofy fake smiles on! This, on the other hand, is an artfully done color portrait... without ever even showing the faces. I think this picture has many great qualities, none the least of which its good use of color and depth of field. Good job!

Very nice. You (and the owner of the small hand) are going to treasure this one.