jimknowles

What a wonderful place. Magical. Warm light, inviting beach, dreams of a tight knit community on the shore. Cartoon like.

however, this photo IS a good example of some of the mistakes one can make when starting out in photography. It's okay Matthew - no one learns it all at once.

 

Sometimes it's better to try to isolate your subject somehow - either by using depth of field (where you make the background / foreground go out of focus) - or by simply composing the frame in your camera in such a way so as to eliminate the busy-ness of objects near your subject. Not sure what you were going for here, however. The tree seems to be your subject, but you have a lot of stuff behind and near the tree, all of which is clearly visible. Making the picture too busy and jumbled, rendering the aesthetics almost painful to look at.

 

As you practice composing images, you'll soon learn to see how the camera / lens see, not how you form the image in your mind. Our mind sort of automatically edits that which we choose not to pay attention to - but the camera sees everything it's pointed at. And the smaller the f stop, the more of whatever it is your camera is pointed at will be in focus. Fine for somethings, but not so great for others, as in the example above.

 

Keep shooting, learning, and growing!

A decent environmental portrait of a black smith / artisan. Might have been improved a touch by having set up some sort of light source, off camera to the right, so as to illuminate a bit of the far rear right of the shop. Dig the way you nailed him striking the metal on the anvil. A very simple picture but with lots of info.

This is a wonderful, frivolous and fun picture! I don't know if you have photo shop, but if you do, you could remove the white rectangle in the center left of the frame - if not, get a reprint enlargement and have someone crop that out for you. The only other thing I see could be done to make this stronger would be to remove the box with the letter "P" in it. Would be easy in Photo Shop, but if you don't have don't worry about it. Your horizon line is crooket too, but that can easily be fixed by straightening it when reprinting. In this image, the entire picture would be much more pleasing were the horizon of the ocean straight. What I really really like about this picture is the colors and woderful light. Sort of a hazy overcast sky with bright sun shinning through? Looks like you used a flash to fill some shadow detail - and it worked well for you here if that indeed is what you have done. Then there are the graphics of this image, the circles of the stools and the lines of the wall and light posts. Without the truck, it would be high art! With the truck, it's a fantastic reality piece. If you were to have stooped down, getting the top of the wall just so it was above the both the truck and the awning on the beach, it would be much cleaner and would have made a much stronger picture. Don't get me wrong here Sharad - I'm just trying to suggest ways you might improve your image making next time. It really is a wonderful picture. In fact, I went through 600 or 700 pictures without commenting on any until I saw this one! Your daughter is lovely!

this site. Behave like your subject above, only then might you be able to rate other's pictures low. But you'll never be able to rate your own stuff without getting nailed.

It seems to me that if you're going for the abstract, it's important to get the technical stuff as perfect as possible. In this case, the parralell lines of the window are not straight and the texture of the stucco of the wall is not sharp. Also, to my eye, the colors are bland.

nice picture of flowers. not exceedingly unique in any way, however.

This is probably your best shot from this day. Dig all the various tense components of composition and subject.

It's tranquil. I'll say that.

a picture of a leaf with water droplets. and the point is?

What Jim said and: THIS IS ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS. I wouldn't dare say anything nit picky about it. If ever there were proof photography is both an art and a science, this is it.

this almost looks like a B Mottershead photo. dig the reflection of the neighbor's house. nice soft dawn/dusk light. personally, i prefer the way you have it framed here. the added weight and extra lines give it another dimension of abstract-ness. if you crop it you'll ruin it.

what a mess. what are you looking for from critique here? honesty or nice words? my honest opinion is this picture is messy in so many ways - but what i do like about it is it gives us insight into what you were doing and where you were for a fraction of a second of your life. can't say it's original at all, or even aesthetically pleasing, but it is a bit revealing.

your flowers are dying. dig the color, though. would you like a suggestion? here it is: next time shooting something like this that is pretty but not really when you look at the details (in this example it is obvious the flowers are drying out / dying, withered)- try using a slow film, slow shutter speed (about 1/4th sec. or so) and rear curtain sync (if your camera and flash allow it) after focusing camera, shake it while tripping shutter. you'll get a cool "movement" effect and the flash will "freeze" the sharpness at the end of the exposure. you'll have then achieved a beautiful and colorful image of what are obviously pink flowers, but the finer details (such as the brown and dying petals shown here) won't be so blatantly obvious. and it will look great when done well. try it, experiment, see if you can dig it?

two cute.

too trite - just doesn't really work or tell a story. perhaps if the painted hand had been black? or more obviously feminine? or even higher resolution shot on 4x5? and with a more pertinent or interesting or visually striking or complimentary background? just some thoughts. good try though.

don't get me wrong - i can understand wanting to keep track of the gestation period, etc... but as a picture i want to look at? sheesh! not appealing to me at all. interesting, but not very aesthetic. honestly believe this is the type of image most people might do for themselves that should be kept to themselves. but thanks for sharing.

too cool. if this is a portrait of an artist friend, it's great. dig the east german hard edge vibe of the stark setting, leather jacket, skin head cigarette smoking self absorbed tough dude. great background and good job using DOF control to bring eyes to face of subject.

don't know about all this bug stuff - but clearly this is a really well done macro of a killer spider in action. i guess you know that.

this looks as if it might make a fabulous print for my living room mr. kitzman.

shooting doorways has almost become a right of passage even for the most talented photographers - we've all done it. some have gone on to make books about specific types of doors. this is another example of a door that someone with a camera just can't resist.

A very lovely nude. Original yet very natural pose. Wish you'd given us a larger file scan so we can see it better. Still, nice simple lighting, and great model. I especially like the fact it's not overtly sexual or provacative. Beautiful photograph Jeff!

No doubt your friends do love these. Who wouldn't? Often we photographers don't think much of what we consider to be simplistic pictures. But a portrait of a friend, done in such a way, is a wonderful gift. Especially for any woman who's of an age who might be concerned about little lines and such in her face. A transfer like this must just blow them away! It's a classy portrait Bob. Lovely earth tones and soft lighting, with a touch of uniqueness by way of the transfer process. You have some lucky friends. Very cool that you have got this down to such an art and are still willing to experiment! I'll bet anyone holding one of these in their hand, as opposed to veiwing it on a screen, would be very impressed indeed.

Hey Rita, this picture does not need the special effects to be really good. I'd like to see it without the square cross hatching.

 

I find it incredibly difficult to believe that you just began making pictures in 2002. You have a fantastic eye for someone who just started photography a year ago. I've seen photographer's work who have been shooting for over ten years with less talent. Remarkable!

 

This image keeps the viewers eye wandering over the faces and gestures of the subjects. The crosses pull one's eye in - the poses and placement keeps us in the photo. Great exposure as well - all that black with strong side light can make such a good exposure difficult. Good job. Finally, throwing the background out of focus makes your subjects stand out and pop out at the viewer, with no distractions. A wonderful group character study, Rita.

awesome. bizzaar food list thing happening but image wihtout words rocks.