obi-wan-yj

Wow, what wonderfully rich colors. I love how the curves move you gracefully through the image.

Thanks for the compliments. Hmmm... you're right, my son doesn't look as sharp in this shot as he does in the full-size version on my computer. Perhaps I forgot to apply that last sharpening step that I always do after downsizing an image for upload. The resizing always softens them.

My three year old son is in love with tractors in general and Bobcats

in particular. He's been entranced watching this one construct a new

garage across the street. It was an overcast evening after sunset,

which made the lighting a little flat, but it looked unnatural when I

tried to punch it up in post. Any suggestions for improvement?

I agree with Ryan about the skin. The whole thing looks like an airbrushed painting rather than a photo.

My sons were drawing in the condensation on the storm door this coldevening. I decided to experiment a little, so I placed my flash (430EXat 1/4 power and 24mm spread) on a remote trigger out on the frontporch (about 3' beyond the door) pointing back inside. I adjusted theperspective to straighten the lines in post, but the exposure isstraight off the camera.

This was very much an experiment, so I'm very interested in anyfeedback you can give on what worked and what didn't.

All you need to have fun at Grandma's house is some odd bits of

plastic and a little imagination.

 

It took a few tries to get the timing, angle, and lighting just right,

and even then I had to crop off the top to remove a very bright

kitchen light. Any suggestions for improvement?

Thanks, Mikey. I agree about the ratings. It's common knowledge that there are bots out there which assign 3/3 & 4/4 ratings to most photos. Until PN decides to prevent anonymous ratings, the rating system which they tout so highly will continue to be nothing but a joke.

 

If I may editorialize, I really wish I could combine the best features of Flickr and PN into a single photography site. Each of them has their strengths, but each of them also sucks so badly at other things that I can't decide which to consolidate on. Consequently, I maintain nearly identical galleries on each site. :-( I'll let you guess which site gives me more useful feedback on my photos.

Wow! If ever there was a "decisive moment" shot, this is it! What ever made you train your camera at the mirror at this moment? Had this bird done this before?

My brother Andy contemplates his next move while walking the railroadtracks behind our grandparents' farm on Thanksgiving Day.

Any suggestions for improvement?

My dear, 92-year-old Grandma knows what's most important.

This is a "found scene," lit by small table lamp just off frame tocamera left. She rested her hand on the end table as I got up to leavetonight, and I told her to leave her hand right there for a minute asI picked up my camera.

Do you prefer the focus on the Bible or the hand? Color or monochrome? Any suggestions for improvement?

My dear, 92-year-old Grandma knows what's most important.

This is a "found scene," lit by small table lamp just off frame tocamera left. She rested her hand on the end table as I got up to leavetonight, and I told her to leave her hand right there for a minute asI picked up my camera.

Do you prefer the focus on the Bible or the hand? Color or monochrome?

My dear, 92-year-old Grandma knows what's most important.

This is a "found scene," lit by small table lamp just off frame tocamera left. She rested her hand on the end table as I got up to leavetonight, and I told her to leave her hand right there for a minute asI picked up my camera.

Do you prefer the focus on the hand or the Bible? Color or monochrome? Any suggestions for improvement?

Wow, I love the perspective and the contrast in this shot. Those sweeping curves just lead you clear through the frame. You've got an amazing amount of detail under the bridges in what appears to be very hard light -- is this an HDR shot? It's very well done.

I paused to snap this self portrait one October morning whiletrekking, camera & tripod over shoulder, from the nearest parking lottoward the unimproved park land that used to be the back pasture ofour family farm. It's on the far side of the creek from the rest ofour farm, and is easier to access through the city ball diamond thanfrom our driveway. I spent a couple hours there that morningphotographing memories from "across the creek."

Any suggestions for improvement?

My niece's twin boys were five days old at this shoot. Their smallstomachs weren't very cooperative, so I'll go back in a couple weeksfor better poses.

This was my first experiment with an off-camera strobe and umbrella.Shot with my Olympus F.Zuiko 50/1.8 lens, which originally belonged tothe twins' great-grandfather.

Any suggestions for improvement?

My niece's twin boys were five days old at this shoot. Their smallstomachs weren't very cooperative, so I'll go back in a couple weeksfor better poses.

This was my first experiment with an off-camera strobe (Canon 430EX)through a translucent umbrella located at head hight about 45 degreesto camera right, triggered wirelessly with a Cactus V4. Shot with myOlympus F.Zuiko 50/1.8 lens, which originally belonged to the twins'great-grandfather.

Any suggestions for improvement?

My niece's twin boys were five days old at this shoot. Their smallstomachs weren't very cooperative, so I'll go back in a couple weeksfor better poses.

This was my first experiment with an off-camera strobe and umbrella. Shot with my Vivitar (Kiron) 28/2.5 lens.

Any suggestions for improvement?

My niece's twin boys were five days old at this shoot. Their smallstomachs weren't very cooperative, so I'll go back in a couple weeksfor some better poses.

This was my first experiment with an off-camera strobe (Canon 430EX)through a translucent umbrella located at head hight about 45 degreesto camera right, triggered wirelessly with a Cactus V4. I don'tremember the power setting. Shot with my Olympus F.Zuiko 50/1.8 lens,which originally belonged to the twins' great-grandfather.

If I were doing it again, I might use a smaller aperture for a deeperdepth of field. Any other suggestions for improvement?

My niece's twin boys were five days old at this shoot. Their smallstomachs weren't very cooperative, so I'll go back in a couple weeksfor some better poses.

This was my first experiment with an off-camera speedlight through atranslucent umbrella. It was located against the ceiling about 45degrees to camera left. Shot with my Olympus F.Zuiko 50/1.8 lens,which originally belonged to the twins' great-grandfather.

I wish I'd lowered the flash I bit to light grandma's eye a littlebetter. Any other suggestions for improvement?

My niece's twin boys were five days old at this shoot. Their smallstomachs weren't very cooperative, so I'll go back in a couple weeks.It was great to have other adults around whose job it was to care forthe kids so that I didn't have to feel guilty about taking photoswhile the boys cried.

This was my first experiment lighting with an off-camera speedlitethrough a translucent umbrella. It was located high about 120 degreesto camera right, which means nearly straight up as the photo isoriented. Shot with my Vivitar (Kiron) 28/2.5 lens.

Any suggestions for improvement?

Dried up weeds like these thistles take on a beauty of their own in

November's cooler temperatures. I added a hint of yellow to the

center and a hint of blue to the edges, as well as a little

vignetting. The rest is as shot. What do you think? Any suggestions

for improvement?

Thanks for the comments. They're my niece's kids, not mine, which explains how I have time behind the camera. :-)

 

I'm not sure about the crop. I can't make it any wider than it is, since what you see here is the full frame. The top half doesn't have much value in it, but cropping it to a nearly square shot seems like an uninteresting shape to me. Logistically, it might make framing easier, though. I certainly wouldn't want to crop this shot into a true horizontal, because that would require removing some of the bottom and making an uncomfortably tight shot around their bodies.

 

I dunno. Maybe square would work well. I wish I had more than one shot from this pose to work with. I certainly would have taken some horizontal ones as well.

Darian and Malik (I *think* Darian is on the bottom) were five daysold in this shot. Even at 6 lbs each, they don't eat much at eachsitting, so one of them or another is constantly eating. I had hopedto get a whole series of them together on the blanket, but this isliterally the only exposure I got. They held this pose forapproximately 1.7 seconds before the top one threw a fit. I'm verythankful that the exposure was set properly and I got a reasonablefocus in time. I had intended for this to just be a test shot tocheck my flash power.

I'm new to this whole off-camera flash thing. I know the pose isn'tthe most compelling, but what else could I have done to improve the shot?

My niece had twin boys five days ago. They're not identical, butdon't ask me which one is Darian and which one is Malik. She'll tellme which is which, and then it's like a shell game the rest of thenight to track one of them so I can keep the names straight.

Coincidentally, I got some new light stands and radio flash triggersthe following weekend, so Justine agreed to let me come over and playwith them for a couple hours. The boys only eat one ounce at a time,so they're constantly eating. Consequently, it's very hard to getthem both contented in the same shot.

What do you think? I'm still new to this off camera lighting thing. How could I have improved this shot?

I also like the dark version as posted. Brightening it would change the mood. I love your use of lines & shapes here. Very nicely done.