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My brother and his wife, both wearing multiple tattoos, rehearse their

wedding vows at CJ's Off the Square in Franklin, TN. Although the the

groom's tattoo is colorful, there's so much other color in the shot

that it was lost in the clutter. I think B&W works better this time.

In retrospect, I should have panned the camera just a bit to the left

and down to get equal amounts of both arms. It wasn't a posed shot,

though, so I didn't have much time to think.

Any other suggestions?

My brother and his wife rehearse their vows at CJ's Off the Square in

Franklin, TN. This was my first experience shooting a wedding (as an

amateur) since I got my SLR. I loved the rehearsal. I had all kinds

of access that you would never have during the ceremony, like standing

directly behind the pastor's head in this shot. I was holding the

camera at arms length, so it was hard to compose the shot. This is

the best of several attempts. Any suggestions for improvement?

There's no limit to your artistic ability if you concentrate hard

enough and eat well. My daughter almost always has a pen in her hand.

Lighting was via a large window on the shady side of the house. Any

suggestions for improvement?

Excellent treatment of an old pile of logs. I like the color and the choice of focal length. Most people wouldn't have though to look there for a good photo, and they would have missed out.

Hmmm... I like the composition and the way the bison are framed. You've got good detail on the bison themselves, too. I love the B&W treatment. I'm not sure the high key exposure works here, though. I feel like I'm squinting just to see where the horizon line is. Maybe just a tad darker would work better.

This is very well done. I love the framing with the mountains along the bottom. I've dabbled in astrophotography just enough to know how hard it is to get results like this, but not enough to actually obtain these results myself. I'd love to know the specs on this image, like shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and focal length.

Excellent! I love the framing, the small, popcorn clouds, and the way the jumper lines up right above the sun. With a good caption or an inspirational quote, this is poster material.

This family of foxes lived right next to a bike path on the edge of

town, and was hence very comfortable around humans. I was able to get

within about ten feet of this little guy. Unfortunately, waning

daylight required a really high ISO and the associated noise. What do

you think?

This is what my daughter does most of the day. I happened to catch

her during lunch by holding the camera up directly over her head.

What do you think? Suggestions for improvement?

Cashing in on Halloween. Focusing manually in the dead of night --

even at f/1.4 -- is challenging. I had intended to focus on her face,

but accidentally got her bag of candy instead. I think I like it

better this way. What do you think? Any suggestions?

I like the bright colors and the completely out of focus background. The composition isn't bad, either. It's awefully grainy, though, and it appears to have been artificially sharpened quite a bit.

 

This is obviously some variant of Swallowtail Butterfly larvae. It's not a Black Swallowtail, though. My daughter recently caught one of those and raised it until it hatched into a butterfly. It was quite fun for her.

In only about 30 minutes, this spider had built a 2-foot diameter web

between my garage and the hood of my Jeep, right under the

motion-sensing flood light. My wife threw a june bug into his web,

and it was amazing how quickly he wrapped it up. I'm still working on

trying to get effective lighting on my macro shots. This was done

with an add-on flash mounted to the hot shoe with a Stofen diffuser

attached. Most other shots with that setup don't turn out quite as

well. This was shot at slightly over 1:1 with the glass a few inches

from the spider. Any suggestions for improvement?

My daughter was picking wildflowers the morning before we returned

home from a camping trip. This is the entire frame. What do you

think about the crop? Is having the eye centered a problem, or do the

other eye and the flowers balance it out?

My son found this web and threw a bug into it to watch the show. This

was shot at just over 1:1 -- his body was only about 3/16". I didn't

realize until after the photo session that the aperture blades on my

lens were oily and stuck at f/4, not f/32 where I had set the ring (no

wonder I could see so well to focus). Still got a half decent shot,

though. I've since fixed the lens. What do you think of the

lighting, angle, and crop? Also, what about the border? I'm toying

with adding them to more of my submissions. I went thin this time to

match the web, but maybe it's too thin. Any suggestions?

My 6-yr-old daughter found a Black Swallowtail caterpillar (also

called "carrot bugs", nearly 2" long) in her garden munching on her

carrots and decided to keep it as a pet. It's amazing how fast it can

devour a carrot leaf. Anyway, I've been playing with my 50-ish-mm

lenses and new extension tubes lately, so this was good fodder.

Putting it on a plant may have been more natural, but I think the

painted nails and fingertips add an interesting touch and a sense of

scale (never mind that she wouldn't have released her new pet under

any circumstances). Any suggestions for improvement?

I agree with Daniela about the fake-looking colors. I think the skin tone is to similar to a bronzed statue. It looks as though the skin and lips have been dusted with a metallic gold to give it that hue. The colors are certainly eye-catching, but something about it just doesn't look right. The blue & red shirt(?) in the lower right is somewhat distracting, too. Perhaps they could be darkened quite a bit in PS. I like the framing, though.

Wow! Great shapes, contrast, and colors. I might have bumped the saturation up a little, and pointed the camera just a bit to the right...although I do like the ropes descending into the corner.

I was getting some overhead shots of my kids assembling a new puzzle,

and managed to catch these nice angles with their hands. The major

distraction was a dark shadow in the upper right. I did my best to

remove it with selective brightening and hue adjustments, but it's

still somewhat visible. If I'd been paying attention, I'd have moved

that box before I started shooting. Any other comments or suggestions?

...and you shake it all about. This guy built a web on my front porch

today. I'm not sure what species he is, but his body is about 7-8mm

long. This is a 55mm lens + 36mm of extension tubes at less than 2"

between the spider and the lens. I found out that 1/200s is not fast

enough to avoid camera shake when magnified about 1.5x. I set the

camera at 1/400s, but I think the flash sync capped it at 1/200s for

me--how nice of it. Is there some rule of thumb for max hand held

shutter speed at high magnification? How fast do I need to go? The

old adage of 1/focal length certainly doesn't apply. Any other

suggestions on this shot?

Good point about the Wagoneer. I hadn't even thought about that. It doesn't get driven much, so I guess I'm just so used to seeing it there, it didn't cross my mind. It may be worth the trouble to back it up next time I plan to take shots like this.

I love the the framing and the tonal range on this one. Nice job.

Playing with my then-new $8 pawn shop lens. It took a while to

capture the moment I was hoping for. I wish I had a bit more of his

shadow on the driveway, but otherwise, what do you think? This is the

full height of the original frame, but I obviously cropped it

narrower, as there was nothing significant in front of him in the frame.

I love the contrast in this one. Excellent tonal range and detail.

Greg, how so? Too pink? I'm out of town on my old laptop right now, so who knows how inaccurate the color rendition of this screen is.

The sharpness and contrast really jump out and grab you -- I love that. The details in the eyes are amazing. The roughness in the mother's face may be unflattering to some, but I think it's a nice contrast to the baby's smooth skin. This is a sweet moment between (I assume) mother and child and a great shot (although not a particularly unique one). I'd love to know what your camera settings were, and what (if any) postprocessing you did.