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  | 29 June 2012 14:43 |
| bryonyphotography Photographer  Location United Kingdom Derbyshire Mansfield | As an add on to the monochrome thing, I think in general a lot of your images are quite warm. Maybe need to work on colour balance too. I think your portfolio is not awful, but it still lacks a lot of the finer details which will come with time. |
| 29 June 2012 15:21 |
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| Lifescapes Photographer  Location United Kingdom Cumbria Kendal, Lancaster | Some people seem to love to come on here and blast people's efforts without much forethought. We all had to start somewhere and as you're openly asking for advice here's my 2p worth. A lot of your images are composed and framed in a very similar manner, like this one.  Nice model, but bland expression straight to camera. Nothing wrong with it, but nothing arresting either. This would work better if the model appeared more engaged. Before you try and change anything though, else spend some time working on your composition and framing. If I'm not teaching my grandmother here, what you need to do when you look through the viewfinder is take in the whole scene, not just the model. Look at all four corners of the viewfinder, seek out the things that will look right in the image and if anything doesn't fit, move position, reframe, recompose.   With these two you've gone to the trouble of finding interesting locations to shoot at but then cropped in so close that the value of the location is wasted. For shots like these, try giving the model space to breathe and you'll find the image will take on a whole different aspect.  This one is a lot closer to being good but the models head is turned too far away from the camera and she facing out of the image. This has the effect of making all that negative space on the left somewhat redundant. Compare it to this one  where the model is looking in to the picture (and thereby drawing the viewers eye in to the image) and has much more emotion to it. Hope this helps, above all keep trying. |
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| "It's very difficult to remain calm when you're listening to someone talk complete bollocks." Jeremy Paxman | ||
29 June 2012 17:07 |
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| Hugh Photographer | Overall, there are some good ones, and some with stiff expressions and un-natural poses which I'd throw out. This is one of your best:  Why is it good? - very nice, relaxed, natural position - nice expression - interesting lighting - backlighting. What lets it down? And how could it be improved? - I'm posting from my laptop, so my viewing screen may not be 100% accurate, but you've too many/too large burnt out highlights (I've measured the brightness). More fill in lighting to cut the brightness range - white towel or white sheet draped over a couple of chairs behind you. Meter to get as bright an image as possible without burning out important detail (turn on the flashing warning on the lcd), and darken later in Photoshop or DPP. - BW conversion could be better - shoot raw, convert to BW (I use Canon DPP most of the time), play with the brightness colour filtration and the contrast curve until it sings, export as 16 bit TIFF, dodge/burn in, resize, sharpen, save as JPG for web. - expressions - shoot lots, quickly, show the model the good ones as you go along. I might easily have shot 50 frames on that setup in 5 minutes, showing her few shots as we went along, without her getting up. They would all have been perfect exposures, most would have been OK, but I'd only have been after one great "keeper". If you've got the RAW file, go back and reprocess it several times - spend an hour or two - it's worth it. You need to shoot a lot more people - not just naked chicks - until you shoot fast, without thinking about the camera, and without subjects getting bored. Shoot with one lens, ideally a prime lens like a 50mm or 85mm, and just a white towel as a reflector. No tripod or lights. Small kids or pets are ideal for learning because they move fast, they get bored quickly and if you give away a few decent prints you'll have a stream of people wanting you to shoot - just be sensible and always shoot with a parent present, and keep the work separate from here. |
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| It's not Fine Art just because it's in Black and White. | ||
29 June 2012 17:12 |
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| Hugh Photographer | Another thing - shoot before 10.00 a.m or after 7.00 p.m. for good light, or else look for open shade. | |
| It's not Fine Art just because it's in Black and White. | ||
29 June 2012 17:23 |
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| Alastair2010 Photographer This member has been reset to pending | Exactly what I needed Guys some grown up and creative advice and guidance ,everyone has brought something to my table and every day is indeed a school day ,clearly somethings are really in need of re assessment ,thankfully my profile isn't awful which brings with it a warm fuzzy feeling and a little bit of a smile ,all above greatly received and points taken on board ,back to Apperture with some then and a better look at the way I process too . @ Hugh I do shoot in Raw thankfully all my images are backed up and stored on a large hard drive ,so I have lots to go back and tinker with . Once again very much appreciated and great fully received . Cheers one and all Alastair . |
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