First let me say that I'm more than a little intimidated by the prospect of critiquing photos taken by people of obviously superior skill. That being said, I know I'm gonna learn alot by reading other's critiques of the shots that I look at, even more perhaps than from y'alls critiques of my attempts. Please be as rough as necessary with your responses to my pics, as that's how I'm gonna learn. That said, here's three more from my gallery. The B&W is of someone's beach house. It was taken in color but seemed better suited for grays on looking at it. The child was sitting this way waiting for a sunset that never arose, and the farm shot was a last minute addition to some afternoon wildlife photography. Please tell me what's right and what's wrong with these shots. Thanks in advance.

Fred

First let me say that I'm more than a little intimidated by the prospect of critiquing photos taken by people of obviously superior skill. That being said, I know I'm gonna learn alot by reading other's critiques of the shots that I look at, even more perhaps than from y'alls critiques of my attempts. Please be as rough as necessary with your responses to my pics, as that's how I'm gonna learn......... Please tell me what's right and what's wrong with these shots. Thanks in advance.

Fred

Hello again Fred,

You should not feel intimidated in expressing your opinion when critiqueing others work, If you are honest and objective in your apprasal. There are abvious basic technical issues that will work best in most instances, but often critique is about opinion which is heavily influenced by the experiences of those giving the critique. I think by learning to express what we see we better learn to appriciate our own work as well as that of others. (Just my opinion of course!! :) )

Enough of the soap box, I'll attempt to say what I see in your images.

1 - Not sure of the B&W, I feel the lush tropical foliage may be better seen in colour although the eye is drawn to the the stark white of the house against the darker trees. The house is leaning backwards although the treeline is straight - The Palm tree to the right of the house gives this away. You can easily rotate the image and correct this.

2 - I like the repedative lines in the crop and the repedative arch of the irrigation pipeline across the field. I feel your composition is good and you have used the rule of thirds well. There is little of interest in the sky so cropping some of the sky may reduce some of that vacant area. The image seems a little "flat" and may respond to a little brightness in photoshop.

3 - Had a laugh at this one as most of us that live near a beach have done this at some time in our younger lives. Nice use fo DOF. While this image tells a story I think a little more "animation" in the subject would help - he looks just a little bored or pre-occupied.

Nice collection of shots. Thanks for the oppurtunity for me to learn,,,,,,,,, :) :)
Andy S

Fred, I took the liberty of a quick adjustment to your second image. Crop - and adjusted levels (image - adjust levels - move the right most marker to the the left). Oh, and quick clone out of the white object on the pipeline. Hope this explains my post a little better.

I like what you've done with the image, Irish. I purposely don't PS the images I post here (other than cropping some of the edges and resizing) partly because I don't have enough practice with PS and partly because I hope that others will do what you did and show me what could be done to make them "pop." Most of my PS experiences end up with a fake-looking picture, so I figure I can use my starting images and the products of posts like yours to help me learn PS while I'm learning composition. Thanks so much for your input! Keep 'em coming!

You have no reason to be imtimidated, not here. It's just not the PR.com way.

This is a good first post.

I think the second one is the best image here.
It has two strong compositional elements: Line and Repetition.
Good Eye for seeing them.
Keep shooting and chime in on critiques! It's a great way to learn how to take better photographs!
Brian

Hi Fred,

I like your shots. Don't be afraid to experiment with PS. I'm completely new to it and have learned from members here how to use different features, including how to straighten out "keystone distortion." Use the "help" feature of photoshop to find keystone. It will explain what you can do.

Here's my effort to straighten your beach house photo a bit.

First let me say that I'm more than a little intimidated by the prospect of critiquing photos taken by people of obviously superior skill.


Fred, I know the feeling. When I first found this forum I was really intimidated as well. Let me tell you, there is nothing to be intimidated about. My girlfriend told me that I shouldn't just assume that everyone who visits this site is an expert. When that finally sank in, I was a lot more comfortable posting photos, as well as commenting on them. Once you realize that this is one big happy family, learning and teaching together, that intimidation will soon become a thing of the past.

Michael

I like em all, but like the third one best--nice DOF, and you caught him at a good moment. I messed around with it some in Paint Shop Pro. I could make some of the colors pop more, but then he just stood out too much for me--something I liked about the original was the how he was sorta blending in with the color of the sand. Instead, I converted him to greyscale and then edited the curves.

I like the third one far and away the best. Of course, I'm naturally a people person, even though I'm a bit afraid of shooting pictures of people, I just love when they've been captured telling a neat story.This one is really neat. You didn't even need to tell the story in order for me to understand it. It's great! I'm glad he's not more animated, because his head is in the perfect position to describe "patient waiting". It's just a tad dark, only because of the time of night. Did you shoot digital? If so, did you shoot RAW perchance? if so, then you can adjust exposure compensation and brighten up the side of his head a bit.

I just love that shot. If it were mine, it would go in my "best of" file. :)

kellybean - I shoot digital, but not RAW format. I don't know much about the RAW format, but I like the ease of use that comes with .jpg images. If I remember correctly, the RAW format ends up a much larger file size, and with limited resources (read - nothing) budgeted for the camera for the rest of the year, I can't buy another CF card until January. So, I've figured out that the card we have allows almost exactly one day of shooting.

That being said, I greatly appreciate all the comments and suggestions. Y'all seem to be a great bunch of people, and I really look forward to the give-and-take that goes on here. I already feel like my knowledge of photography and of photo-editing has doubled since being here.

Thanks all!

Fred

Welcome Fred,
Good first three posts . I feel they are all good compositions and can benefit from some ps editing, as Mike, Irish and Lara has done. you will get the hang of it as you practice and just experiment to learn what happens when certain editing tools and levels are applied. I like the last one best. The boy looks disappointed but so prepared in his "sand recliner". Great depth of field and clarity. Framing very good as well. Keep it coming

That being said, I greatly appreciate all the comments and suggestions. Y'all seem to be a great bunch of people, and I really look forward to the give-and-take that goes on here. I already feel like my knowledge of photography and of photo-editing has doubled since being here.
Thanks all!
Fred

Glad to hear that! Once again welcome to PR.com, give it time and you'll learn even more!
Keep shooting and posting!
Brian