Photographic scavenger hunt

[Stupendous Man]

In the Viewfinder forum, I posted about a photography class/community workshop I joined (put on by a local community college). Anyway, by the end of the class, we have to photograph 12 things, to be judged by our peers on the last day of class. Our scavenger hunt consists of these 12 things: sunset, a child, animal, bridge, barn, snow, flower(s), church, Night scene, people (group shot or crowd), action shot, a portrait.

So, here are my first attempts:

1 sunset
2 church (might decide to make this my night scene submission)
3 barn
4 bridge (my personal favorite!)
(as you can also see, I have been playing around in paint shop to add the borders)

Honest critique is appreciated, keeping in mind that I am a complete and total newb!

Tim

[mtbbrian]

First off welcome to PR.com!
These all pretty good, but I'll only comment on the last one, The Bridge.
I like how you composed it with the bridge just above center, it makes for a better photograph with it that way.
The reflection and the fog give it a good mood too.

Make sure you check out the forums at least once, and start a photo blog too!
I might suggest that you might want to post just one photograph per thread in the forum, that way you can get better feed back on each photograph.
I look forward to seeing more from you.
Brian
:thumbsup:

[Stupendous Man]

My bad! I just read the sticky forum guidelines. I will refrain from posting multiple pics in a single post in the future. (Thats not to say I will read the guidelines before posting again!)

[cits sesh]

On number one i think a few moments later with more clouds would have been a bit better but you can’t control nature. The cars dont work for me on the church shot but again, sometimes you can’t control stuff like that, maby a tighter crop? For the barn i think if it was shot farther back it could really look cool. The back ground really looks like it goes forever and you might be able to capture a real desolate look for the barn. The bridge just looks fantastic and I can’t really say anything. Nice shots, I cant wait to see the others.

[veggie]

#3 and #4 work for me.

I'll comment on #2. Even though the cars have some symetry, the fact that there is only half is not working for me. I'd rather see one whole.
Also there is something shinning on the left of the picture that is discracting. It is highlighting the tree in a weird way.

Great job overall, and that barn is really great!!

[GB1]

Tim - Welcome to the PR forums. I'm sure you'll get a lot of honest and constructive feedback here.

First of all, with the exception of the first I think the shots are quite good. I guess I could say that all of them could use slight cropping so to adjust the amount of negative space. Note that you did fine with the camera as far as composition, but that are simply parts of the photos that don't measure up to the subjects. For example, on the second photo I would crop out some of the sky, just above the star. That would make the pic warmer overall.

The third I am not sure of... you placed the barn at an inflection point using thirds, but it seems like there is somewhat poor lighting of the barn itself, reducing the details and leaving me a bit starved for information. Not sure what you could have done here. Could also use some cropping.

THe bottom one is excellant but the foreground is sort of a letdown. I would use some filters, some pasting tricks, etc and place the bridge in sort of a 'cloud', like it is a dream... that would be interesting to me. But of course you'd be crossing into more of an artistic creation at that pt (which is fine).

Thanks for posting and hope to see more.
GB

[Greg McCary]

I think your classes payed off. They are all good. The only one I want to comment on is the church. I think the composition is ok, but I don't like the cars hanging on the left and right, and you have a flare midway on the left I might would try and deal with in PS. The others are splindid, nice job. But you will find these critique forums a very good classroom to learn in and I hope you post more here.
Greg

[Stupendous Man]

Thanks everyone...I will give you my own impressions, which are fairly in line with your comments. The church is my least favorite, and even as I was standing out there taking it, I knew the cars would ruin it. The flare to the left that was mentioned was an annoyingly bright parking lot light that I cropped out. I chose this vantage point because I liked the idea of the bright star (actually planet Venus) shining above the steeple. Fortunately, I have a few more weeks to take another church picture.

The barn is cropped pretty tight. The raw image includes much more area, and I will go back and work on it to increase the isolation effect.

My beef with the first one is the fact that you cannot readily tell that the pond is frozen. it looks like water in the picture.

The bridge is my favorite, and probably my best to date. I actually took that this morning and was so pumped that I decided to post it up ;)