Portraits in Africa

[snarkler]

Hi, I'm new to the boards, so I decided to start this off with a bang... I was recently given an incredible oppurtunity to spend nearly a month in the bush of Kenya and Tanzania, and these are a few of the shots I scooped up while staying with some of the tribes (I couldn't upload any others due to their size ). I'm relatively new to photography, so if you need to tell me how bad I suck, please do so (just don't forget to let ke know how to correct whatever mistakes I made ;). All criticisms are welcomed.

[schrackman]

I really like the composition of the first one, and the second I absolutely love. The second one is something I would expect to see in a National Geographic magazine or something. The black and white treatment on both these images is what makes them. I can't really find any criticism about either images, as both are very good in my opinion.

For being realatively new to photography, you're well on your way to being a great photographer.

[Overbeyond]

Two really nice photographs. The first one came out well considering all the bits of light and dark you had to cope with.
The second is beautiful but I feel if some of the background was removed, say to the left of the subject, then more emphasis would fall on the little girl and the baby. Lovely exposure on the subject here also.
Keep up this great work.
Tom

[snarkler]

Thanks so much, both of you. I really appreciate the support, and the criticism (sometimes it hard to get objective opinions from my family who know nothing about photography; every time I ask I get a "Aw, how cute ;). By the way, I forgot to mention none of my shots are edited after I take them, besides for simple things like cropping, and conversion to B and W (unless I state otherwise). Anyways, I've included a better cropped second image;

[iJoe]

stick with the first crop

[readingr]

First off I like both of these and agree that B&W works

However I would say that you stick with the original as it puts the two children in the context of Africa whereas with the second you have to look hard at what the background is.

Goos shooting

[snarkler]

First off I like both of these and agree that B&W works

However I would say that you stick with the original as it puts the two children in the context of Africa whereas with the second you have to look hard at what the background is.

Goos shooting

Thats what I thought at first too. When I saw the girl come pick up the baby and pose like that, the stick background appealed to me just as much the subject did!

[Peter_AUS]

Welcome to the forums.

A few things, these are quite good if you are just starting out in Photography and great that you got the opportunity to photograph another culture.

You said they were straight out of camera, no post processing other than B/W conversion and maybe I think you said, a little cropping.

Well, you need to do a bit more. There is a lot of detail in the photos than can be enhanced using Photoshop's Shadow/Highlights tool and a little unsharpening as well on these two images.

I have attached just a quick example of what you might be able to achieve with the original images. I'm not sure how you took the images, whether in RAW or Jpeg, but given that you posted Jpeg I am going with that.

Also you need to save them as sRGB for the web as well, yes I know they are in Nikon sRGB but just keep that in mind too.

Anyway the attached two photos, I wouldn't crop the girl and baby one as it is much better the way you posted it originally.

On these forums to upload an image you need to keep the file no wider than 600 pixels and the file size no larger than 195k, in the galleries you can post larger images in there. Or you can host the images somewhere else and post a link to those images on the site they are hosted on.

Hope this helps and you don't mind me editing and posting your images, but I got the impression you were looking for a little advice maybe ???

[snarkler]

Welcome to the forums.

A few things, these are quite good if you are just starting out in Photography and great that you got the opportunity to photograph another culture.

You said they were straight out of camera, no post processing other than B/W conversion and maybe I think you said, a little cropping.

Well, you need to do a bit more. There is a lot of detail in the photos than can be enhanced using Photoshop's Shadow/Highlights tool and a little unsharpening as well on these two images.

I have attached just a quick example of what you might be able to achieve with the original images. I'm not sure how you took the images, whether in RAW or Jpeg, but given that you posted Jpeg I am going with that.

Also you need to save them as sRGB for the web as well, yes I know they are in Nikon sRGB but just keep that in mind too.

Anyway the attached two photos, I wouldn't crop the girl and baby one as it is much better the way you posted it originally.

On these forums to upload an image you need to keep the file no wider than 600 pixels and the file size no larger than 195k, in the galleries you can post larger images in there. Or you can host the images somewhere else and post a link to those images on the site they are hosted on.

Hope this helps and you don't mind me editing and posting your images, but I got the impression you were looking for a little advice maybe ???

Thanks for the advice! I actually have a kind of philosophy that all my pictures stay true to what my eyes saw to a high extent, so beyond cropping/B + W I generally don't photoshop mine. A lot of people ask me, then why use a dSLR? Well actually, I used to shoot all film, but my camera was stolen. So my dad right before our trip surprised the "family" (I'm the only who uses it) with our Nikon D70, and thats how it came into my hands. I love it compared to my original SLR, mainly because I could only afford to get 3-4 rolls a week developed. I've also learned so much more, so much faster with getting the product of my shooting instantly rather than waiting for the lab.

[Peter_AUS]

It is OK to stay true to what your eye sees, but the images (IMHO) are too dark, you can't really see the detail in the face, especially of the boy inside his stick hut.

I have found, using digital for a while now, that you have to so some post processing of the images especially if you convert them to something other than what they were taken in, e.g. colour, cropping, converting to B/W.

If you want to get more light on the subject especially like the boy who is shadow, then use some fill flash to help out in that case.

Yes the beauty of Digital is being able to see and learn as you go, but often the LCD gives you and image that appears brighter than it actually is, so you need to use the histogram a bit more to view if the shot is under or over exposed as well.

I hope you aren't offended about me manipulating your images at all, you didn't mention anything about them ?????

[snarkler]

It is OK to stay true to what your eye sees, but the images (IMHO) are too dark, you can't really see the detail in the face, especially of the boy inside his stick hut.

I have found, using digital for a while now, that you have to so some post processing of the images especially if you convert them to something other than what they were taken in, e.g. colour, cropping, converting to B/W.

If you want to get more light on the subject especially like the boy who is shadow, then use some fill flash to help out in that case.

Yes the beauty of Digital is being able to see and learn as you go, but often the LCD gives you and image that appears brighter than it actually is, so you need to use the histogram a bit more to view if the shot is under or over exposed as well.

I hope you aren't offended about me manipulating your images at all, you didn't mention anything about them ?????

Interesting thought, and I'll definitely take all this into consideration. And as per taking offense, heh, I'm a pretty laid back guy so I honestly didn't even think about you manipulating them, so I don't mind a bit if you fool with them, especially if it's to help. Thanks for the help everyone, I appreciate the feedback.