Reply To: Constructive Criticism?

[nesgran]

Ok, pricing seems right to cover your gas mileage. Bear in mind that you will require insurance and be signed up for taxes etc as otherwise if you get sued or the IRS takes a fancy you’re completely screwed.

To start off with, it isn’t all that bad. I’ve seen photographers who’ve been in the business far longer take photos at that level but on the other hand there are problems. A few general pointers are that your colour consistency isn’t good. I see warm, I see slightly to rather green and I see varying levels of saturation in your photos from the same shoot. Are you on a calibrated monitor? If not that would be my suggestion to get first for investments in the business. Second would be some form of flash or reflectors.

I would cull shots which don’t look crisp and sharp like the kid with the bike helmet. It looks a bit odd somehow, have you used lots of noise reduction on it or is just slightly out of focus?

The shot of the guy in blue shirt and girl stood over him isn’t great. First off the colour balance is very wrong and quite green. The bokeh is distracting, this could have been alleviated by using a longer lens, bigger aperture or just put more distance between the subject and the background. I can’t tell what settings you’ve used since you don’t have any EXIF data on your photos but it leaves a bit to be desired. The bright white patch just left of her head is quite distracting and draws your eyes to that rather than them as they are much darker. This shot would have been helped a lot by some flash. While their eyes look smiley they also look dead, there are no catch lights which help with that.

The shot of the family throwing leaves you have the family slightly blurred, just like your background and they don’t really stand out. You’ve also got the chain link fence running through the background which doesn’t look good. Again, get the subject further away from the background and let it melt more to a luscious bokeh mess. It will also help with making the people more prominent in the picture. They don’t have to be sharp, only noticeable sharper than the background not to melt into it.

These are some of the problems with the photos you can work on to get better. My three things I’d suggest is to nail down colour temperature, hue and saturation. Second, get more light on your subjects, they look a bit dull like the mum kissing her small son. They come off a bit grey. Third would be to manage your backgrounds far more than you’ve done in these photos. Most of them have some distracting element in the background. For example like the piano, what is that chair doing in the background. Why is it there?