Reply To: Do I blow big chunks?

[Bill]

Your not bad, but there are a few images that either need tweaking or taken out of your portfolio all together.
Speaking in terms that your portfolio should present your best work, here is what I see.

Couple with kids – I find this angle to be a little distracting, though the photo looks good, I can’t tell whether they are on a hill or the sidewalk is slanted or what. Nothing major, but had to say it.

Baby – The baby’s eyes are not very sharp, appears focus point is on ear.

Kids in woods – This is where I think your equipment may be giving you some issues. The DOF is good but the circles of confusion COC are very distracting for this background. I don’t think there is much you can do about it without forcing a smoother bokeh for the BG, but then it may look forced.

Family in woods – Again your equipment has failed you. Look closely at this image, see the purple fringing along the sharp edges of the tree?   This is caused when the lens cannot converge the colors of light correctly or a combination of editing causing the fringing to appear more exaggerated then it was normally.

Little girl – Not exactly a great angle, the pose is nice but by having her look up at you, you lose any catchlights that may have been in her eyes, also the pose makes her look somewhat evil. I’m sure she isn’t, but it looks that way.

Little Baby on blanket – The color is way off on this one, most likely due to a color cast being reflected from the blue blanket that the baby is on. You could do a little spot correction on just the baby to correct the skin tone so they don’t look like a blue baby. Also, It is bugging me, the person in the BG, should not be there, I feel that it is not a good thing to have someone’s ass in the shot not matter how blurred the BG may be.

Okay, to be clear, I am being extremely hyper critical on these, I stopped there, because my neck hurts a bit and I am getting a little tired. Not at you. I think your a decent photographer. You may need to ditch that 4/3’s a step up and get a better quality DSLR. You don’t have to go uber extreme, but something that is a step up and provides some good choices for lens and accessory add-ons.

I didn’t see the images from earlier in the post that nesgran commented on, not sure if you took those down or what.

Anyway, good luck and keep shooting.