Reply To: I guess I better share

[Bill]

Hello Andy and glad to offer some critique for your photos. I offer true honest opinions and advice from a photographers point of view. My critique is not to harm or just bash others but a true assessment of what I see. I have some extra time today as I have no shoots scheduled for today.

Image 1 – the flower looks nice but maybe a bit dark and the DOF seems to shallow. IMO, I maybe would have opened up the DOF just slightly and brought some more vibrance into the flower to make it pop. Just curious, what were the settings you shot this at, the EXIF is not listed.

Image 2 – the woman in the corner – Looks nice, very warm, but okay for the scene. Her eyes are very dark, given her angle there would be no catch lights, but I would have maybe bounced a very narrow light into the face to highlight her features. The only other things I see that needs attention, the image is tilted slightly to the left and there is too much of a color cast from the bricks on her face causing her to look slightly orange.

Image 3 – woman laughing – I think this would be nice in a BTS portion or something similar to that. Though it may not be the most flattering for her, it shows good interaction between you and her. Maybe using a reflector or a flash for some fill light would make this better, a bit on the dark side. You can see there are no details in her jeans, but overall not bad.

Image 4 – B&W image of woman – I would get rid of this one. It appears way over sharpened and not very flattering for a woman’s face. Her pores appear to be over exaggerated and the pose angle is not good. This is on top of the harsh sunlight casting a hard shadow across her face. Delete!

Image 5 – Hand in waterfall – Nice capture of the hand in the water, but I am not sure what is going on. The hand has some sunlight on it and is slightly blown out. Not sure what it is, but the image is just not grabbing me, can’t figure out what to say, sorry.

Image 6 – Trees on hillside – Slightly slanted to the left but not too bad. I probably would not include this one, just because though it is not bad, it just isn’t all that interesting, sadly. I would have cloned what ever that thing is on the ground in the lower right-hand corner along with the same thing slightly higher in front of the tree at the top of the hill. Not sure what they are, but they don’t need to be there.

Image 7 – waterfront – Nice, slightly noisy but not bad. Keep but not in a portfolio.

Image 8 – wedding couple – Nice, but the DOF needs to be smaller, here’s why. The car and the cabin/house in the background are too close to the couple and are distracting. A smaller DOF would render the BG out of focus and draw your attention to the couple. The perspective looks good, the lens flare looks good, if anything it acts like a leading line to the couple. May be a bit on the noisy side, from what I am seeing, but not 100% sure, would like to know your settings for this. Keeper.

Image 9 – couple on bridge – Nice but too far away for my taste. I’ll let others comment on this one.

Image 10 – hands holding camera – Seems very noisy, you can see it in your fingers. Your colors need to be adjusted somewhat, I see too much magenta and orange on your hands.

Image 11 & 12 – Kids – The small boy in the basket seems to blue and no catchlights in the eyes. Maybe a reflector, fill flash or a bounce card would brighten ip the baby and fill in the eyes some. I don’t care for the pose, but that’s just me, but I am not a baby photographer.
The little girl, her face is dirty, I know she is a kid but need to wipe that face clean before snapping a photo. She is also looking down, probably die to the bright sun. The shadows are not helping much for this one. I would delete both of these, not portfolio material, IMO.

Overall, not bad, just some technical issues to address to make the images look better. Trust me, we all make them. It helps to have another eye look at them to help us see what we are not seeing for ourselves.

Believe me when I say, if I didn’t think they were any good, I would have stopped at the very first image and not have spent the time to type this out.