Home Forums Am I a Fauxtog? I think I'm ready to ask for criticism, but I'm terrified of being inadequate. Reply To: I think I'm ready to ask for criticism, but I'm terrified of being inadequate.

#8825
JCFindley
Participant

Hi Rachel

You are doing just fine for your level and time and I have seen people with whole portfolios filled with much worse.

OK, I don’t know a thing about people shooting so will talk a little about your artistic shots. As night said, they are not bad just kind of lacking on the wow factor. The deer is probably my favorite of the bunch but would like to see a little tighter zoom on the deer since it is the main subject of the shot and would prefer it was bounding into the scene instead of moving out. On more than a couple of the animals you are shooting them from human height view.  What I mean is you are looking down on them which is how almost everyone with a cell phone camera will shoot their pet. Try getting down on their level more often and shoot them at their own level and that will generally improve the shot. (Hobbes is a nice shot that your standard pet owner won’t think to do all that often)

Speaking of pets, everyone starts out shooting them and has a lot of shots with them. Just be careful that if you do go pro, that your portfolio is not filled with them. To me, it says yeah, I got a camera and am going to offer to sell everything I shoot. (Not quite true, but is the impression it gives me.) You have a few other things in there that everyone starts out with, the flowers and ducks come to mind. Nothing wrong with flowers or ducks but since everyone has them and they are easy to find the shot has to be something beyond wow to get noticed and sell. There is one flower that has the brown spots as it starts to die and a couple others with a mix of bright and shadow. The dripping flower is more unique and would actually stand a chance of selling but again, the market is just saturated with florals and it is tough to get seen and if you do it has to be better than the other ten thousand images of the same subject to sell.

And the sunset is well done as is.

So, you are doing just fine but if you want to take it to the next level you just have to find the wow factor meaning getting the scene or subject the general public just doesn’t see that often or in a way they don’t see it very often.