Reply To: Looking for advice!

[Al]

First things first, agree with sailgal, jetpix and brownie in that working with M will help. Maybe not right now (as I’ll explain below) but it will. Not sure how ready you are, but by no means would I tell you not to use M.  Can’t hurt.

Why I agree that M might not be for you at the moment is inline somewhat with what dicksforeyes says.  Basically, I find your images snap-shottish/boring.  Not bad, just not interesting to me.  They speak to me as someone clearly learning, and that’s ok. But none of your images stood out as something other than an image that could have been taken by any other newb.  I did the same when starting.  What you need to ask yourself is how you go about ensuring that your images are different from the billion other people who could have been standing there taking the same exact shot.

You’ve GOT to get more creative with your composition. The vast majority of your images are pretty much bang dead in the center which to me is really really boring.

Also, all of your animal images feels soft. Maybe it’s the upload, but I have a feeling it’s a result of your doing a great deal of cropping of the image since you can’t get close enough in-camera, right?

Short answer is that you’re still in snap-shot phase. Does that make you a fauxtog? No, it makes you an amateur that’s trying to learn and that’s ok. We’ve all been there.  Some guys, like “no one special”, are still there even if they don’t know it.   Keep shooting, but keep being harsh on yourself and ensure you’re trying to do something different than every other joe schmoe with a camera.

May I also recommend Digital Photography School.. great place to get critique.. but I’m biased, I’m a moderator there. (http://digital-photography-school.com/forum/members/bigfuzzy.html) 😉

Good luck!

NOTE TO “no one special” – “Proper exposure, nice composition, not a lot of editing if any”  thank you for your opinion, but your attitude/opinion might be better received if the vast majority of your portfolio wasn’t boringly composed dead center.. heck your Kimberly dawn portfolio has 4 of 35 images NOT composed bang dead in the center, ie boring.  All but ONE of your “Color” album are dead center!!  Every single image of your “B&W”, “Animals”,  portfolios are dead center.. Practically the same with your Sextones album. I stopped looking at this point.  I’m shocked honestly that you’d give advice on composition. I won’t comment on the editing and exposure issues on Kimberly, poor girl.

So, may I kindly suggest you reevaluate your own above quoted advice as you do exactly what you tell the OP is wrong with her work! Especially when doing it with such a holier than thou attitude, yeah?