Reply To: looking for some honesty. :-D

[iliketag]

Wow, defensive much? He wasn’t being malicious dude.
Look, you need to find your niche. That’s what he’s saying. Don’t be a jerk, or else you’re going to rile up this small community and no one will be on your side.
Basically right now your work lacks anything of interest. Leaves and grass and flowers are great for practice but they won’t be your bread and butter unless you’re doing super macro for text books or natgeo. If you want to shoot portraits, go out and photograph people. If you want to do landscapes, shoot it. A camera’s kit lens is better than most people give it credit for and until you understand the functions and limits of it, you shouldn’t move on.

I started in high school on a Canon film camera. When digital moved into our school and replaced my photo lab, I adapted and took a Digital Photography class where they had us learning on a 5mp point and shoot with manual settings. I took my first set of portraits on a Canon Powersot A530 5mp point and shoot (the model one up from the ones I learned on in that 101 class) then adopted my mother’s lonely Rebel XTi my senior year.
My first portraits were senior pictures for a friend, shot with the little baby p&s. His parents were thrilled and they payed me $50 and loved them so much, they tipped me an additional $30. You can still take excellent photos with a basic camera. Don’t use that as an excuse. If you don’t know how to utilize your current equipment, practice! Experiment! Don’t think that high end glass and a 2k body is going to improve your photography. YOU have to improve it first.

If you want to take portraits, grab a friend. Who doesn’t love a new profile pic? If you want to shoot landscapes, go on a hike. If you want to shoot street photography, go downtown and hang out for a day on your weekend.

Don’t start a fight, man. You’ll get crushed in here when you start behaving that way. We’re a nice lot, but we won’t sit by and let you behave childishly.