Reply To: Thoughts on my work please? Compliments or Critique but truth please

[ebi]

the critique was: Flat images, weird exposure things going on. I’m not even certain she knows how to use her camera

http://www.karenleighphotography.com/p216023233/h4df36#h56f53f82

http://www.karenleighphotography.com/p216023233/h4df36#h59dc9e7e

http://www.karenleighphotography.com/p216023233/h4df36#h625aa7ce

http://www.karenleighphotography.com/p216023233/h5c56cf2e#h5c56cf2e

She put some images back up and I’m glad she did. By bringing down the number of images she looks like a better photographer.  I think overall, there is a better way to present these images but the subject of website functionality is a completely separate one.

HDR sunflower shot – wacky wide and not very natural looking. why is it your first image and the first impression you want to make?
leaves shot – bad image. not interesting. get rid of it.
baby shot – overly lit in the front, not very lit in the back. fall off too much or not enough. i see lots of weird distracting shapes and colors.
backlit baby tub shot. cute, don’t hate it. parents love that shit. leave it in.
christmas baby double spread – cute shot. could have better facial expression but babies are hard so whatevs. remove your reflection from the bulb in the front.
pumpkin baby – bad color balance, styling could be better.
bokeh baby – bad contrast, cute kid
truck shot – poorly crafted, bad subjects, would be better without the cube truck behind the other truck.
cat shot  on white, not that great.
Baby turtle shot – what are you anne geddes now? Her pictures are not that interesting and i really don’t like it when ppl try to emulate her work.Other than that, it’s fine.
mom walking with child – flat, bad contrast, bad color kid looks ok, moms ass looks fat (my apologies if this is a self portrait). Not really a good photo.
red head dancer – i think she looks beautiful. i love the angle, and the smile . this should be the first impression people have of you. A little brighter more contrast, work on the color temperature. Do you have it wider? Are you cropping? If you have more, maybe play with different cropping.
dandelion baby – flat,weird technical thing going on here. not really a good image overall
same with the next photo. And also this is a good time to talk about consistency. Look at this photo and the one before. Notice the color temperature is completely different? Fix that. All we see is moms nose. We need to see more of mom.
cats – alright, whatever. i like cats. this is fine
blue baby – fine
boot baby – other ppl like this, i don’t really care for it, but whatever. i guess its fine.
random flower shot. no.
dandelion baby – flare doesnt’ make sense. not a great shot.
cat composite? what happened? photoshop filter? please step away from the filters…
violin girl – not a great model. delete.
sunflower girl – not a great model. delete. The profile shot makes her look very busty. probably not a good thing.
Candace Phelps – I actually like the light on this one. technically it looks like you know what you are doing.
And this brings me to another point. This girl looks boring. When shooting real people, especially senior portraits, I like to think of them as environmental portraits. So the standard poses are just boring. You can really set yourself apart by thinking outside the box. Every few years I have a cousin graduate from high school and so every few years, one kid has entirely different and creative senior portraits b/c all the rest of them get them done at the same place with the same backgrounds and the same boring poses. You’ll snag a ton of business if you can do this. Do fun and stupid stuff, regardless if it works or not. The ones I did this year where with a girl who had no personality.  Her answer to everything was “I don’t know”. In every photo she looks exactly the same. I feel that Candace does as well. That may be something you can fix, it may not be. It all depends. With my cousin, who i’ve known all her life, i wasn’t able too. I don’t fail that often, but I did this time. I also shot my male cousin who had far more energy and was way less meek and apathetic. His shots turned out much better.
boy with glasses and his girlfriend – were these engagement shots? ugh. too young to get married. weird angle, not a good shot.
Batman boy – weird angle, not a good shot.

Overall, you are still all over the place. You need to organize images better so that they flow well from one photo to the next. The nature stuff is the least important, unless it fits with a story. It’s not selling you on anything, so its best to just discard it if it doesn’t serve a purpose. You can also put it elsewhere, like on a blog or personal site somewhere. just not in the images that are to represent who you are as a professional photographer.

So yeah, you edited immensely and it completely changed the perception of you as a photographer. It’s amazing what editing can do. We all make bad photographs. We just don’t let other people see the bad. only the good. Our ability to be objective is what makes the difference.