Home › Forums › Photography Showcase › Constructive criticism appreciated!
- This topic has 13 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 5 months ago by sarah5string.
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June 15, 2013 at 7:56 am #10791sarah5stringParticipant
Hi all!
I’ve been reading YANAP for a while but thought I’d finally pluck up the courage to jump in 😉 Would appreciate any constructive criticism you may wish to spare 🙂 I’m always trying to better my work and love to share ideas/thoughts with others who love photography too.
June 15, 2013 at 3:56 pm #10799Worst Case ScenarioParticipantYou have some good stuff but it’s mixed in with some snapshots, trim down your page and you’ll have a great portfolio. Too many shots for any particular advice. Cull some shots and keep up the good work.
June 15, 2013 at 4:35 pm #10801iliketagParticipantMany of the images I looked at are very flat and rather uninteresting. Like WCS said, there are a lot of snapshots mixed in.
The portraits also seem over edited. I would dial back the filters. The sepia isn’t bad, but mixed with incredibly high contrast it looks awkward. If your going for conceptual pieces, that’s a little different… but if your goal is portraiture at any point, try and clean it up a little.
For instance, the sepia toned woman in standing in the field is very flat. She’s dead center too and one side of her face is in a detail-less shadow. It’s a good pose and an interesting body language, but try using a reflector to give a little back, maybe even a flash (off camera or through an umbrella).
It also seems like you’re shooting in the middle of the day a lot. I suggest trying to get some time out in the early evenings or overcast days to play around with some of that light.
The shots of the flowers and insive the cave were the most interesting ones I saw.
What do you want your special niche to be? What do you enjoy shooting most?June 15, 2013 at 5:46 pm #10803nesgranParticipantRight, are you a professional photographer, aspiring or a happy hobbyist? It sounds like a company name on your flickr
To start off, I like your Welsh lake pics in BW, I like the composition of the shot with the geese and the pic of the kid with the camera is cute. Most of your BW landscape pictures work except maybe not the one with the church and the one with the bench.
Your portfolio has a number of problems though, first off would be the first four people shots. They are severely over edited and do not look good. It looks like you’ve tried to do lots of fancy things with a jpg which has completely fallen apart during the manipulations. Highlights are blown and the tonality has gone completely wonky. From looking at them the two outdoor shots have a massively overexposed sky, a fill flash would be your best friend in this scenario. The self portrait looks weird because of the background that doesn’t seem to belong and the  photo of the guitarist looks like it was done with a cell phone anno 2006.
Of your portrait pics I would say the only ones I think work are the kid, “benjamin blake” and “skyward”. The rest have the same blown highlight and serious overediting or end up in the category of snapshots (like the kids dancing). The snapshotiness of a lot of the pics like all the kids dancing, the swan and a few others drags the overall quality down. Nothing wrong with snapshots, in fact I took several hundred today, but it isn’t something I would have put in a portfolio looking for critiques. Not every shot can be great after all.
I can see that you are a sound photographer however your editing and your selections are letting you down a bit. If I were you I’d re-edit the editing disasters if you have RAW files for them, if not in the bin they go. Then get rid of the snapshots and add a few more high quality shots and you’ll have a solid portfolio.
June 17, 2013 at 7:06 am #10853sarah5stringParticipantThanks guys. Some great advice there. Some of the photos are quite old back in the days when I was shooting in Jpeg (I know I know…). I started shooting in digital last year and prior to that all my experience was 35mm. I’m still getting the hang of  photoshop (I recently bought elements 11 and started shooting in RAW which has helped a LOT and made my life so much easier). I’m trying to bulk up my portfolio now that I’m getting higher quality shots and getting the hang of photoshop.
As for what I do, well I do a mix of shooting for pleasure and business (I’ve had to register as a business as started taking on a small amount of paid work, weddings for example). I work full time in another industry so what I do is restricted photography to evenings/weekends and days off but then I also have 2 children and am a single parent which restricts it even more! My partner also runs a community website and so I do photography for that which is mostly press/events. I’m still trying to find my ‘niche’ in all honesty. I also love shooting bands and have very recently upgraded my camera to an SLT which should vastly improve my low light shots. I was previously using a sony A390 which REALLY struggled with low light. I’m now using a Sony a65 SLT.
I love landscape work but don’t get change to get out so am a bit stuck with that. In fairness I tend to shoot whatever comes my way, hopefully I’ll one day find something that I love!
Keep it coming. Really appreciate the advice! totally agree with the snapshot look. Will trim it down and hunt for some better quality stuff to add, or just use it as an excuse to get out and do more! 🙂
June 17, 2013 at 8:29 am #10859nesgranParticipantThat all makes a bit more sense then. Bear in mind a portfolio doesn’t have to be more than 20 shots and in fact it is better to have 20 amazing shots than 20 amazing and 30 mediocre. I should probably add that my post was done after idling the thread for several hours and not checking for replies beforehand
If you haven’t got lightroom that would be a worthwhile investment, especially if you want to start going into more serious events shooting. PS etc is great if you are working on one or two photos but if you get to the hundreds you need something much faster. I saw my local Curry’s was selling out lightroom 4 licences for £50 I think. Lightroom 5 adds a bit more but will cost more than twice that and the extra features are few
How are you getting along with the new sony? I personally can’t stand the EVF. Have you got some good off camera lighting? Have you got some quality glass for it? Both will make a huge difference for the quality of your shots
June 17, 2013 at 8:34 am #10860sarah5stringParticipantI’m loving the EVF. Once I got used to it I actually find it much faster and easier to use. My a390 was very hit and miss with exposures some times, the a65 is 10x better and was definitely worth the investment. I was tempted by the a77 but after reading and comparing there was little difference between them that could justify the cost.
Better glass is next on my list. I’ve currently got a 18-70mm f/3.8 kit zoom, sony prime 50m f/1.8 (gorgeous lens that), and a tamron 70-300m f/4.5 telephoto macro which is decent enough but sluggish. Currently on the hunt for a decent prime 18mm but am on a limited budget!
As for lighting I don’t have any off camera lighting at the mo, another thing on the shopping list. For indoor stuff I’m currently using some bendable desk lamps as daft as that sounds! But they were cheap and workable until I can get something better. I have hired studio lighting/backdrops from a friend of mine before now though so if it’s a paid shoot I can hire some decent light/flash units.
I’m finding photoshop a bit awkward to learn and get rid. I’ve only had elements 11 a couple of months and before that was using paint.net which was ok for minor adjustments but nowhere near as good as elements. I did a trial of lightroom and it gave me a headache with the complexity, hence why I went for elements 11 when I upgraded to an imac for editing. Doing everything one bit at a time as budget allows! 🙂
June 17, 2013 at 9:13 am #10865cameraclickerParticipantScott Kelby’s books for Photoshop Elements are pretty good.
Lightroom is more browser/organizer than editor but the Adobe Camera Raw it has is basically the same as the version for Photoshop CSx, which is more powerful than the version in Elements, or that certainly used to be the case. I haven’t upgraded Elements since 8. Photoshop CS5 lets me do the editing I used to do in Elements, but using 16 bit mode. I probably don’t use much of the power it has but I like it because it does a better job than Elements for the things I want to do.
June 17, 2013 at 9:19 am #10867sarah5stringParticipantI do like elements, it’s certainly and upgrade and much easier to use and get decent quality than the old free software I had. Still trying to get my head around it though and seem to just be fiddling with things to try and work stuff out! Applying layers for example still confuses the hell out of me!
Bring me back my darkroom! lol!
June 18, 2013 at 9:20 am #10882JCFindleyParticipanthttp://www.flickr.com/photos/96625749@N06/8913350451/
I don’t do a lot of sports photography but did spend some time with a buddy of mine shooting some NCAA basketball games so I could be at least competent shooting my sons. The biggest thing he ingrained on me was never let the shutter speed go below 1/400. The one above could probably benefit from that advice. Â I think a shallower DoF would work better to in isolating the subject as well as the stage in the background takes away from the feel for me.
The flowers are generally nicely done but can be a tough sell as everyone shoots flowers. You would either need to market them hard or you will get lost in the crowd.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/96625749@N06/8871488600/
Conceptually I gather you are using the hedge to frame the subject but in execution the subject ends up being a too small within the image and the hedge dominates.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/96625749@N06/8998954541/
Nicely composed with good clouds in the sky that add a lot to the image.
June 19, 2013 at 9:51 am #10898sarah5stringParticipantThanks! That’s a really good point about not dropping below 1/400. Will have to remember that one for future 🙂
June 20, 2013 at 11:49 am #10932sarah5stringParticipantI’ve had a rejig and uploaded some new images if anyone else wants to offer their opinions 🙂 Still working at removing/adding stuff though so it’s by no means finished yet lol
June 20, 2013 at 12:13 pm #10935JCFindleyParticipantLove the macaw
June 20, 2013 at 12:15 pm #10936sarah5stringParticipantI hate birds generally, they freak me out. But I do love that photo. Shame it looks like it wants to eat your soul though… :/
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