Give It To Me Straight

[yp]

I learned on film and I’ve been an avid amateur for a decade. I’ve been doing this professionally for less than six months and would love for some honest critique of my work and website.

http://yvelsphotography.com

Thanks in advance!

[Worst Case Scenario]

Please don’t take this personally as I’m just typing out the thoughts I had as I looked at your site. I don’t think it would be unreasonable to assume that a potential customer would think the same thing.

My first thoughts were nice site with good looking pictures  but then I started noticing that most (if not all) of your subjects are black and I began to wonder what part of the world you are in and how you could run a portrait company if you are in a third world country. So I started looking around the site to find out where you are based. It says Newark photography in the page title but I’m in the UK so I’m not sure where that is. Your contact page doesn’t offer any hints, so I started looking at the rest of the site and found your ” trip to Haiti” shots… which were the same as the portraits page? So Now I’m thinking nice site but this guy doesn’t have any shots to put on it so he’s using his holiday pics ! Then I looked at the “Children’s” page and they were pretty much the same. But I would have to say not as good as the rest.

So I’m left thinking that this guy can take good holiday pics, but if I were a white company CEO looking for a commercial portrait (who could pay big time) I’d be looking elsewhere.

I suspect I’ve just raised plenty of questions that you never even considered so I hope it helps.

[ebi]

i see a distinct style and certainly some consistency in your work but it doesn’t have enough variation. You have some really beautiful portraits. I’d like to see this laid out in a better way on your website. I don’t like the top down layout. I prefer a horizontal scroll b/c it would be more consistent to what you’d see in a travel magazine.

Some really beautiful and inspiring stuff in here though, Yvel. I want to see more. I’ll offer a more in depth critique of the images when I have some more time. But for now, keep up the good work!

[cameraclicker]

My first thoughts were nice site with good looking pictures  but then I started noticing that most (if not all) of your subjects are black and I began to wonder what part of the world you are in and how you could run a portrait company if you are in a third world country.

 

Well, the USA is not a third world country, yet!  Newark is south of New York, and if you use Google Maps Street View, you will see there is a high percentage of black people on the streets.  I zoomed in to about Broad St and Rte 510 where there appeared to be people on the sidewalks, then changed to street view, and scanned up a street.

 

I really like the girl on a beach walking toward a boat.  That would be a good stock travel photo.  Unfortunately I have an appointment so I have to stop here.

[yp]

Worst Case Scenario,

Thank you for your honest input.  I clarified my location and made it Newark, NJ portrait photographer, instead of Newark Portrait Photographer.  Also, I removed some portraits that were taken in Haiti from the portfolio aspect.  But, now that I think about it, I may just leave my best picture from Haiti in the portfolio.

As to your perception on my location being in the 3rd world, the answer is no.  It’s Newark, NJ which is part of the United States.  And to your concern that many of my subjects are African-American, you’re absolutely correct.  But not all African-American people are from the third world.  As a matter of fact, most of my subjects happen to be engineers.  Nonetheless, I hope you’re not suggesting the fact that they are black, makes the quality of my work less desirable or appealing because they are not white.  I do understand that black people make up only 13% of the US population, and from a commercial standpoint, it may be better to add more caucasian subjects to my portfolio in terms of variety and marketability.

It’s always great to have an open discussion on a sensitive subject such as race. Don’t be afraid to speak your mind, as long as it’s done in a respectful way, all is good.

[yp]

Ebi.

Thank you for your compliments with regards to some of my photos.  I appreciate it.

Also, thank you for your input and honest critique, too.  I took your advice and changed the layout of the homepage to add a magazine feel to it.  The portfolio has also been changed to match this layout, but I have yet to change the top-down structure to my blogs.  I’m going to have to sleep on that one for a bit.

 

[yp]

Camerclicker.

 

Thank you for clarifying the location for Worst Case Scenario. I really appreciate your compliment on the girl on the beach photo, too.

Thanks!

 

P.S. For some odd reason, I keep wanting to say camera licker.  Lol…it befuddles me.

[Worst Case Scenario]

On my phone at the moment so I’ll write more tomorrow

But Newark  is in  Nottinghamshire and I suspect yours is a fake

[cameraclicker]

But Newark  is in  Nottinghamshire and I suspect yours is a fake

LOL!   I don’t know if fake is quite the right word.  I live in Scarborough, it is a little north-east of York and west of Durham.  Burlington is about an hour’s drive from here.  Like Newark, NJ, they are all quite real names and places.  While York is a short drive for me, New York is about a 12 hour drive, but if I went there, Newark would be just across the river.  New England and Upper Canada were settled by people who left the UK for one reason or another.  Obviously when they arrived here, they gave places names they were familiar with.  This has left us with a mix of place names matching those in the UK, and names taken from the words of the native tribes like Cheektowaga, Tonawanda, Toronto and Couchiching.

 

[ebi]

yvel, better but put some space between your images. I also don’t like how everything is blacked out except the image that you are on. i think full color image is better with a 10-20% opacity change (like a screen with white at 10-20% opacity). Don’t care for:

Out of focus asian guy. 4th image of kid with tongue hanging out. up the nose shot.

on personal haiti project, i’d take out scrawny dog which is actually more disturbing then skinned goat. Buckets – not really interesting. Brighten donkey shot so we can see dudes a bit better.again take out scrawny dog. School girls shot is out of focus and so it’s not working. not digging emploi du temps. 2 boys on knees – seems like snot running down his face. not nice. not digging feeding shot either. Everything else looks pretty good. Keep shooting. WHile i certainly disagree that your portfolio is “too black”, yo do need to have some variation. good luck shooting a travel story on newark. lol.

[yp]

Hi Ebi.

Thank you for your thorough analysis.  I’ve cut the photo of the Asian male (I think I forced it in there since he wasn’t ‘black).

As for the scrawny dogs, I’ve decided to keep it in there to show the sad reality that exists in Haiti.  Most of their animals are very malnourished and abused.  It’s there for awareness.

The shack with the buckets is personal to me, and that’s staying there, too.  That’s where my father grew up.  He was able to save  enough money and move to the U.S., start his own small business, which allowed his wife and children to live comfortably.  His sacrifice allowed me to discover photography in prep school.  When it comes to photographing black subjects, I’m pretty sure I’d be taking pictures of black female video vixens if it weren’t for my education.  And this is coming from a black male that is surrounded by that genre of photography.  But I digress.  Now, he’s building houses and hospitals in Haiti.  Yeah, that’s why that photo means so much to me.  I understand the average viewer might not understand that, and I’m perfectly fine with that.

I removed the blurred photo of the school girls because you are right about the non-focus being such an issue.

Also, I lowered the opacity on the homepage, but I’m unable to put space in between the images though.  I’ll have to look into that.  Oh, the Emploi Du Temps; that’s a school my uncle built.  I wanted to show the drastic difference between that school and the UNICEF tent.  It’s crazy to believe that those two schools are right down the street from one another.

Again, thank you for your input as I’m starting my new adventure, even if most of my subjects are ‘black’.  BTW… I’m moving to Florida next week and I’ll be able to diversify my my portfolio then.  😉

Thank you for your input and critique.

[Worst Case Scenario]

Wow the new look site is so much better!  Well done for listening to the advice given.

Just  to clarify the points I was trying to make. Because you had most of the Faces of Haiti pictures in the life style  section it looked like you didn’t have enough pictures. That’s now Sorted.

And because you only had black kids in the children section and almost everyone shown on your site was black, I was beginning to think that you may have been based in the Caribbean, hence my comment about being in a third world country. I didn’t mean to offend anyone. I’m white and from the UK so if there were any visual clues to location I missed them, which is why I looked at your contact page. But that didn’t help either.

If there’s one piece of advice I can give you (after 30 years as a pro) it’s never to underestimate the stupidity of the general public ( your customers) My website VERY clearly states my address and gives all my prices in £’s sterling. But because my SEO is pretty good I regularly get wedding enquiries from people in Massachusetts because you have copied all our towns names!

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