Hit Me!

[duckgoose]

So. I’m a student photographer, & I would really like some feedback on where I currently am with my work. The “red” photos actually make me feel physically sick but I’ve kind of just gone through that saying yes to everything stage, just to get the experience. After that session I’ve decided yes is not always the right answer. Anyway! I would really appreciate some honest (harsh is cool) feedback. I’m not yet happy with the work I’m producing and any tips on how to improve it would be greatly appreciated!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/80095806@N06/

[Worst Case Scenario]

Learn from your mistakes and delete those red pictures before you get arrested for crimes against humanity! The rest are okay, in fact pretty good for a student. The fairy pic is cheesy but I’ve seen it done far worse. I have a local faux whose work is not dissimilar to the rest of stuff. I don’t mean that as an insult as his pics are not as good as yours and he seems to be making a living at it.

Some one else will probably tell you exactly what’s wrong with each picture, but I’ll just say that it’s better to have 5 good shots than 5 good shots in amongst a dozen average ones.

[duckgoose]

I know they’re horrid. But my lecturer wanted me to put them up as the feedback is part of an assignment. I honestly never wanted to pick up my camera again after those..
So, sorry. I just want to clarify.. is my work coming off as fauxtog quality? Thanks for taking the time to have a look too!

I totally forgot that fairy pic was on there.. those bottom three are about 12months old. hopefully there’s a little difference between them and the new ones!

[Sassy]

Hi there, good on you for popping up some photos for CC, I have learnt so much from CC and hopefully so will you!

ill start with the red ones, red is a super tricky colour to get right. You know that the red shots aren’t great, it will be interesting to see if my CC matches what you think.

red shot 1… Baby looks happy so good job, composition is nothing flash, the horizon looks straight. The background has foot some weird things happening to it. The red has cast red all over hI’m, so his skin tones look off. Focus doesn’t look too baD. He has catch lights which are important and they don’t seem to be from a pop up flash. Light seems a biDodd, coming from up above him to the left. Shadow under his nose is nice. Love his roley arms.

Red shot 2…. Black and white conversion is a bit blah and boring, black and white for the hell of it Im just not a fan.

red shot 3… Previous shot in colour. Everyone is looking every where and its very distracting, posing isn’t terrible but nothing flash. It’s like men vs women. Focus doesn’t look too bad, maybe soft on standing boy. The major issue s the red casting, their skin tones are all over the joint. I like that their accessories are a litt

[Sassy]

Gah hit submit!

 

im not a fan of matching clothing, I like them to match without being really matchy if that makes sense.

Photo 3 and 4…. Baby is out of focus, you need to focus on subject closest to you and let focus fall back. Same issues as above with skin tones and kids looking in all different places. Kick mum and dad out next time or get them to stand directly behind you.

 

I only choose a select few to turn black and white and I generally know when I’m shooting if it will be colour or not.

 

Cake smash photos are cute, focus looks good, colours look good. I’d like more space around her.  It would be really nice if she looked at camera, you need to work on getting littl

 

 

 

[Sassy]

kids to interact with you and your camera. Her feet are dirty (underneath the cake and it bothers me) the background pattern is distracting.

 

The strongest images are the bubble blowing confetti ones.

 

 

[Sassy]

I’d like more bubbles though. That would be really cool.

 

I am a newborn photographer so I can give lots of CC with the baby ones. Focus is soft on eyes, there’s no light in the eyes. Not too sure how old bub is exactly but tummy with a newborn when awake is a bit of a waste of time. On 2nd baby image bub looks uncomfortable. One eye is open. If you open up the fist and slide under his cheek it will rise it up more and you will see more of his face. Newborn photography takes a lot f time, my average session is 2-3 hours.

 

Feel free to check out my work if you want http://www.facebook.com/sarahspics

 

 

[duckgoose]

I know the red shots are trash. There was honestly not one good thing I could say about them. & your breakdown of them was way more positive than I gave myself!

When you shoot do you tend to use auto or manual focus? I tend to have a lot of trouble when I use auto but because kids move so fast I thought I’d be better off. also. I can be rather shy so telling someone what to do can be a little difficult for me. How do you get parents to either stand where you want or leave?

& in regards to the Red, how would you tell someone that the idea they have for their photos may not turn out exactly how they think it will? I hinted at maybe using a white background & she could throw a bit of colour in with the clothing but I don’t think she liked that I wanted to change her idea.

Sorry for all the questions! but one more.. As you can see b&w is not a strength.. I looked up a few tutorials but couldn’t really find anything that I liked.. if you know of any that you could pass on that’d be great.

Thanks again for the feedback!

[duckgoose]

You have some amazing pictures there! I love Zach, that is adorable. I’ve been wondering how you get photos like that. Is it a two shot thing?

& honestly he was a little old for that type of shoot. I really should’ve just told her to wait a little longer & get some then.

Thank you for sharing yours!

[Worst Case Scenario]

So, sorry. I just want to clarify.. is my work coming off as fauxtog quality? Thanks for taking the time to have a look too!

Before I answer that could I ask you which of your pictures you think is the best?  I’ll explain why when I answer.

[duckgoose]

I can tell you the red ones are the worst.. as to the rest I’m not sure. At the moment I’m yet to actually produce anything that I’m overly proud of. The ones I like the most out of this would be the glitter ones, but that’s mainly because it was fun. I loved them when I first looked at them but now, not so much.

[Worst Case Scenario]

Well you asked if I thought you were coming off as Faux quality? But I’d have to say no,  your exposures and focus and colour ( apart from the red!) are fine. And there’s no spot colour or over smoothed skin.

But I do think  you suffer from one faux problem which is over doing the backgrounds.

Even the red shots would not be half as bad with a much tighter crop. These are portraits and as such should show the subjects face, not the backgrounds. I’m so glad you didn’t choose the kid with the balloons as your favourite as that looks like the sort of thing we get  in a portable studio set up in the corner of Asda. (which is what you call Walmart but half the size).  The picture should be the joy in the kids eyes as they see the balloon start to float, everything else is just a distraction. The glitter shots work well because there is no background so all your attention is on the girls. For me your best shot is the close up of the babies face.

Hope that is of some help.

[Sassy]

I am only new to photography and charging, i have had no formal training and have taught myself (with a lot of help from CC and other photogs). i use auto focus but i change my focal points to what ever is closest to where i want the focus to be, then i focus slightly and recompose.  I very rarely manual focus unless i have to because honestly i don’t have time, i’m not good at it. i will manual focus if i’m doing a close up and i’m suing a very Shallow DOF. manual focus is a good skill to have but from what i understand most professionals during a shoot will use auto focus these days as the camera is generally quite good at doing it and they have enough work to do themselves.

What exactly do you have trouble with auto focus?? what exactly is going wrong?

When shooting kids i use a faster shutter speed, and i bump my ISO if i have to. As the photog you have to be in charge, you can listen to people and see what they want but you have to make the ultimate judgement call. You know best. Pretty much grow some balls and boss people around a little, act more confident even if you aren’t. You really really need to work on interaction with you and the camera. you need to direct them where to stand and where to look. The best bit about being a photog is that YOU CAN SAY NO! you do not have to say yes to everything. You can choose to shoot what you want and how you want, people should come to you for your style and not for your price. I am only recent to the charging world but i am the most expensive photog in my area, my time away from my family is valuable and i want to be reimbursed properly for it. I still get clients even though im the most expensive. If you are practicing or portfolio building you should have the ideas of what you want to do (ie white background) say you are going to do it and ask around till you find someone who is willing to bite, after all they are getting free stuff, they shouldn’t complain about their free stuff (although some do, you dont want those people anyway).

 

With your second question, i would simply tell them that the red background will be very very hard, i shot a baby on a red blanket a few months back, the editing took for ever to get the skin right (or at least better then it was).

This is a SOOC red baby i did https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/536574_10151523153891587_914460031_n.jpg

while the red doesnt look too bad it actually clipped very easily and would not print very well at all, it would print as bright red blotches basically.

I am not sure what program you use for editing but what i do is use levels and gradient layers in PSE. PSE is a wonderful tool and quite affordable. i like to have the blacks more black and the whites more white. The trick is shoot something knowing that it will be black and white. i think red is one of those colours which don’t look great in BandW as well. I never turn every image black and white for the hell of it.

I think you really have to work on focus as well,  focus is not correct for the red ones or the little baby. I learnt to trash EVERY SINGLE IMAGE which was not focused where i want it (generally in a portrait on their eyes) i learnt very quickly after trashing images i loved. Even if it was a great moment or a lovely image otherwise i would still trash it. If those baby shots were mine they would have been deleted straight away, the client would never have seen them as they were not in focus.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/1234934_10151584667226587_377631945_n.jpg

this is a similar shot to your second baby one, as you can see baby looks a lot more comfortable. i spend a lot of time posing my babies so they look comfortable and cosey.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151584670291587&set=a.10151158323271587.439075.675996586&type=3&theater

this is how i would take a  photo of a baby who is awake, they have such big heads you cant expect them to lift them up a this age and take a nice shot. pop baby on its back and shoot down, try to get baby looking kind of at you you will have to move into babies view.

 

I think the glitter ones are your strongest, although they need more light in their eyes i think you should be proud of what you have done.

I am helping you because i think you have potential and you want to learn, if you had of said those red shots were the epitome of awesome i would have continued scrolling.

 

Ohh and i am new to photography and the business world, its a part time hobby business for me. i only do newborns as its all i am interested in. i am by no means as experienced and qualified as some of the other people on here.

here was my first baby, obviously not a paid thing, this was taken a little over 18 months ago. shot in auto, missed focus, selective colour, no posing, edited in picnik. https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc1/1002610_10151584675286587_977438177_n.jpg

i like to think there is hope for anyone willing to learn…. ohh and notice my lack of watermark…. feel free anyone to steal it and use it as your own work 😉

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sassy]

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=507171562695221&set=pb.272109452868101.-2207520000.1378081956.&type=3&theater

 

is this the image of Zach you like? this is called the froggie pose, it is an advanced pose and done as a composite, multiple images blended into one in photo shop. its not one i usually do as i generally like babies looking comfy and cosey, mum requested it and baby was sleepy enough to give it a crack.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=505538532858524&set=pb.272109452868101.-2207520000.1378081956.&type=3&theater

this dog one is also a composite.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=500758083336569&set=pb.272109452868101.-2207520000.1378081956.&type=3&theater

as is this one, bub had hands on him at all times (ohh and i wish i turned him so light was hitting his head first and not his bum, we all make mistakes huhh!!)

Do you remember how old he was? older babies are best done as awake playing shots, you can wrap them to get them to sleep and take sleeping ones that way. I did a 3 month old the other day and i got her to sleep and took sleeping wrapped newborn style, it wasnt difficult but then im comfortable with babies. id love to share the shot but mum doesnt want to sign a release 🙂

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