I am new to this…

[bellagrace]

Hello! Looking for some helpful advice…just started taking pictures a few months ago and in order to show my family and friends their pictures I started a fb page. I do not charge for the pictures that I take…any pictures that are taken are edited and then given to them in a cd. This is starting out as a hobby BUT I wanted to know if any of you see any potential for an actual business. Brutal honesty is encouraged! (I know some things are terrible….creases in the background on the baby photo…out of focus pictures…so I am not totally oblivious to my mistakes)…ok…here we go! https://www.facebook.com/bgracephoto?ref=ts&fref=ts#!/bgracephoto?fref=ts

[cameraclicker]

I only had a couple of minutes to look at your page.  The way you are gripping the camera in your avatar is not good. Some of your photos are not focused where they should be or have blur due to some other cause.

Keep practising.

[cameraclicker]

Business is about providing a product and/or service people are willing to pay enough for, to cover your costs and make a profit.  It involves networking, marketing, advertising, accounting, insurance, taxes and lots of other things equally not exciting.

I looked through some more of your photos. I like the One Year cake.  Most photos look like they were taken with a point & shoot or a SLR with kit lens.  Facebook annoys me because I can never seem to see the EXIF data so I can’t tell what camera was used, what lens was used or what shutter speed, aperture and ISO were.  However, looking at Alondra’s Quinceañera, I think that must be a prom or coming out party of some sort.  It looks like it was shot outside a shopping mall.  I see a limo, and a bunch of cute girls, late teens or early twenties, and way in the back, I see a sign 99 for something, and an arrow on a wall, my first thought is drive through coffee shop or car wash.  In another photo, way in back, there is a clothing drop box and a dumpster!  Beyond that, there is a row of stores.

When I am out shooting for myself, I am doing landscapes, cityscapes, travel stuff and street photography.  I want all that in the background so I shoot with a small aperture to get lots of depth of field and keep everything sharp.  I even have photos of dumpsters — in British Columbia, they have bear proof garbage cans, so I have a photo of them and even a close up of the mechanism to open them, there is a cover that allows a human’s hand to work the leaver but is too tight for the bear’s larger paw.  When you are out shooting, take the details, no matter what they are.

When you are shooting portraits and events, pay attention to the backgrounds, they should only be sharp if they are relevant.   If dinner was at a fancy restaurant or banquette hall, a photo of your subject getting out of a car or standing around in front of the restaurant and its sign is great to provide a sense of place.  Most photos of your subject should be shot with a wide enough aperture to blur the distracting details in the background.  You don’t need the cars in the parking lot, or the stores a block away!  If you are outside and the sky has nice clouds, shoot up with lots of depth of field to get your subject sharp and also fairly sharp clouds, but position yourself to avoid having signs between your subject and the clouds.   If the background adds to the photo in a good way, take some shots that include it, if the background detracts, then blur it out with a wide aperture and longer lens focused on your subject.

Some of your shots have a bright background and much less well lit subjects.  Set your exposure to under expose the background a little, then fire a flash to light your subject.  Experiment to see which settings give you a pleasing result.  Also, experiment with bouncing your flash, off a wall and perhaps off a reflector if you have an assistant available when outdoors.  Sometimes you can use a reflector instead of a flash.

[theflyingkitty]

I very much agree on how your holding the camera. Non-shutter-button hand should be resting underneath the lens/body to not only make it easier to do things like manually focus, but to also add more stability to keep away fuzzy shots.

[cameraclicker]

Check out this video about holding your camera: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDsx3-FWfwk

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