Looking for Critique

[Greeny]

Hey guys. I am new to this site and would appreciate some feedback. I have been shooting for about two years in a variety of settings and am looking to make the step from amateur to professional. Here is my website:

http://iangg0.wix.com/iang-photography

Looking for any thoughts & advice.

Cheers

 

[nairbynairb]

You’ve got a good start I think.

You need to watch your horizon lines in your landscapes (they look weird when they aren’t level).

I think you need to put a bit more thought into your images, and maybe spend more time on them afterwards.

What I just said mostly applies to your cosplay ones that just look like snapshots of people in cool costumes (which is cool, but you aren’t trying to just take snapshots)

Easily you can take a cool snapshot and make it into a better photo by spending some time (7 mins for this) in photoshop:
Before/After
http://www.flickr.com/photos/80294871@N07/10824161994/lightbox/

Let me know if you would like me to show you what I did so that you can apply it to the full resolution image.

[Worst Case Scenario]

Like Nairby says, you have a good start. You’ve got too many shots to comment on everything so I’ll stick to the cosplay section. The shots of the guy with the husky are way ahead of all the others. They actually have a feel about them. Everything else is very staged looking and too brightly lit. I don’t mean over exposed, just overly bright ( even some of the night shots).There’s no atmosphere in any of them. Super heros have a secret life and they live in the shadows. Yours are shot in the desert in bright sun shine. The Jedi’s are the good guys, they are repelled by the dark side, but you shot them at night (so you see the light sabres?) Yet you didn’t have the light sabre turned on in one of the best shots.

With actor friends you’ll have plenty of opportunities to shoot some more. Keep trying, but try thinking about how the finished shot is meant to look before you start shooting.

[Greeny]

Thanks nairbynairb

Would love to learn how you did that. I have to admit photoshop is not my strong point hence why I tend not to do much in post for fear of making it worse 🙂 . It is an area I am learning though and am working on improving. I did the editing for this image in lightroom 4. This was actually shot on a 3o + degree Celsius day in the hills near Perth Western Australia. All the shrubbery and grasses behind were very gold & Green which did not give me the cold feel I was looking for in this series. That was my main focus in post processing.

Think I know which Landscapes you are referring to and it is something I am paying more attention to in more current shoots.

Thanks for your advice.

 

[Greeny]

Thanks Worst Case.

You are right we shot at night so I could get the light play with the light sabers on.

The pic with the light saber off….. it was a first attempt at this kind of thing. I like the shot but you are right it’s not quite right. The reason the Saber is off is that the battery had died just before this shot. Disappointing.

I agree the shots with the husky are by far my favourite. I think they turned out the best.

I can see your point with the desert shots. The ones at night I was pushing myself to work to quickly because I had a lot of people waiting around and didn’t end up getting the lighting the way I wanted. I still like them which is why they are up but I’ve always thought there was something missing from them.

Thanks for your advice

[nairbynairb]

It’s really not that hard to do what I did…

Do you own a pen tablet? I use the Wacom Capture. It’s amazing, I can’t even imagine how I did photoshop before I got one.
If you don’t have one, I’d recommend getting one!

And to achieve that look I:
Used a curves adjustment layer to bring up the brightness of the image,

used a curves adjustment layer to bring down the brightness of the image and then used a layer mask to have it only affect the areas of the image that I didn’t want the viewer’s eye ( outside and on camera left ),

I used another curves adjustment layer to bring up the brightness and I used a layer mask to have it only affect the dude,

I used Soft Light layers with a white and black brush to dodge/burn the highlights and the shadow on the guy,

I used a levels adjustment layer to add red and blue into the shadows,

I used a hue/saturation adjustment layer to take saturation out of the image and then I used a layer mask to have it only affect his cloak,

then I used 1 more curves adjustment layers to change the colours of the image up ( adding more green in the midtones and blues into the shadows, etc…)

lastly I got a stamp-visible layer (ctrl+alt+shift+e  on PC) and I used the “Smart Sharpen” filter to sharpen the image and then layer masked that to only affect his face.

And viola!

 

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