Photog or Fauxtog?

[VampireKetsuki]

Wish there was a way to quote on this forum… would make replying a heckuva lot easier…

Images 1-4 were at an anime con, and I was getting their costumes… Except for the last one, they were snapshots… For the posing in image one, if you’ve seen Mary Martin’s Peter Pan, that’s the exact same pose both ladies struck as the boy who never grew up. As for the bags on the ground, she had nowhere else to put them, and I wanted to capture her entire outfit. The second was a ‘WTF? The stand-up comedian has a cosplayer?’ taken quickly before leaving the room to go to another panel. The third I’ll agree I could’ve had the background less in focus, and the fourth, well it was the beginning of the end of my camera. It refocused at the last second before the shutter released…

“Not So Joy” aka the fifth image, was actually taken for a class assignment, to practice using reflectors. We were supposed to get it that dark, and the lightening in the shadows is a gold reflector.

“Man Up” was a cellphone shot, uploaded to my gallery on a whim. Again, dA isn’t my professional portfolio, and I wanted to give tips of the ‘behind the scenes’ look at how lighting was set up by my teacher, to hopefully help other people (and remember myself)

Thank you for the compliments on the tunnel. The ISO was high since I had no way of knowing how bright it would be in there (it was basically a plastic bounce-house without the bounce, all lit from the sun which was going in and out of the clouds)

For the wedding ones, 18 was taken just after the flower girl had a meltdown, but that often happens with weddings so I captured both good and bad (my mom for example remembers that the flower girl fell asleep under the altar at her wedding, and she wishes she had even a snapshot of that). 12 I’m going to assume because you don’t like the selective color (which I did miss on her ear a tad, I’ll admit) but the bride actually requested it. I also remember looking through other wedding albums and seeing the back of the hair shot, to remember the hairdo. As for 5, I took it without flash, but unfortunately caught someone else’s, so I had to make do with what I had.

[Nightrose]

You were gracious with your response to a fairly harsh (but admittedly fair) critique.  Shooting with high ISO is fine, but of course there is the issue of graininess.  You can reduce this noise in post-production with a program such as Lightroom, and also, most importantly, shoot in raw as it is a lot easier to clean up an image in this format than it is in jpeg.

[IHF]

Vamp, I’m honestly not trying to pick on you here, but… even your bride didn’t like her wedding photos and requested a refund.  (after reading your reply to Steph, I went and looked deeper)  http://vampireketsuki.deviantart.com/journal/What-do-I-do-252339803  Now you have photographers saying there’s a problem with them as well. PLEASE!  Slow down, and just be a photography student, and learn the craft before shooting for others.  Yes, photography is an art, but you are offering a professional service when doing portraits/event photography and shooting for others.  Don’t be in such a rush to get the experience BEFORE you have the basics of photography down.  Take a deep breath, learn from your mistakes, just because you are a faux now, doesn’t mean you will forever be one.  You can do this, and do it right.  Don’t defend your shots that you blew, instead, listen to the advice and critique given to you, and push yourself to learn how to correct them.  No more excuses!!!  Get out there and prove to yourself you can do better.  Shoot for yourself, learn, grow, get to know your camera inside and out, and THEN seek out the experience needed to go pro.  Imagine having confidence in yourself and your skill level BEFORE you shoot your next wedding or event, and imagine how much better it will go and FEEL with the foundations of photography firmly behind your belt, along with maybe even some second shooting experience as well.  Right now you need to keep your eye OFF the prize and concentrate on the technical aspects, because without that, you have nothing, and will continue to flounder about as you have been.  So you want to be a professional photographer, can’t this be a long term goal?  There’s no race

[VampireKetsuki]

I’m being told by my professors and the career services of my school to try and get as much experience as possible, so I kind of have to listen to them and offer some sorts of service. They drill into you “Don’t wait til you graduate to start finding clients, do it now before”

I only shot for that specific bride because she was a friend. I am completely not surprised of her reaction, knowing the girl’s personality. She would not have been happy with ANYONE’s shots, because she wasn’t happy with that day (her family sort of overruled her on several decisions).

Only reason I’m ‘defending’ is because some of the shots that were critiqued were indeed snapshots, up on my dA so the subjects can see themselves in their cosplays they worked so hard on. They are watermarked since dA unfortunately has a rep for attracting art thieves… And if you look on the deviation page it says what the image was shot with, and choosing a cellphone image to critique? Of course it won’t be as good as even a point and shoot.

It is a long term goal, one I’ve been working on for the past four years, and the race is simply called: Student Loans. Retail won’t cover those unfortunately

[crissyB]

This SCREAMS Fauxtog!

http://vampireketsuki.deviantart.com/gallery/?catpath=/photography/people/weddings/#/d469clt

[VampireKetsuki]

The camera glitched out, so I made the best with what I got… It wasn’t the first time my camera took a completely dark image, that I had to bump the exposure up four stops in lightroom… I actually thought it looked kinda cool to be honest…

[IHF]

“20 of the best shots from the wedding”.  and now you say, no they aren’t….sigh…

If you don’t want your entire gallery critiqued, what photos do you want us to have a good look at?  Show us the ones that aren’t snap shots and nothing went wrong.  The ones you are really proud of.

I hate to sound like an ass, but I disagree with your professors/career counselors.  With how over saturated this industry is, you need all you can get to stay ahead of the game.  The photography industry has always been very competitive, but now even more so.  You absolutely need the skills to set you apart from your competition if you want your business to have a fighting chance, and to send you out BEFORE these skills are there…it’s just setting you up for failure 🙁

[IHF]

Vamp, I admire your courage, and the fact that you questioned yourself and put your work out there for us to see.  I hate fauxtography, but NOT the people who create it.  Like you I am in the process of learning.  I only post my “art” for public viewing and keep my portraiture and/or more marketable photography private.  Why?  because I am still experimenting and learning, and when I tried to get CC and/or help with my portraiture, all I received were compliments and nicey nice  (until I found photo.net that is.  Now I know I can get the help I need when I experiment again.  Give it a try someday.  NO, they arent out to make friends over there, but at least it’s a less hostile environment than YANAP).  I know all of what we have said is hard to swallow, but seriously, the advice and CC given here is a gift to you, if you choose to see it as such.  Anyway, I know I have been rather harsh, and hiding behind my annon name.  To show you that I am being sincere, I want to let you in on a little about me and be brave like you are and link to my little rebubble page *blush* http://www.redbubble.com/people/onegoodeye/portfolio  This is my attempt to help you see we are not out to get you, we are not being mean, or bullies with too much time on our hands.  We just care a whole heck of a lot about photography and want you to improve.

[archy]

holy crap, “I hate fauxtography”! Is that really yours? you do pretty damn good for just an enthusiast. Compliments all around, good sir/mam.

Vampire ketsuki, I have to say, you seem rather ungrateful to all the critiquing. I’m actually starting to wonder if you are some sort of troll. You’ve gotten SO much good advice on here as to how not only improve on your actual “photography” but on how to improve your “candid” shots as well. You keep making excuses for EVERYTHING. In fact, the only time you said thank you for the critique was when it complimented your work. Heck, someone even went through the trouble of viewing your ENTIRE DA just to find examples and give you a fair chance and all you did was basically say : oh, well you can’t chose that one because other people are to blame.

I suggest stopping the excuses, they are NOT helping your photography. It seems as though you were fishing for compliments by posting your *unorganized* portfolio and were shocked when that didn’t happen. For now, you ARE a fauxtographer.

As for the wedding you shot and the dispute with the bride: Please consider refunding her money. You said it yourself, weddings are *hopefully* a one time event, you can’t go back and shoot those again. Even if she was a b***h to everyone, or whatever you said, she was STILL the bride, that was HER big day (not yours) and your skills honestly didn’t capture it in any special way. I’m not trying to be harsh, I PROMISE. I’m being reasonable.

So, your assignment: go back and reread the extremely well thought out comments that everyone else has left and look at the pictures in reference. Recreate these pictures at home or wherever (no costumes necessary) and recreate the lighting situation. Figure out HOW your camera works so you can change the settings and WORK with the lighting situation. If you can’t figure it out, then now you know that you are not meant to photograph in that environment. I’m being serious.

Good luck with your photography, man.

[IHF]

Yes, they are mine, and thank you so much Archy for your kind words. It’s encouraging to say the least. I am almost positive that if you saw my portraiture it would have been a different story though lol. But I’m learning, and improving at a good pace. (Just in the few days this forum has been up I have learned from people here, and I’m once again very excited instead of intimidated, to set up my make shift studio and try to implement everything)
but now I’m even more embarrassed, because while I wasn’t looking, redbubble did a revamp of the site, and my real name (Melinda Potter) and details are no longer displayed. So here I am telling Vamp I will give up my anomaly for her, and I so clearly didn’t.

[Valderrama]

Vamp – I looked at your entire gallery on DA. This is a forum of mostly photographers, not laypeople (laypeople = folks not tortured by the ISO-Shutterspeed-Aperture triangle)  so the critiques you get here will be different.  I have dabbled in weddings (although they’re not my favorite).  Check out http://www.susanstripling.com/blog.cfm or http://www.kristenweaver.com/# for some work of women who are getting it done.   If you have the creativity then you have most of the work done BUT the the technical side MUST be mastered before you can make the vision in your head happen in the camera.  There are several different portrait photographer past and present to learn from. Hell, you can even learn from the old master painters.  There’s nothing new here. Study their work, how light falls and how it translates into your vision.  But study study study….You’ll never learn it all (which is why photography is such an all consuming obsession).

Don’t give up the fight. You will get better if you keep working.

[hellomarcy]

HOLY MOLY! this forum is intense!!!!!! i love it!! keep going OP! It’s hard to swallow, but you can always poop it out.. 🙂 stef! you are my hero!! LOL

[VampireKetsuki]

Are my last two posts showing up? I gave a list of my best of my gallery, along with comments to different people, but it’s not showing for me… I’ll post it without the links this time.

I Hate Fauxtography: I saw your redbubble (never saw that site before) and it’s very lovely 🙂 I’ll also check out photo.net

Archy: I’m sorry you think I’m a troll, but I don’t think my gallery (Gallery, not Portfolio) should be judged by obvious snapshots of an anime con, or by a cellphone image. There are a lot of other images in which to judge my skill, and the worst of the worst were chosen.

Valderrama: Thank you for your tips, one of my professors actually had us recreating a painting in photography, then making photos inspired by said painting.

HelloMarcy: I have to lol at the way you put it, and thanks at saying I’m a hero ^^;

[IHF]

Vamp, She was saying Steph was her hero 😉

Thank you for taking the time to look at my redbubble. redbubble is a good place to go to get encouragement, but be weary.  It’s no place for any real critique.  the motto there is “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” (and eh hem… There is a lot of crap photography to swim through over there because of the “nice” environment).  It’s exactly what I needed, and still need from time to time, but I also search out help, and critique somewhere else when needed too.

Make sure you take all of our advice, and work on your photography and portfolio and get your ducks in a row, BEFORE you go to photo.net and ask if you are ready to start charging, or ask for critique.  They are VERY honest there, but you can be assured that you don’t just have a bunch a bickering meanies, or annons, or whatever YANAP will attract in the near future (so far I think we have photographers, but I know in someone’s shoes that just got called a faux.. I would question where it came from), at photo.net you are talking to photographers, no question.  If you need help with lighting, posing, in camera anything, they will help anytime.

[VampireKetsuki]

Eh heh heheh, oops ^^;

Redbubble sounds like a ‘nicer’ version of DeviantART, since dA unfortunately has trolls to deal with (the ‘u sux, go dai nao’ type)

And photo.net sounds like the perfect place. I just felt I had to defend myself here, since it felt I was being attacked, the worst of my images being what the whole gallery was judged with… Cosplay Snapshots and a Cellphone image… And people keep saying portfolio when I’ve said (a few times) that dA is my gallery, not my portfolio. (The last wedding image that was linked here, I commented that I should’ve said ’20 of my images’ not ’20 best images’, but that was part of the post that got eaten)

[Author]

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