[Bill]

I like the ease of navigation, as for website friendliness, I wish the camera roll of photos rolled out more smoothly.

Not sure how you can better present that except using all photos the exact same size.  I have this problem with my hosting provider.  I use Zenfolio and for my slideshows, let’s say the 1st image is 600×800, and the 2nd is 800×600 it throws the entire presentation off.  But yours scrolls from the side, that’s why I say, not sure sure how easy that is to fix.

 

This is my OCD or maybe my 3rd beer for tonight talking, the 2  black girls on the very beginning of the slide/camera roll, the 1st girl has a hair on her right cheek and the 2nd has a hair covering her lip.  I find those distracting, easily fixed but distracting.  To me, it is attention to the finest detail, but none of us are perfect, including myself.

Anyway, everything else I can think of has already been mentioned.  A bit more detail would be nice, it’s basic, but maybe a bit too basic, but nice.

The one thing that I love that you didn’t do is use the word “Passion” in your about page.

 

[Bill]

Tempers and other things aside, I had a chance to look at your “Flickr” account and I wanted to jump in and give my 2¢, but didn’t have the time.

Yes, your Flickr page/account/portfolio should not be your go-to portfolio, but that being said, it does make things easier to share and display without having a dedicated website.  Either way, who really cares,as long as we can see what you are trying to display.

 

In my humble opinion, I did not care for your processing on your later shots, but that’s just me.  I am referring to the HDR look. To me, making a  punk band look grungy adds to their character but it didn’t come through with the processing style you went with, at least to me anyway. That being said, the black and whites do the band no justice either.  From my experience, mind you, B&W processing is a go-to when you are trying to convey texture, depth and feeling without the disruption of color.  This is why you see so many dramatic portraits done in B&W.  For the band, it doesn’t fire for me, but hey that’s my opinion.

As for your niece, she is a beautiful girl, coming out of her shell to pose in front of a camera must be a very new experience and a big step forward for her.  No matter how the photos come out, keep encouraging her and try to ease up and have her [and you] relax, have fun, that’s when the best photos will come out.

As for the posing, that just takes time and practice.  You can go online and get several “free” ideas for techniques like this one HERE, there are tons available online if you search hard enough, but the key is to relax and have fun with it.

I see some small technical mistakes that are easily correctable, but that comes with time and shooting.

Out of all of the photos on your flickr page, I like this one the most.  It’s simple, clear, in focus and straight to the point.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dgterryphoto/16415941725/

 

Another thing I see is that you like to shoot, keep it up and keep sharing.
 

[Bill]

The term “mini session” screams “faux” to me. Am I crazy?

Nope, not crazy to me.

WTH is a mini-session anyway?

I have a session fee or sitting fee as they used to be called,but the concept of a mini-session boggles me.

The only thing I can grab is that you are breaking down a hour long session into quarters or something, instead of booking for the entire hour.  Am I right or way off base?

Either way, I’m sure glad I don’t have to worry about that, I have a flat rate per hour and another rate per diem

[Bill]

See, this is why it is so hard to give people feedback.

I am glad that IHF dug deeper into this and found those photos that were not his, those were probably the ones I was telling him that were fairly decent.

This really bugs me.  I have no problem with a person running ads or having some cash for clicks system in place on their website.  Unless it is a blog or some sort of news reporting site where you have “fair use” of the images for news reporting, don’t use other people shit for your financial gain.  If it’s not yours, you can’t sell it, simple as that, unless you have permission.

I think for now on, I am going to have get medieval on some of these feedback requests such as IHF has done.

FAIR WARNING FOR ALL FUTURE FEEDBACK REQUESTS:

YOU WILL BE INVESTIGATED LIKE A PROCTOLOGIST ON A MISSION, DEEP AND HARD.

 

[Bill]

Okay, I checked it again, and not seeing the drug ad.

Sorry if I sounded a little overbearing from that last post, but sometimes people ask for opinions and are just trying to get links for whatever reason.

Okay I see the images now.  I use a Mac and Google Chrome as my browser.  The funny thing is that I also use the chrome extension AdBlockPro, so there may have been a redirect script hidden somewhere within your web page or someone changed your text on your page.  The page where the ad generated from was the link from your “Outdoor Portraits” thumbnail.

Now, when I click on every thumbnail except “Weddings in Santorini”, “Asian” and “weddings in Patra” I see the an all white page with a single line of text that reads:  “Professional Photography Services in Greece. We are a licensed photography company. You are always welcome to visit our Studio and meet our creative team. E-mail: info@studiokristo.com” Not sure if you just don’t have content to fill in for those pages or maybe there is a link issue or what, it may be frustrating for some visitors who want to see those images.

The links are:
Portraits
Pre Wedding
Honeymoon Photography
Family Photography
Pre Wedding
Christening Baptisms
Orthodox Weddings
Weddings in Folegandros
Weddings In Athens

For your Home page, you need to fix those links, many of the images that are being displayed on your Home page take you to that plain white page with that single line of text when someone clicks on the image.  Not good.  It will only make people angry and force them to leave your site.  Your site is your retention tool, the longer a user stays on it, the more likely they are to become a client.

 

As for your photos, I see many that are typical decent wedding photography material, some are questionable and few have some technical issues like cropping or selective color and such.  I saw the image that CC stated in the previous post, The Asian couple on the red quad, though the photo is not bad, just the crop steers the audience in a direction that is counter productive to the image.

Overall, you’re definitely not a faux but you do tend to include some images that should not be put together on a portfolio like the ones that CC mentioned earlier about being the same image in different processes.

The image of the woman on the tracks, confused me.  I can see that she is cut and pasted onto the tracks, or so it appears that way, but the title and allure of the image is strange, well for me it is.

Your web site has a unique flow to it, that may be good and bad at the same time.  Some pages tend to seem very “Busy” and looks like you or whoever designed it was trying to fill the “white space”, sometimes less is more.  Best thing is to have someone evaluate your site to better optimize it.

And do you have a mobile version of your site?  I did not find one and it took my Galaxy Note 4 almost a full minute to load on wifi, longer on my mobile broadband with full bars.  Something to consider since many of us tend to mobile compute nowadays.

Hope that helps

[Bill]

Okay to be 100% honest, it needs more work.

Not sure if your site is link bait or what, but I clicked to see your portfolio and saw a generic line of text telling me I can get Zithromax for a discounted price, so I did not even bother to go any further or even look at the images.

If this is a “real” site of yours, you need different hosting or something.  If I were a client, I would not hire you after seeing that.  It’s not offensive but it tells me that you are not serious about your craft.

[Bill]

Ahh the wonderful world of having a photography business.  Don’t believe the hype, it’s a lot harder than it looks.

It’s a good sign that you want to hone your photography skills and are open to learning new things, but to be really good, you should expand your knowledge on both front and backsides of the business to really do it right and benefit from being a legitimate business.

The main thing that “fauxs” miss out on in being a legitimate business is the tax incentives of being a real business, not matter how good [or bad] your photography skills are.  A good example is if you, say buy a $1000 camera, to a faux, this would be a $1000 out-of-pocket expense.  Being a “business” you may be able to claim this as a business expense as and amortize this cost over 5 years.  In layman’s terms, that means from that $1000 cost, each year for up to 5 years you can deduct $200 as a business expense [$200 x 5 years = $1000].

Now this doesn’t mean you can just go out and buy tons of new gear and just write it all off as “business expenses”, you have to have just means to show income for your business or else you may get audited or worse have the deduction disqualified and have to re-assess your past taxes that these deductions were claimed on.

You have to talk to a CPA and make a plan that will make the most of your [potential] income versus your expenditures.

Here in California, you have several choices, a sole proprietor, a sole proprietorship DBA [Doing Business As or Fictitious Business Name], a company or LLC Limited Liability Corporation.  For most, the last 2 are usually very costly and have a double tax penalty as you would be an employee of the corporation and the corporation has a tax liability of it’s own, hence the double tax penalty.  You could incorporate in another State, but that gets complicated come tax filing time.

Remember, no matter how you become a business, you want your business to provide income from your services and products, tax friendly both in write-off’s and liabilities and also to protect your assets from outside threats, meaning lawsuits and such.

The problem with “faux’s” doing business as professionals is that the public usually can’t discern whether or not they are legitimate or not so if the faux gets in trouble with a client, the “fauxs” total assets are at risk, meaning camera gear, $$, cars and home.  There are pro’s and con’s to each type of business, but you’ll have to evaluate your tolerance of risk.

Don’t get scared, most of us don’t get sued, but the possibility is there.  The last thing you want is that adding undo stress to the stressful business environment.

Breathe, Shoot and repeat!

Do what you’re doing, hone your skills and take some basic business courses if you can.  Learn how to keep your books in order, buy new gear when needed and keep shooting.

What ever you do, DON’T take false criticism from friends and family, always rely on non-biased critiques, they may sting or hurt from time to time, but at least they will be honest.

Another thing, ditch the Facebook for posting all your photos.  You can have a FB page, one personal, one business.  Keep the 2 separate, remember the business page is for business and promotional use.  Down the road, get yourself a real webpage and maybe a hosting service that specializes in photography for business.  I use Zenfolio, you don’t have to use that one, there are others.

Theres is a lot more, but it’s getting late.

Have fun, you’ll make mistakes, but learn from them, don’t repeat them hoping the output will change, it won’t.

And again, KEEP SHOOTING!!!

 

[Bill]

I did the same as CC, adjusting temperature, saturation, tint and such, it looks fine.  I need to adjust my monitor again.

I see at least 1 umbrella, possibly 2, what was your lighting set-up?

[Bill]

looks good.  Not trying to critique, well I guess I am, maybe.  How well does this match your buddies complexion?  Maybe its my monitor [about a week overdue on calibrating it] but it looks a little flat on the color.  Maybe just bump the saturation and/or vibrance up a bit, not much un;ess that is how he looks in real life.

 

[Bill]

Great job for being self taught and especially at your age.

No you have a nice portfolio that shows that you are versatile, but you definitely need to show less in your portfolio, hear me out.

I your portraits section of the various families, I would taylor down the amount of photos shown, unless you are doing it for the sake of the client.  The ones I would ditch are the repeats of the same photo but done in different styles, like the same photo in B&W.  Pick one and delete the other.  In one family I counted at least a dozen photos, 6 in color and 6 in B&W that were basically the same photo, but slightly different.  In your case with portraits, less is more.

The landscapes I like the colors, though there are some that vary from very vivid on the right to drab on the left.

Some of your landscapes do cry out that they are over-processed like Don pointed out, I believe that some are composites, but I could be wrong.  The skies have much more noise in them then the foreground and other features in the landscapes.  I see this a lot when people over-use NIK color FX in either Tone mapping or the detail extractor.  If it works, then fine, but yours has a bunch of noise and some artifacts in them that needs to be addressed.  Try running DeFine or Noiseware to help reduce the graininess in your night skies, it may help.

I like your work, it’s good and you show great promise.  It’s not flawless, but then again, whose work isn’t.  Keep up the good work and try to better hone your editing skills.

 

 

[Bill]

@ Aiden –  Ithink your doing okay.  I mean that in a very positive way.

I understand where Don is coming from and good to see that you have a good ethic about charging and who should be charging.  CC also nailed it as well, there are plenty of others out there that can’t focus to save their lives and put out utter crap as “professional” images, you could probably test the waters to see.  I wouldn’t see any harm in that.  If anyone were to ask, just say it is to pay for gas and such as you progress.

Word to the wise, don’t get too ahead of yourself if you do start to charge.  If you start charging and start to get a good clientele base, it may be hard to increase your rate as you get better.  That is where you’ll see who your “real” clients are.

Just take your time and keep your “dream” going and let the business end of it fall into place.

If you do anymore unpaid events, suck up as much knowledge as you can, techniques, workflows, editing styles, whatever you can, good or bad, then mesh that into your own style.  You’ll make mistakes, we all do, just learn from them.

 

Good work, keep shooting

[Bill]

Probably not a Faux, but definitely a poor choice for putting on a chalk board. I had to really look close to make sure it did not say “He Raped me”. Maybe put “He roped me in” or something like that.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/101608681@N05/15185266603/

[Bill]

well they were supposed to be:

 

one taken with a full frame and the other with a crop sensor. Can you tell which one?
I removed the EXIF so you can’t cheat.

[Bill]

I have a photo friend that has that talent that everyone just loves.  He could slip and fall and land on a pile of dog poop and somehow make a majestic landscape photo out of it.

All joking aside, he is really a good photographer, I’m just glad that he doesn’t do the same types I do.
To jermyster – I get looks and comments all the time when I bring out my big lens. Not bragging, but I have a 400mm 2.8 and when I put the 1D on it, it draws people in like flies to, well you know.
People say the same thing, “Wow, that camera must take awesome pictures!” I just agree and state that I am merely there to transport it and set up the tripod, the camera does all the rest.
Funny thing is, I can take that same lens and pop my Canon T3i or my 40 year-old Minolta SRT to it and get the same reaction.

I think going to the zoo’s and aquariums are fun and they really test your focusing and setting adjusting skills.

Not my best, but not too bad:

[Bill]

I just realized that I was going to suggest an alternative to the idea CC stated but after typing it I realized that in essence, it was exactly the same.
The softbox with a grid sounds like a good idea or use a lower power strobe with a grid mounted inside the reflector if you have one like that.  Thinking like an AlienBee type of strobe, if you get my drift.  20° or 30° grid should be fine.

[Author]

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