[Brownie]

Shooting 35mm film would be a lovely way to see which photographers actually have a rough technical understanding and a desire to stick with it. One reason why I love my university for teaching the basic photography class in the darkroom. That would basically sum up your class in half the time with the technicals and maybe ways of considering composition and design elements down the road

[Brownie]

Your images on a whole are ridiculously saturated and some feature bizarre edits that I rarely find interesting. I find this one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/94214228@N05/8576388321/in/photostream/ interesting for its’ graphic nature, not really as a photograph, because it looks nothing like a photograph at this point.

 

I’ve seen a lot of your images where you’ve attempted to blur out the background and if you are to advance in photography, you need to understand how depth of field works, do you?

 

The work you’ve put up is cluttered and unorganized, considering you photograph insects, birds, that tower, and sunsets, they need to be organized efficiently so the viewer can check out what they want.

 

So, yes, for a beginner, your compositions are sometimes atypical, sometimes totally expected. Look into photographers that are very famous for the kind of photographs they make, then consider adapting their techniques to your own work. Color saturation and conceptual focus aren’t there at this point but that takes getting to know your camera inside and out. I feel like you have too much “zoom” in your lens collection. Consider photographing at a fixed focal length to where you have to make the composition, not the cropping of the lens.

 

There’s more but I’ve already gotten a bit long-winded.

[Brownie]

Definitely a few short. I could care less who’s kids they are…I just care about the pictures. If you’re not going to go all out, why bother?

[Brownie]

And I was writing that comment as I looked through your work, so don’t be confused if I kinda change my tone, hah.

[Brownie]

Eh, I don’t really know what to think of your work. I can see some elements of design working well but some appear to just be snapshots. I find the strongest set visually is the Misc. Flowers set because of how you abstract the form of the flower and under the lighting that some of them are shot under. The other collections such as people and dogs seem very typical of someone that would post work on here, snapshots basically, but the flower collection is different because I can tell by looking at them that you’re thinking about more than just a ‘pretty flower’.

you should definitely think about having some of your other prints for sale, because the one you have is weak in comparison to some I saw. Seems the focus is off and the framing feels clunky, it doesn’t hold as well.

Photographing foliage is definitely different that photographing people, your portraits don’t seem nearly as intimately involved as some of your work. So, I would think about some of the lighting, use of color, and how you fill the frame with your foliage and consider ways to incorporate these elements into approaching your other work.

I’m glad I stumbled onto the Misc Flowers section, because some of those went beyond my expectations much more than the other work on your website and some of them work pretty well, and to have something on this website do that, is refreshing.

[Brownie]

Keep shooting…

[Brownie]

Haha, fair enough, but I wasn’t addressing you with that comment, it just needed to be said.

[Brownie]

Pardon my frankness, but if you seriously believe that these photographs of oversaturated flowers are compelling and should be placing in any judging, especially a judging by an educator in the medium, then I cannot take your opinion about photography or work seriously.

Just how it is.

[Brownie]

I’m truly sorry. I’m not a huge fan of light painting but I find it infinitely more interesting than those flowers.

[Brownie]

I agree, save your money, and if you do invest in something, invest in good glass. A solid prime lens will help any aspiring photographer immensely.

[Brownie]

The most important part of the image, his face, is not in focus. Seems like the focus here is soft and softer. I think it’s a little contrasty… The background doesn’t add any interest to the picture so I would’ve avoided that. I realize this is a candid and you can’t exactly do it over but, I like the subject. So there’s potential here.

[Brownie]

Don’t.

 

If you do anything, embed your information in the metadata of the photograph so that way if it does show up somewhere without your permission, the photograph will have the copyright already in it, and then they are totally liable.

[Brownie]

I highly doubt  most ‘world-renowned master photographers’ change equipment as often as you imply they do.  Photographers of that caliber still are highly devoted to shooting film, now where they go from there is open, (scanning for inkjet prints, old school c-prints, dye transfer, etc etc) I personally think digital photography has made us (along with several other factors) so rabid for new equipment. I highly doubt if Garry Winogrand was alive he would upgrade Leicas every year.  I shot with a digital canon rebel for four years, and I understood that camera tremendously well and I used it for everything  and it still can produce nice photographs, but when I upgraded, I wanted to go for something that was full-frame, and would be fairly accurate to a film camera.  Which is funny, on account of the technology hasn’t advanced enough for digital to overtake film in quality, at least an affordable one.

At university, all of the photography classes (except for digital, of course) are analog.  Education should be priority number one. I cannot stress how important knowing the technical aspects, conceptual design aspects, and being knowledgeable about the world or photography in the areas that they are interested in.

It truly boggles my mind when students at other colleges have no influences outside of the department. It’s ignorant to not look at the greats that have come before you. You have to figure out what made these photographers so great…was it the lighting? maybe. Was it the composition? Sure, yeah. Was it all of these elements with a strong conceptual idea that the viewer can relate to? Bingoo.
Where digital photography shines is in news photography. being able to almost instantly access the images on the card completely trumps developing negatives and cropping those down. Anything that needs to be fast or is time sensitive is effected greatly by digital photography. Also in shooting sporting events, I hardly doubt there’s a photographer out there that carries at least 10 rolls of film for the game. I think that is a true convenience of digital.

I just realized how old this message was…so I guess I’ll stop writing…

[Brownie]

The irony makes me ill…ughh…

[Brownie]

I agree with browneyedgirl above me, except I think the subject matter is very fauxtogish. It’s basically just photographing what you see, how you see it. Flowers, statues, zoo animals, etc etc. But keep working at it. We all start somewhere, and I remember similar images that I took when I was just starting out, it’ll come with time, commitment and knowledge.

[Author]

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