[nesgran]

SD cards are really hard to kill after all but she probably didn’t know that http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7216467/Camera-dropped-in-the-ocean-is-returned-by-fisherman-18-months-later.html

[nesgran]

My antivirus doesn’t complain but it might be something with the flash

To OP, do you really think it is wise to exclude a lot of people from watching your site? Many mobile units won’t run flash and lots of old browsers don’t do html5. Why not just a normal plain site in normal old skool coding?

 

 

[nesgran]

I didn’t think they were bad, just a bit meh. All the same poses etc with very little variation on the mug shots.

I can only assume they’ve bought those likes but looking at the curve they’ve been getting between 50 and 120 new likes a week for a long time.

[nesgran]

I tried to post your photo but that failed badly

[nesgran]

Your website is far too slow, I mean FAR too slow. 1.5mb shouldn’t take more than two seconds to load, I sat waiting for at least 30 and the counter had only managed to get to 60%. It is also not terribly intuitive to navigate.

The two photos I saw before I gave up looked good though

[nesgran]

Odd, I must have missed that somehow.

 

£50/hour with ten edited photos and a print I think is pretty reasonable for the quality she is producing. In USD that is about $75 which isn’t exactly a lot. I doubt she makes a living off only that though but it looks like she might be using a spare bedroom as a studio so her costs are probably quite low. This accounts for some of the wonky colours we’re seeing as one wall is green, ceiling white and the other walls have a pale yellowish wallpaper and the floor is a light wood. Not great for lighting photos properly but her set up far beats most if all fauxs’ set ups.

If she manages two shoots a day I think she’ll be earning about minimum wage or possibly slightly less, at least from a quick mental calculation

[nesgran]

It looks a lot better in there now and looks like someone who has been employed as a photographer. You’ve probably done it already but I’m guessing some of the pet pics should go, though the one with the two puppies following the horse is really cute.

-e-, saw that it was paid work, make sure you emphasize that so it isn’t just the pics of a random crazy cat lady

 

 

[nesgran]

I don’t she deserves much of a mention on here, she is mainly not a great photographer but certainly beats most of the disasters that have been put in this thread. Her shots aren’t terribly exciting but she is not in faux territory either. I don’t know what she charges as she is clever enough to not put prices on her page but she had some offer for £30 for shooting a kid in princess outfit so she isn’t exactly an expensive tog.

She at least has a studio with some properish light in it. I think she’d benefit from some honest critique by a better portrait tog than her as the photos don’t exactly pop if you know what I mean.

-e- as long as she pays her taxes I don’t have a problem with her

 

 

 

 

 

[nesgran]

No amount of software can rescue a bad photo but use gimp, if you didn’t shoot in RAW you’re better off leaving it like it is. Looking closer I would say you need to get rid of some of the noise as well. As for the photo being overexposed, well, the background is, but the subject is pretty nicely lit or if anything a little too dark. If you have a RAW file of it duplicate the photo in two layers and very carefully mask out the background, reduce the exposure of just that layer by 1.5 stops maybe. It may need a bit increased exposure if you do that though as the photo will probably look quite dark since you lose the bright part of it. Had you had a bit of off camera light on that photo the background would have been properly exposed as would the person. I think the photo actually work pretty well as it is, if you have lightroom pull back a little on the whites and highlights slider and it might just sort itself out but you might find yourself wanting to bump the exposure up a little if you get rid of the bright parts.

If you wanted to highlight the phone you’d need to get more light on it which will be difficult since it is in a black case against a very dark background.

 

If you want to do it properly why not download a 30 day free trial of photoshop CS6 and lightroom 5? If you can’t make heads or tails of it I can always have a look at it if you want if you have a RAW file, if you only have a jpg it probably isn’t worth the bother.

[nesgran]

Three things I think, 1) people are now so used to the instagram crap and mobile phone cameras in general they see anything shot with a dslr as amazing quality 2) People have emotional attachments to the photos, see http://www.takeoffyourmommygoggles.com/ for a great summary and finally 3) You pay someone and you’d feel stupid if the shots aren’t great and you tell yourself it is great when it isn’t. It is like when you buy something that is expensive but turns out to be utter shite

She really ought to get the new lightroom and run the automatic perspective correction on everything, I’m honestly getting seasick. If she straightened her shots out and stopped with the god awful edits she wouldn’t be a faux, merely an average photographer (at best). I wonder if it is facebook because every shots seems to be slightly out of focus

 

She is someone who ought to have her photoshop licence revoked

[nesgran]

I’m honestly considering whether to report him to one of these online safety thingies most police departments have. He is well creepy

[nesgran]

here is one from my town in Australia:

https://www.facebook.com/summerb.photos

she actually has multiple pages and at one point she was running a competition which you had to pay $5 to enter a photo of your child and if you didn’t have one she would take it for people for a further $5

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Summerb-modeling-kids-photography/502432226470551?fref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Summerb-photography/266115720086647?fref=ts

That was pretty special. I wonder if she read about high key somewhere and then went to town on it?
If she understood exposure and colour balance it’d look far better

[nesgran]

I think it looks pretty good, though it is a bit haphazard the way it is laid out on flickr. Lots of duplicates and some true disasters from the film era that ought to go in the bin I think. Your shots either seem to be good to very nice or real disasters which is a little odd.

 

I would suggest you make one portfolio for photojournalistic stuff no matter what assignment it was, one for portraits and then finally one for everything else. I would probably remove the year spans as they are big yet there isn’t very much in there making it look like you’ve only shot one thing every two years. As for putting an ad up on craigslist, make sure it is much less random shots on there than on your flickr.

One thing I believe though is that proper off camera light will make posed portraits pop a bit more, have you got a set up for that? I would probably have liked a shallower depth of field in the shots of the woman in stripy jumper to make the skyline look a little more out of focus yet still retaining the shape so one can get a feeling for location. I can’t see what setting you’ve used since you’ve stripped the exif but I think you’ve done well with settings and natural light. Have a look at strobist.com for ideas how to make your mugshots look a little more appealing although I understand if the client asked for it like that (the guy with the glasses). Also be careful with the reflection in his glasses which is a little distracting.

[nesgran]

That all makes a bit more sense then. Bear in mind a portfolio doesn’t have to be more than 20 shots and in fact it is better to have 20 amazing shots than 20 amazing and 30 mediocre. I should probably add that my post was done after idling the thread for several hours and not checking for replies beforehand

If you haven’t got lightroom that would be a worthwhile investment, especially if you want to start going into more serious events shooting. PS etc is great if you are working on one or two photos but if you get to the hundreds you need something much faster. I saw my local Curry’s was selling out lightroom 4 licences for £50 I think. Lightroom 5 adds a bit more but will cost more than twice that and the extra features are few

How are you getting along with the new sony? I personally can’t stand the EVF. Have you got some good off camera lighting? Have you got some quality glass for it? Both will make a huge difference for the quality of your shots

 

 

[nesgran]

Did you take it? I’m not giving a critique to some one who didn’t ask for one……

No, this is from the same photographer she is asking if he is a faux in the other thread.

To OP, stop creating new threads to try and slam the competition/whatever. If you think someone is a faux why not put up a post in the massive thread of people you think should be on the first page.

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