[nesgran]

For a bit of critique from me I would like to give you some feedback on your people shots as I’m not much of a landscape guy. The landscapes look nice though but some of the sunstars are a little large and distracting. You will probably find that the hyperfocal distance at slightly larger apertures is good enough. For a calculator that is neat http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/dof-calculator.htm . Your camera has a 1.5x crop.

Goofball: underface lighting is rarely flattering

Cool dude: As a rule of thumb don’t shoot kids from above and don’t chop half of feet off on anyone.

More coffee: fun concept but your shopping skills are lacking. The outline against the wall looks off.

Concretesky, DSC_0497 and shades: whatever you were trying to achieve has failed. The texture is pretty awful and the pose isn’t flattering as it looks like her is pulling his lip up and away from the camera. The soft focus style worked in the 80’s but not anymore. The light is pretty nice but because he is wearing sunglasses I think he should have rotated 30 degrees counter clock wise to get less light on the temple highlighting the vein and more on his hair to give it a little glow. The portrait of the woman is the best of these three, I think it would look great without the editing. She has a nice expression, there is enough shadow in her face to give her three dimensions however I think a little dodging of her forehead would be nice.

The low key portraits: Nice experiments but in general not enough of the face is lit for it to really work.

Suegro: very nice portrait but it is badly tilted. The colour balance looks a little off.

Suegra: A decent portrait but definitely not as good as the one before. In general with women you very rarely want to shoot them straight on. What defines the female form are curves and very few women are curvy enough for this to work straight on. Because of how her head is held she now has a very marked double chin. As a rule of thumb and starting pose you want women turned slightly away from the camera, leaning slightly forward with their torso and facing slightly away from the camera. This will enhance the shape but also minimise double chins. Just be careful so you don’t give them a hanging gut. A tighter crop would be nice on this shot, pull the left upper corner down until the top is almost touching her hair.

The portraits of the curly haired woman: All nice but slight framing problems. By paying more attention to the negative space you could have enhanced these a fair bit I think. All nicely lit but they appear slightly soft.

Kiddie with dummy: Both nice shots, maybe a bit too tight though.

Dark light series: Not bad, better than the other low key. Don’t do soft focus hazy shots with low key. It generally works better with sharper shots as the contrast is already very harsh. Again, bear in mind under face light isn’t flattering.

Wife: Why is there so much space above her head but you’ve chopped her legs off?

Other wife: Soft, a bit too Monte Zucker for me.

You’re doing well but it sounds like your camera body is holding you back somewhat and I suspect a light stand with a softbox or umbrella would be very handy for you to keep learning about off camera lighting.

[nesgran]

CC, if you click the link it’ll show you the shot.

I’m guessing when you got home and opened the photo and saw the shoddy composition you had a bit of a heart sink moment. You’ve sorted it nicely with your photoshop skills but there is something about the perspective that gets my brain a little confused. Don’t worry about getting the shot a bit off, we all have them. I just noticed I have a ladder in the background of some of the posed wedding photos from this weekend. A shiny bloody aluminium ladder just off the brides shoulder partly hidden by some foilage. That’ll be fun to get rid off

They have nice expressions but it looks a little disjointed as they aren’t looking the same direction or at each other. The edit is nice and subtle and makes the photo look a lot better but I think your blacks are a little off as you’ve lightened the shadows making his shirt look washed out.

As for the composition, I would probably have taken the shot from a higher perspective as that way the brides double chins would lessen. All women are self concious about them, even if they don’t say anything. She looks slim apart from that bit and while you don’t want to lie you want to make this appear as flattering as possible.

All in all, I’m guessing you won’t make that mistake again? A good rule of thumb is to always shoot with space to crop.

[nesgran]

that is some proper fauxtography right there.

[nesgran]

They are better than they were a couple of years ago but they have a long way to go still for lots of photographers. I can’t stand the electronic viewfinder on the Sonys but I’ll concede the A7 EVF is usable. The poor AF and ergonomics aren’t doing it any favours either. The images are gorgeous but what does that matter if they are out of focus? The shocking battery life isn’t a great selling point either.

As for SLTs being a replacement for traditional mirror flapping DSLRs, I think it is an evolutionary dead end. The SLT concept has very few advantages and they really only amount to having constant AF during fast action but it still isn’t an improvement on a canon 1dx. The fixed mirror means a bulkier body with longer flange distance which in turn means larger lenses than mirrorless. The mirror also steals one stop of light. To top all of this off you have to use the EVF instead of an OVF which is really only better when you are doing video.

I have no doubt the optical viewfinder will disappear in time but the tech just isn’t there yet, the 2mpix EVFs are usable but not more than that.

I would quite like an Canon EOS M but the AF is just a bit too lacking as it stands and needing to bring a handful of batteries if out shooting a whole day is not appealing. When one comes out with the 70D sensor I will get one and can then get rid of all mid sized cameras and keep a small mirrorless and a couple of big 1 series cameras. I’ve been really close to buy a EOS M with the great little 22mm f2 pancake but they never go that cheap in Britain it makes enough sense to get one.

[nesgran]

I found this some time ago which I think is bloody brilliantly done by the photographer http://petapixel.com/2013/03/19/crappy-vs-snappy-photog-uses-side-by-side-comparisons-to-market-his-skill/

[nesgran]

I’d consider you to be a photographer to be honest. Even though you are only getting very limited income from it I’m assuming you are doing the second shooter gig as a means to building experience to one day to be able to stand on your own as a tog. You can’t be considered a hobbyist because you are doing a professionals job even if it isn’t paid and you can’t be called a faux because you aren’t selling sub standard services. You are realistic in what you can do and deserve credit for that. If calling yourself a photographer is uncomfortable why not photographer assistant?

Your family will always see you as more than you necessarily are, after my first semester of med school I was a doctor to them which was pretty crap.

[nesgran]

Looks like a great poster advert highlighting child abuse

[nesgran]

I’ll go with borderline. He does lots of the classic faux things like poor focus etc but then he has some quite nice portraits as well. I wonder if he is just a lot better when he has time to set everything up

This is not a guy I would have hired for my wedding or recommended if one of my friends were shopping around. Some of the stuff could probably have been somewhat mitigated by better editing and cropping but lots of shots were poor at best. This would have looked so much better if he had just left the crap photos off his website and you would have thought he was an average tog at least

[nesgran]

I’m now really happy I agreed to do the wedding. Turns out she [the bride] was about to hire someone that charged a quarter to a fifth of the going rate for a tog in the area. Fauxtography averted!

[nesgran]

Typical faux problems are out of focus/blurry shots as an example. There is no excuse for unsharp photos with the exception of being a journalist and people are shooting at you (with guns that is). Much of that side of things boils down to not having the technical skills to handle the camera. Other tell tale signs are a poor business plan and inadequate equipment. Not paying taxes and insurance is again a typical faux corner cutting. Many fauxes have a shitty attitude which makes them look really unprofessional.

Your stereotypical faux if I generalise a bit is a stay at home mom who bought an entry level DSLR to shoot the kids. People then lavished praise on her photography and she decides to start a photography business on the side. She will be out of business within a year with minimal loss as she already had the camera and won’t be buying any more gear, unless they get sued obviously. Then there are the people who invest a lot more and buy equipment without knowing what they are really doing. These are my favourite people as you can usually pick up mint second hand kit from them at good prices. Their private finances will suffer though. The “guy with camera” (GWC commonly) is the sleaze who often has some knowledge of photography, invest in lots of gear and use it to get pretty young girls to undress for him.

Lack of training isn’t usually what annoys photographers but rather the fauxs inadequacies as a photographer and that they are undercutting the established market by not paying tax etc.

If you want some inspiration for good photography, look at 500px.com and browse their most popular works. They are almost invariably good photos in many different categories.

[nesgran]

It must be a cultural thing, the only place here that would consider putting pictures of food on their menu is the low end chinese places, and even then most wouldn’t. Not even the take away places that charge £3 for a chow mein. The two best local restaurants have a grand total of one food shot on their website each.

[nesgran]

Interesting, eyedoc’s comment got me thinking and I think I prefer the photo rotated 90 degrees clockwise, it just makes more sense somehow to my brain.

[nesgran]

It is no doubt a nice shot, I just prefer your whisky shot actually. This just seems a bit more improbable somehow. I can’t put my finger on it somehow

Good taste in knives though

[nesgran]

yes and no, I wouldn’t send them an invoice but I will explain to them why this will be the most valuable wedding present. I will do a contract with them however.

I now know about sending the £0 invoice for next commercial venture I do for free for whatever reason, I just wish I was clever enough to think of that first!

[nesgran]

I would probably have shot a couple of each variation of rings against sky and sand. Since the rings are silver and the sand is rather pale I would probably have but them so they were in the sky portion as I’d be worried the rings would disappear against the background otherwise. I just noticed you can see the photographer in the top ring which I’d probably edit away.

I could see that bunny with a cleaver in one hand 🙂

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