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stef
ParticipantThis is absolutely not the place to learn the business aspects. It might be the place to get honest criticism, but that remains to be seen as the site develops.
I looked only at your website, not facebook.
Regarding your “people” section, tilting the camera does not make anything more interesting. It makes things more annoying. There are times to tilt an image. None of yours were those times. The kids looked pretty good, although the light was a little too hard for that kind of portrait, and they’re probably a little overexposed. The b/w shot had good tonality and could’ve been good, but was ruined by the composition. Besides being tilty, there’s also a pole coming out of his head. All website sections are titled “Test Album Page”, and it looks somewhat haphazard.
“Transportation” contains nothing interesting or very creative. It might be fine for a webzine saying “we were there”, but nothing in that section took any creativity of yours to make. So for editorial work and tearsheets, great… otherwise, not portfolio material.
The long exposure night shot you did of the bridge with your 7-leaf lens cranked down is cute. I’m glad you didn’t tilt it. Your Places is better than your other stuff, but you overprocessed it. For the most part, you added too much local contrast, causing a bad HDR look from non-HDR images. All the disadvantages, without any of the advantages. Again, I liked the tonality of the b/w and the composition was decent. I also like that you saw that image and captured it. That shows you’re looking for the shots. You don’t need 3 shots of lightning in a portfolio, unless you’re looking for a job as a tornado chaser or something. Plus, while they’re great shots of lightning, they are bad shots. Poor cropping, composition, strange color, stuff in foreground, etc.
Overall a few of your people shots were good, but need improvement. A few of your Places shots were acceptable, but only the b/w and the bridge stood out as good images. The rest was not professional quality for many varying reasons above.
You have an honest assessment of your skill and what you need to look at and what you need to study. Before you worry about business, worry about photography… THEN worry about business twice as much. You don’t need this website to tell you anything.
If you ask me tomorrow, I might disagree with myself since I liked some of your stuff, but my verdict is: You are a fauxtographer. But you kind of knew that.
ParticipantWhere is he calling everyone a fauxtog?
and yeah, those were some weak portraits.
ParticipantGood camera handling. I saw no obvious exposure or focus issues. Some dutch angles, but not overdone.
Overall, strong skills. The next step is to involve the viewer more and tell a story. Get creative without selling out your skills for gimmicks.
You are not a fauxtographer.
ParticipantExcellent use of lines and backgrounds. Your shots often tell a story or evoke some sense of wonder or involvement by the viewer.
Very cool stuff.
ParticipantI liked a few of your images and compositions, although I notice you have trouble with levels, and especially tonality on your b/w conversions. It makes me wonder if your monitor is calibrated, or if you’re just not great at that part of editing.
Your landscapes are commonly cut right through the middle, and the horizons are not level. This is especially distracting on images with water. Poor crops and tilty water screams “fauxtographer”.
You should also step away from the HDR. You’re not good at it, so don’t publish your failed tests. It takes practice, and you shouldn’t post your glowy, haloed images. There’s one dark urban-decay building shot you did that has promise, but it’s not HDR.
It is not time to start charging. Your quality is still hobbyist. I would not put the fauxtographer tag on you since you don’t charge.
ParticipantWhen you can’t see any detail in the darks that should have detail, it damn well is underexposed.
Posing and lighting can improve the look of portraits of large, round faces like this one.
There are many ways to do it, but short split or short loop lighting can really help. You just used very flat lighting which removed the jawline and emphasized all the wrong things. (this one is short split: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=254325954674140&set=a.210580092382060.37765.149966705110066&type=3&theater but I really like to have both eyes in focus, or very close, myself.)
I liked a lot of your random street photography in your wall album.
Even though you did use a bad selective color shot for no good reason (dog with bow) and you could use some work on lighting techniques, you’re not a fauxtographer. You have a pretty good eye, but need some study of the basics so that your camera and lighting do what you want them to do.
ParticipantThey are snapshots, but i like the calf and the mannequins.
But these are not pro quality, and since you’re not pretending to be a pro, they’re not even faux worthy.
ParticipantHe’s really referring to me, Jetpix. He thinks alluding to my age is some sort of insult, but he’s an amateur at forum-fu, and a professional prepubescent adolescent.
Hey, that rhymed.
Time for a new handle, troll. You have no credibility here.
ParticipantI have emailed you and messaged you on facebook, i want the picture that i took taken down off of your website its the fluffy hat boudoir my client isnt happy and her and i want it taken down.
I think you spelled your username wrong.
ParticipantI know I am not a fauxtog, and I probably put this post in the wrong section, I just wanted feedback and advice on my work.
I think you’re right, you are not a fauxtographer.
I like how you get down low with kids. This gives a better feeling of immersion. On some poses, though, you might need to get back a little farther.
I hate doing shots like that one. Besides worrying about heavy distortion, you need to clean the bottom of the shoes.
You really have a lot of cute shots. I see you like working the shallow DOF on some portraits, but I like seeing both eyes in focus.
Why is this one so noisy? Did you shoot it at ISO 3200 or something?
I like this shot a lot, and the drama you have going… but I have some questions about the pose. It seems like a very masculine image with a feminine pose. The lines are really good, though.
I’m not here to stroke your ego or pander to your confidence issues, but I didn’t see a single image I had any real problem with. Your kid shots are great. The only suggestions I have for you is to use your DOF preview button on portraits, and think about your crops a little more. Most of your crops were fine, but I thought several could be better.
ParticipantLol. It’s possible to do natural looking HDR, it’s just rare that someone does. I use HDR all the time, and the only noticeable difference is that there’s no noise in the shadows.
ParticipantA common misunderstanding is that giving credit means it’s not a copyright violation. That is not true. It just makes you less likely to be called out by the owner. You should respond to the photographer that things are between R and C, and stress that you can’t imagine any photographer holding bad images over the head of a bride who’s trying to process them, and urge her to grant her the copyright in exchange for credit. Tell her in the long run she’ll get much better exposure with images R shares, than images R refuses to share because she doesn’t like the edits.
Appeal to both the emotional and practical sides, and only a spiteful person will refuse without good reason.
ParticipantI looked at several of your images, and found a few good ones. In your wedding shoot 3 years ago, there were a couple great shots, but a ton of shots were messed up with dutch angles. Tilty without a reason is just tilty… and looks bad. Some of your b/w processing was bad, but I’d expect you’ve improved a bit since then. You showed some fun initiative and that came through in many of your images and poses.
I also liked some of your artwork… a bit higher percentage than your photography.
You have a lot of stuff available, and it’d be very easy to pick out some good ones or some bad ones, but there’s not a good representative cross section. I couldn’t find anything with a sampling of what you consider your best images. You’re all over the place in skill. Some were really good. Some were really bad. Most were somewhere in the middle. But I only saw a single tilty shot you made that was actually good (in a frame house being constructed with interesting lines) … all the rest were ruined by strange angles.
Your stuff on facebook was not very good, and looks like you were shooting while standing in a canoe … only two horizons are straight. Plus, facebook isn’t a good place for a portfolio. The ring shot you have looks horribly out of focus, but downloaded it looks better.
My suggestion: Get better at critiquing your own work and composition. Break the rules only after you learn them. Release what you deem good, and put the best ones in a single folder. If you insist on using facebook, resize things for 720px long or less, and sharpen for screen.
You are a fauxtographer. Some study on composition can fix that.
ParticipantIt’s actually over $0 and a lot of good will (something trolls might not understand).
The OP is not making any money on this. But it has a much higher potential loss than $100.
Every photographer should have an IP lawyer they know by name, because they (should) be used all the time. Every time you have to update your contracts, you should have him look over it and fix any missing legalese. And yeah, they are indeed inexpensive if it’s really basic stuff. If they have to research, then it goes up fast.
ParticipantMore than just slight retouching. 🙂
But it’s cute… obviously she does something like shoots twice, probably from a tripod, and drops the baby (being tossed in the air) into the image. That keeps the light right. She’s good at it, too.
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