shoe

This was taken with a Canon PowershotA95 during a camping trip this summer. Im planning on sending this as part of an art portfolio for college. I would appreciate honest criticism. If you think it sucks, tell me !



Here's another.. not sure i like it yet.



Here's a Third. This is a shot of my good friend Louis and his guitar taken with an old fully manual Pentax, 400 iso film. The scan is of poor quality, but it is all i have available to me right now. I've always liked this picture, tell me what you think !

bobby

every picture tells a story....but what's this story,just a sunset?..contrast of colors?

...........are dots on left just compuer crap or really in the pic?

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shoe

I still haven't figured out what the dots on are. We had a fire burning to the left and im assuming they are some scraps from it. I agree that every picture should have a story, and this one does not. I just really liked the composition, the colors the sky offered me, the diagonals, the way the trees seem really squeezed.. And there's this dock which was all old and wobbly. This is as close to a story as this picture gets

Anyways, thanks for the reply. I would have posted this in the portfolio thread but im 9 pictures short

WillyPete

Shoe, having gone through a bit of a learning phase, I'm finding out what pleases me and what doesn't.

I've realised I don't need a story.
I don't need to see a 'balanced' image or one that is technically correct to design principles.

However, somethings that might have worked better:
1) More depth of field.
This seems to be a good example of a nice landscape, if only for the hues in the clouds.
Most awesome landscapes have huge depth of field due to them being taken with Field cameras like 10x10s. They get it from their enormous F64 apertures and such.
This is one shot crying to be stopped down and on a tripod.

2) Crop.
The chain is a bit distracting.

3) In a picture that isn't meant to tell a tale or make you ask questions, leave out stuff that makes you wonder what it is.
Get rid of the white fluff in photoshop or similar.

4)Horizon.
The sunset clouds lead me off to the left and make me wonder what I missed. It looks like a beautiful scene, but half captured.

Ok, enough criticism.
I will admit, you exposure is good.

shoe

Hey Pete thanks for the reply ! I will keep all that in mind.

Just a question.. how do i crop an image ? Can i do it in photoshop ?

Shpoop

just gonna throw this out there....I really like the second one.

I think it would be a little better if the woman was the main focal point, and a little lower in the image, but I still like it a lot

JumpinJesus

Compositionally, I like the second one better.

I'm thinking maybe a little color correction to lower the amount of yellow in the second shot, too.

In the first photo, I like the exposure of it and the use of the flash, but like a few others have said, I find a little too much clutter in the bottom of the shot. Cropping it out is very easy. Use your selection tool to select the part of the image you want to keep, then go to image>crop and it will crop out the area you don't want.

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serlindsipity

What school?
What kind of photography do you want to study?
Art or Commercial?

There's so many factors, we need more info. Ive done the app process many times and they look for specific things.

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captobvious

The first shot is good exposure and has a nice range of colors. The composition is a little confusing though. The bottom half of the image doesn't really fit in with the beauty of the water and the sky. I think leaving the flash on might have emphasized the foreground unfortunately, when the background is really the most interesting part of the photo. I would suggest cropping it to make the water and the sky the focus of the shot.

I like the composition of the second shot a lot better. It feels a lot more balanced than the first shot. As Shpoop mentioned earlier, it seems kind of ambiguous as to whether or not the woman is important in this picture. It does leave me with a sense of mystery though.

ryfo

i also like the second one I dont really have a reason but it seems to be more interesting than the first, the picture as a whole is very relaxing and serene, Good one!!!

shakran

I think the pictures do tell a story. The first one's story is "sun sets over a lake." It's not exactly a pulitzer prize winning story, but it's a story nonetheless. And even though as a photojournalist I try to make all of my images advance a story, I can also acknowledge that sometimes a picture just is, and the important thing is that it's nice to look at. While in my line of work beauty shots rarely make it into anything outside of the weather segment, there's still a time, a place, and a need for such pictures.

That said I agree with others - the dock is distracting, as is the flash. If you needed the dock, you missed a good opportunity to silhouette it against the sunset (which would have looked really cool with those red lights). If I'd taken the shot I'd have gone back down the dock behind the camera and then walked across frame right - get the whole dock in there silhouetted against the sun - then you're telling the story of the end of a day with the dock quiet, etc etc etc.

And yes, the ashes or dots or crap-on-the-lens on the left side of the pic takes away from the effect.

The colors work really well for you here though. That red against the blue is phenomenal.


The second shot, I really like. Don't color correct that at ALL. It's got a great natural sepia tone. Looks very old-world, and the woman facing away from the camera really adds to the ambiance of the photo. The fact that you made the woman a small figure adds to the loneliness that you feel when looking at the empty bleachers. The exposure is superb and you took the shot in a way that you know exactly WHAT everything is, but you're seeing them in ways that people rarely see them. Your framing is very interesting - you don't have the woman at a typical "rule of thirds" intersection which makes her placement slightly jarring, something which I think in this case adds rather than detracts from the overall effect of the photo. And I like the fact that you kept your camera low - we don't see what the woman is looking at which adds to the mystery. The snow on the bleachers tells us both that it's cold outside and that nothing's going on at the stadium, so what drove the woman to be there? This photo forces the viewer to ask questions.

From a portfolio standpoint the first shot is run of the mill - Given the right sunset and cloud conditions, just about anyone could have gotten that shot, even with a disposable point'n'shoot. The second one, however, shows real artistry and should definitely be in your portfolio.

CSflim

The first one isn't bad, but I adore the second one!

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Sty

I really really like the composition on the 3rd one. Breaks some 'rules' in the perfect way.

Technically, I'd try to recover a bit of detail from the over-exposed parts on the left and see how it looks. Might be impossible though.

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vjssy

the 1st pic, many things are distracting - the flakes on the left, the whole dock, I dont think they're necessary for the picture to work. The 2nd pic, it would have been nice to get the woman more central to your picture (and focused as well) - the composition works better than the first, i think. the 3rd pic I like the best - you have a very nice range of colors (contrast filter used?) the guitar and some parts on the left could use a bit of dodging, and it would be nice to have a tighter grain (it may be the scanner, or the contrast filter if you used one. there's no helping it if it's just the film). I would work on that 3rd one, though. I really like it. Good luck with your following prints!

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