Askr

Taken a few more photos now with my new camera. Harsh critique welcome as i'm trying to improve

The first 3 photos were taken in Cologne, along with the last photo. The bridge photo was taken last night at sunset and this morning at sunrise respectively at the Clifton Suspension bridge in Bristol, while the 6th photo is taken in Sherwood Forest, Nottingham.

MexicanOnABike

ha! very cool! they're all good. the one with the duck is the worst because i don't feel like he's the focus point. it's more the little lake that's focused on.

and my favorite is the Bridge with the cars driving on and under it. it almost has a sci-fi look to it. i dont know why. i'd love to put that as my desktop background!

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cadre

Promising photos, it seems that you have some idea of composition and form already which is great. As far as the duck one, crop some of the top off..like 1/3 or so and that will bring the focus down onto the duck(swan? I dunno). As is the focus is on the lake because of the line that it makes which distracts the eye. Alot of the other photos are a little dark in my opinion. Are you using automatic or semi automatic settings? Because that would explain it perfectly, the camera will make the subject dark because it is adjusting for the sky. The skies look very good which is nice but the subject of the photos are dark. There are a couple ways to fix this but you'll learn better figuring it out yourself.

I like the composition of the bridge the best, though it would be nice if it had more detail. The urban shot is also good but again I would like to see it lighter because you are losing alot of detail and the people look a little too dark which is just annoying as a viewer. If your focus is on a particular face it would work if that one was lighter while the others were (just a tad) darker.

Hope this helps, let me know if anything doesn't make sense.

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cJoe

Like the bridge and landscape at night. Definitely, has the ooh factor. Nice Pix

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motdakasha

It's a good start. Are these shot with film or digital?

In the first image, there is a disparity of exposure value for the sky and horizon. An ND grad would help even it out to create texture in the sky and simultaneously details in the foreground.

In the second image, it seems a bit dark, but it could also just be my monitor (LCD changes brightness levels depending on the angle which is a pain). For this one, I would suggest a longer exposure with a small aperture (larger fstop number).

The ducks seem really squished because the edge of the photo is close to both their front and back. I do like the tree stumps in the background, but maybe crop just a little more from it so it creates a visual border at the top, but doesn't make your eye try to continue up the tree and feel cut off.

The first bridge photo is a little bit too in-between exposures. It's hard to tell if you meant to create a silouhette or even exposure with details in foreground and background. It creates an uncertainty as to what is the subject, the cityscape, the sky, or the whole scene. If you want to silouhette the foreground,and focus on the sunset/sky, use a shorter exposure time. If you want details in the foreground, but don't care about the sky, use spot meter to get the EV for the foreground and ignore the background. If you want someone to enjoy the whole scene use an ND grad to lower the exposure time for the sky and even things out, or wait longer for the sun to go down and the sky to become dimmer.

The next bridge photo is a good example of a "whole scene." It has details in the sky, but also the foreground. The composition is decent, too, because the horizon is straight even though the bridge is not. Having a straight horizon line in the photo somewhere gives you a better grounding, a point of reference, for knowing what is 'crooked' and what isn't.

What is the subject? The tree or the sky?

This photo also seems a bit dark. There's very little differentiation between the dark clothing and the shadows on the clothing. You want some contrast there so people look like people rather than bleak omnious blobs (unless that's what you're going for, but somehow I doubt that). Also, this picture isn't aligned well, the buildings are all off kilter. If you're using digital, setting the display to include gridlines to better align your image when there are lines in the composition. If you're using film, well... a tripod or monopod will help but other than that you have to just eye it.

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Askr

Thanks for the helpful replies. These were taken using a Canon EOS 400D. As far as i remember, most were taken using semi-auto settings, which probably accounts for the darkness in most. You've given me alot to think about when next out taking photos, and hopefully the next batch will come out even better