highway chicken and other random pics
 

some random pics i've taken, some from roadtrips to utah, some from japan.

some of them i was going for a surreal feel, but i can't get the camera to translate what my mind sees. any help is greatly appreciated.

the industrial stuff in the woods was inspired by manic skafe. again, it didn't come out quite like i wanted.

the last is just some engrish on a trash can in the hotel room.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y24...adtrip2003.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y24...adtrip2029.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y24...adtrip2030.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y24...adtrip2033.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y24...japan09129.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y24...japan09090.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y24...japan09011.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y24...japan09127.jpg

I really like the chicken one; and I'd be interested in learning how exactly it was taken :). Were you in reverse, was the man in the truck in on it otherwise, etc.

I really like this one, man. It speaks to me...

You know, squeeeb, for as little confidence you seem to have in your photography skills, you sure do take some mighty rad pictures.:thumbsup:

joz - its the old gag of driving up to a semi being towed and waking your sleeping friend and screaming. the truck was being towed.

POA - thanks man .

Squeebie man:
man these are cool.

I wish I had more thumbs to up.

Keep on keep on seeing and playing, please.

ring - thanks.

seriously people, i'm looking for how i could make the pictures better. angles? framing? more interesting subject? how could i have taken these pics better?

It's great that you are asking for critiques, advice, and hints on how to improve your form on photography, squeeeb, just know that I am perhaps the last person that will offer any hands-on tips. I haven't used a camera in perhaps a decade, and I have delayed buying a new camera for at least the last 3 years. It's brutal being backward and broke.


The first shot of the towed truck is superb, squeeb. It instantly triggered in my mind the thought of Duel.

And the "umbrella-holding fair maidens" capture is indeed, captivating. It has a cool background, great color composure, and great defining textures in the stone walls, reflecting waters, and the hanging flowers from the trees. Also a pertinent self-note, I think I am developing an unhealthy fascination with umbrellas as of late, so that could play a factor in why I chose to single that pic out from the rest.

duel is such a great movie. i thought i was the only one who liked it

what kind of camera do you have squeeb?

Not getting the camera to capture what you are seeing,
was the first good pain that spurred me towards asking these
similar questions, tinkering with settings, and then reading a lot about photography
basics....ask away....I know a bit about it, and many others 'round here,
are much more versed than I. (and all of them I believe, would be happy to
answer your questions, and encourage your efforts.)

Squeeb, if your exif data is correct, you've got fully manual settings available to you - what sort of issues are you running into?

Unsurprisingly enough, 2-5 were my favs. :thumbsup:

i have a cannon powershot a590 and an olympus c-770. not the top of the line bad ass cameras.

but i don't think it's my camera, i think it's me. i dont seem able to capture the feeling and image that i'm seeing. when i take the picture, it comes out boring. am i just taking pictures of boring subjects?

Some nice shots there squeeeb.

I am far from an expert but maybe you'll get more of the look you were trying for by adjusting the contrast a bit. The shots look a bit over exposed.

They're certainly not boring subjects. If you're not already using manual settings, you could try learning to use those if they're available in your camera. You can achieve a lot more drama in shots by controlling the depth of field and shutter speed in order to capture it more as you see in your mind, rather than as the camera automatically calculates. And you'll have to adjust the ISO sometimes in order to get those other settings you want.

For instance, the shot of the ladies with the umbrellas is great because it has a large depth of field and everything is in focus. However the shot of the trashcan might be more interesting with a very narrow depth of field where the words were in focus and the background mostly blurred, like the image of the flower below, leaving the shampoo and stuff in the background unfocused and not distracting from the subject. And it doesn't take a fancy camera to do this, just one with manual settings and paying attention to them.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2565/...ccd88fa1c9.jpg

Hopefully that is a start towards what you're looking for. I or someone else can elaborate more on those effects if you're interested or maybe you already know.

thanks for the tips fiatguy, definitely helped.

good pics, but do you have any idea how many times I looked at them looking for a chicken? lol

Dave had to explain to me

You definitely know what sorts of things make for great photos, but some of these aren't framed as nicely as they could be.

When you take your photos, think of what needs to be in the photo to best bring out the look you're going for, and try to take whatever you don't need out of the frame.

Sometimes you don't get the opportunity to take the stellar shots you imagine, so editing them slightly can help.

This is what I did to your photos in a couple of minutes:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...fages2copy.jpg
In this one, I was most drawn to this woman and how nicely her parasol complimented the cherry trees, so I cut everything out and increased the contrast a little.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...fages3copy.jpg
I wasn't sold on the concrete wall being so prominent in this photo, so I got rid of it. The Also, I highly saturated and slightly brightened the colours to make the shot a little more surreal.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...fages1copy.jpg
This one didn't need as much blank space as you had allocated, so I cropped and balanced the unused space a bit.

I think you know what you're doing with your photos, you just may want to process them a little further, and think a bit more about your framing.

I like where Cellophane is going but I think it's also important to note that you'll always have more failures than success when it comes to taking photos. The inability to capture things as you see them is irremediable, studying composition and color helps but your best recourse lies in the ability to capture a shitload of pictures before you move onto another subject or scene.

I like this one, great pictures man!!:thumbsup:

THANK A SUPER BUNCH Cellophane.

manicskafe - yeah, i understand the concept of taking 100 pictures for the 1 good one.

thanks danigirl

I like what Cellophane did with the shot of the woman in the umbrella. I used to not do much post processing, but it can really make a difference. Manic_Skafe is also right about taking a lot of pictures. With a still subject it's easy to take a lot of shots from different angles and experiment with different settings. I usually go ahead and experiment with several different things and decide what I like when I finally get them on a computer to see at full resolution, because the camera screen can be very deceptive (which is another important thing to keep in mind).

Oh! And for close shots, like the words on the garbage can, you could use the macro function. On your Canon camera, it'll look like a little flower on the directional pad. The function auto-adjusts your depth of view so that the close things are in focus. fiatguy did mention this, but I figured that I'd let you know the "easy" way to do it, too. ;)