Critique of photos

[Tim Schulz]

Hi all,

About a year ago I added a DSLR camera to my photography equipment, which, at the time, consisted of a simple point-and-shoot camera.  Period.  With the help of many of you on this board — some of you know you’ve helped me, others may not — I feel like I’m making some progress.  But I suspect I still have bad habits, so I’d appreciate your feedback on a few of my photos.  I’m a bit uncomfortable asking for free advice, but if I’ve picked up some obvious bad habits, maybe one or more of you can move me toward the right direction with a simple suggestion or two.  I’m trying to improve, so all comments are welcome.

These photos are some of my most recent.  The weird shots toward the end came about because we are having our kitchen and family-room repainted, and when we moved some of the miniature statues from their displays, I couldn’t resist taking a few fishing-related photos.  The set up for the rod and reel shots is inspired by a recent photo of John Bennett’s.  I hope he doesn’t mind.  

First a few shots of our local rivers:

Here’s the John Bennett inspired photo:

Again, with an experiment in color:

Finally, the goofy pictures:

Thanks in advance for your help.

Cheers,
Tim

[John Bennett]

As commented on FB, they look great Tim. A couple look a little dark but thats niether here nor there. Love the reel/nymph shot 🙂

[Neal Osborn]

You did a good job on the creamy water shots – it can be difficult to get long exposures without a filter – your highlights are well preserved as seen on my monitor.

[Mike McKeown]

Really good work… they all work.

[john michael white]

I really like the little statuette shots.  The lighting looks really nice on them to me.

I also like the first stream shots you posted.  Personaly, I like #1 the best.  I like #3, but wish it had a little longer exposure so that the water had more blur as in image #1 and might have tried to move the shot more to the left in order to capture more of the stream and less of the big rock, if possible.  The big rock captures the lower right third of the image and I think the *subject* is the stream, not the rock? Others may feel diferently, so take that only as a suggestion.

Both of the reel shots are nice – I like the sepia/bw version with the red colored bead the best…it just kind of grabs me.  Real nice job.

The following shot is cool as well, with the beadhead nymph hooked on the rod.  One suggestion –

[Tim Schulz]

Thanks for the comments, guys.

[Bob Riggins]

I liked your shots, particularly the statues.  I can’t give you any suggestions, since I am a complete novice.  The only SLR I own is an old Pentax K1000.  The only thing that I noticed is that the background in the river shots lacked a certain crispness (I’m sure that is not a photographic term).  I think I have a backgroud fettish.  Even with my point and shoot, I am always trying to get good forground and background elements.  That being said, I think good color and focus in the background trees would have made good shots, great shots.

[Douglas Barnes]

Good stuff Tim! I like the first one.

[John Bennett]

J.B. and N.O.:

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