Photo Feedback
- This topic has 13 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated Feb 28, 2008 at 8:46 pm by
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Okay so I’m not really happy with the one titled Torpedo away – taken post algee bloom and well you can see when you look at it how ugly the water comes out. I took the picture titled ‘Toad’ in the only spot I could find pseudo clean water – I got lucky and found a serious chunk sunning itself. My favorite of the group is the hiking in, but it’s a close second to the school of fish in the pic titled ‘Second Look’. If you move your head away from this one and around your screen (physically) I think the title will make sense…. (I’m hoping) I shot it with two polarizers and a really over compensated Flash, the thought was I wanted to get the fish to glow ‘alein like’, but not obviously… Anyways please let me know – both good and bad, your bad will help me the most, and the good …well it just is nice to have the feelgood feedback as well.
thanks,
Aaron
http://picasaweb.google.com/FazeeshPimp/Posters/photo#s5170653886005315378
Aaron, you are a brave person. 🙂
I’ll give you my thoughts, but please understand I’m not the best judge of what you want to accomplish. I’m just looking at them from my own tastes.
1) “Hiking In” is an interesting shot with the lighting and the angle, but I can see nothing but a cemetary in it. It strongly conveys that image to me and no matter what you title it, I will always see headstones on a moon lit night. The one rock in the center of the picture is the focal point, and it looks like a headstone to me. You may have been going after that graveyard look, if so you succeeded. ;D
2) “Second Look” – that’s a great title cause it took me several looks before I saw what you were trying to capture. As an abstract scene, I like it, although can’t help but feel it would be lost on a lot of folks. I can appreciate the experimentation it must have taken, as you noted, to get that look. I counted at least 14 fish by the way. Awesome.
3) “Toad” – aptly named! What a fatty. I am not distracted by the water as much as the funny angle of the tail finning which makes it look malformed–not that a fish that size isn’t malformed already! On an opportunity like that I would be shooting from as many angles, perhaps bracketing, as fast as I could before I moved him out of there. I was wondering about a lower angle and trying to put some space between it and its shadow to emphasize the body shape even more. Definite be shooting as he starts to move away–you might get a better view of the tail fin or shadow.
4) “Torpedo” – If it were me, I would toss it. My instinct is to delete photos which are not flattering to the subject or technically good. Fish is not in focus and the pose makes it look deformed. Fish was a distraction, not the water. 🙂 Focus on this photo I would think would need to be the nose of the fish. looks like you might have had some camera shake going on or holding with one hand. I also find it extremely difficult to make a good fish photo if the mouth is half way in/half way out of the water. Either submerse the whole mouth or lift the whole mouth out of the water.
One of the hardest things for me has been to learn to use the delete button. Here’s two of my criteria:
1) If the critical parts of the subject are out of focus – trash it (exception – it might be salvagable as a reduced size image in a montage or background for web use, of if part of the subject is in focus and can be used for a color or pattern image for some purpose). It takes practice to judge whether something is in focus or not. Make a decision based on how the photo looks at 100% on a large display (20 inch). I can never tell well on my laptop display.
2) If the subject is in an unflattering position – trash it. Generally, you want to present your subject in a flattering pose.
No expert here, but just some of my thoughts. I look forward to seeing more of your photos!
Scott
Well, again, Aaron, you should not cut something just because someone else would. Judge everything on its total merit count to you. If it was the loch ness monster, I could stand the photo being slightly out of focus ;).
I really liked the first gallery in your second post, BTW. You have a good eye.
Well, again, Aaron, you should not cut something just because someone else would. Judge everything on its total merit count to you. If it was the loch ness monster, I could stand the photo being slightly out of focus ;).
I really liked the first gallery in your second post, BTW. You have a good eye.
No worries here man – I know I can’t get better unless I’ve had a place to start from. Your thoughts are good. I got death theats on the first fishing article I ever had published, so a little critical thoughts at this point can only help me. I actually had a guy post on his personal blog about how bad I was (writing) and put a link to it on a few of the really big sites out there. Want to talk about being humbled. No hard feelings here – I took your advice for better or for worse and will kill the photo. I take so many pictures that I’m sure I can find a few others to fit their bill.
My sincerest thanks for your feedback and time,
Aaron
nice shots…
IMHO-
1. Fill flash on the moon shot would have been interesting.. the shot is interesting.. but lighting the foreground might have been intereting too..
2. Perspective… shooting down at trout (or pretty much anything other than ariel shots) or your subject causes distortion and the viewer has a hard time “feeling” as if they are there…
This goes for kids, flowers, fish, people.. look at images you really like and try to imagine the angle of the lense and then the location of the photographer… and allways remember.. the eyes have it… try to get a shot of the eye…
of course without a waterproof assembly and a really tame fish this would be hard without capturing the fish first…
-edit- OK after looking at some of your albums.. I see elements of all of these… fill flash, eye-level angles.. and some very nice shots -edit-
I agree you have a good eye.
I think the Toad is not tight enough – a little cropping can go a long way.
I really like Second Look – it’s got great feel.
Hiking in is a nice composition.
In all your shots the post production is a little over the top for my eye.
Nice shots.
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
Thanks gusy for all the feedback, I have printed it and will summarize in my photo journal and hopefully I can take the key points and apply them.
Aaron, I don’t have much more to add than what has already been written. I do, however, want to compliment your attitude as well as the way that you except critique as a tool. You have a great approach about learning how to shoot compositions and that truly is the essence of photography.
If I may offer this by expanding on some of the correct comments above: When you are post processing your images, try several different crops and in several different areas of the image. Granted, the crops might be to small for you to use as a final but if you find one crop that really shines far above any other, remember that composition and try to shoot for that composition, the next time you go out for some shots. I use to, and still do on some shots, print my finals and stare at them for hours. Once my eyes became lazy, they would take me to the distractions that I did not see before. This helped to improve my awareness in future similar shots.
On a shot, where you are trying to take the viewer on a walk into your composition, try getting lower to the ground and open the lens up a bit more, or close it dependent upon what will be in the compositions. If the viewer feels that they can take their next step with you and be able to see where their next foot print might land, it helps convey the feel of stepping into the image.
There are many different rules of composition, in both photography and art. They are there for a reason but once learned, try to break them properly. An example, most portrait photography: Shoot from eye level but in most fashion and /or runway fashion Photography: shoot from knee level. The most amazing shots are the ones that understand what the composition is suppose to deliver and break the general rules. Examples: Zach’s composition of the fly fisher from below knee level. Fashion photography that is taken from a level that was suppose to be the rule of arial photography. Learn some of these rules and then play with them in the wrong applications as they can deliver some amazing shots. But never, ever let the eyes be out of focus, as already mentioned in this thread.
Also, study your finals and ask yourself “what is it that I want the viewer to see”?. Then stare at it for a very long time and see if your eye keeps getting pulled away from the subject of your focal point. Everything around it should support your focal point but not take the eyes unwillingly away from it. In your trout shot, I would assume that the open mouth was your focal point and the real subject of your composition, don’t be afraid to zoom in real tight on it and be careful that the reflections add even more distraction, the only thing that you can miss on this type of close up is not having the eyes in focus too. If the reflection is distracting, try zooming in even more. Yes about moving around a lot and snap images like a hound dog on scent. If you aren’t sure about a shot, shoot it anyway, you never know how well it might actually look in post edit. Ask yourself if your final is a flat snap shot or if you actually captured what you saw with your eyes.
Mainly, keep your great attitude as once one feels they are good enough, they leave no room for improvement. I know that I can and will always do or get better as long as I keep my attitude about learning something new or trying something different, it is survival in this trade :).
This is a great place for asking for advice too, some great talent here and professional photographers that do have my respect and admiration. There are a lot of photography critique sites on the net but they seem to have a large amount of people that want to come off as high end pro’s and offer advice that take a great image and offer suggestions, to the offering photographer, that turns an impressive composition into a mere snap shot. You won’t get that type of critique here and that is why I like it here so much. 🙂
I want to echo what everyone has said, I think it shows a LOT that you are willing to post and take critique…
Shot with fisherman & truck… interesting.. horizon looks to be a little off (not level).. might be perspective…
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