I'm a beginner and need some opinions =] criticism more than welcome!

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Permalink Reply by Sean on November 5, 2009 at 4:48pm

Nice, but change your shooting angle from time to time.

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Permalink Reply by Michael on November 5, 2009 at 10:39pm

You ask for honest critique so don't be offended by my comments they are not personal they are just aimed at providing you with the honest and perhaps hard to hear feedback that you requested.

I guess it depends on what your goal is. If you want to be better than average and take snapshots than you have reached your goal. But if your desire is to be truly good and create composition then you have some distance to travel. What first jumped out to me as an area that you need work on was color balance. The colors of those in your portraits are not very well balanced. They are neither to pink, to red, or have harsh shadows that don't compliment the faces. Another area that needs work is "composition", how the photo is laid out, and whats in the photo. I also think that you need some work on controlling the depth of field in your photos. Things like knowing when to have a shallow depth of field and when to have depth of field throughout the entire composition.

I think one of the best ways to improve is to study the work of those who are getting it right. I don't currently do a lot of portraits so there isn't a lot in my gallery to look at but here are two people on my friends list who are definitely getting it right that you can compare your work to and learn from. If you are interesting in landscapes and making your photos more vibrant and dynamic you can take a look at my gallery. I am also an amateur of only two years so I also have a great deal to learn.

Barbara Ann - http://www.picturesocial.com/profile/BarbaraAnnHeintzman?xg_source=...

Clare McAfee - http://www.picturesocial.com/profile/ClareMcAfee?xg_source=profiles...

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Permalink Reply by ADI on November 6, 2009 at 6:46pm

Thanks guys. I don't know much about photography yet, but Im looking into taking some courses. As for right now I have a cheap little Kodak that was bought for me on my 15th birthday---not really a good "professional camera" lol. But I am saving up! I also have no photoshop or editing program. Just a free website that I go to that is only about 2x better than photobucket. So when I say I'm a beginner, I really mean it! lol But thank you guys for your suggestions! I'll keep them in mind and hopefully one day I'll be as good as you guys!

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Permalink Reply by CameraClicker on November 7, 2009 at 6:59pm

EXIF data says you are using a Kodak Easyshare M753, point and shoot camera. It has a physically small sensor with 7 megapixels crammed on it and a short zoom lens, probably 6 mm to 18 mm giving an equivalent angle of view of 35 to 110 mm if you were using a film SLR. Even though the aperture numbers of f/2.8–f/5.2 on an SLR would give a shallow depth of field, because of the small sensor size, you can not achieve the same shallow depth of field.

134_3687.jpg: The right side of the face is lit much more than the left side and the flash fired so the camera must have decided fill flash was required. There must have been a door or window to the child's right. The natural light is too harsh and the camera was only able to partially compensate with the built in flash. You can't do much about it with a candid portrait but if you were setting it up and posing her, thin white curtains drawn or a white bedsheet would diffuse the light, soften it and make it easier for the camera to get a good exposure.

Standing further back and using more zoom would give a more proportionate body in relation to the head. A short, or very short, lens distorts objects that are close making them look larger than objects slightly more distant. If you zoomed in ( + zoom button ) as far as the optical zoom will go, then move yourself and the camera to fill the frame, you may get a more pleasing result. Also, being a bit further away, the camera will have an easier time focusing and will give a sharper picture. This paragraph also applies to 132_0796fixed.jpg.

134_4603.jpg: The camera has set ISO as low as it can and closed the aperture as much as it can. The shutter speed could still be faster, so the camera realized it had a lot of light to work with but saw the scene as still needing to be bright. To me, it looks washed out a little. Not much you can do about this if you are leaving it up to the camera to make the decisions. You can adjust it a little with editing software when it is on the computer. Speaking of editing software, GIMP is free and powerful. Google can find it for you, there are versions for Windows, Linux and Mac. It will take you some time to learn to use it but you will find it worthwhile.

Some minor adjustmet to the levels would saturate the colors and improve the picture but it will still have limited appeal. It is a captured memory of someone's little girl or grandchild during a day at the beach. It has potential to be part of an article about the dangers of inflatable toys around water, to children. There is even space to put a title and the starting text of an article in black print on the bright sand. If the camera were lower and the child were between the middle and bottom third of the photo with the middle and top thirds of the photo showing the water and perhaps some sky, it might improve the composition.

Several of the photos in your gallery are quite good but need a little bit of post processing. Others could have sharper focus. Perhaps you have to work on holding the camera still while taking the picture?

I agree with Michael, look at lots of photos, decide what you like and what you don't like, try to determine what it is about those you like or don't that causes you to feel that way. Work at composing and exposing pictures that have the elements you like.

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