So I'm thinking of either getting a 5d mki (used) or a 7D. The 5D is going for $1100 right now on craigslist. Kinda skeptical about used cameras though... Thoughts?
So I'm thinking of either getting a 5d mki (used) or a 7D. The 5D is going for $1100 right now on craigslist. Kinda skeptical about used cameras though... Thoughts?
Go for the 5D. For what you shoot, FF will be very useful. I've bought…7 used cameras in my lifetime, of which none have had any problems whatsoever. Just make sure you give it a very thorough checkup and test every single function before handing over the cash. Another $270 will get you a KEH 5D in EX condition, which might be something to consider if you're not all that comfortable with meeting a Stranger From The Internet in a coffee shop.
I've had a really dull month, photographically. I just don't have the epithelial fortitude to shoot in -40 weather. On the bright side, all the pieces of my new tripod are nearly here. Gitzo GT2340 legs, PhotoClam PC-44NS head and a RRS L-plate. Hurray for Christmas cash!
Great stuff going around, Bomb those buildings on page 65 are kicking.
My monitor isn't giving me true colors right now, the video card I'm using as a stand in till my new one arrives is doing a poor job.
So my xmas gift to myself this year was an old DSLR -- a Nikon D70 -- after many years of realizing that I would have a very difficult time taking artistically interesting photos with a P&S camera. I spent some time in college with a black & white manual rangefinder and had a lot of fun with it, yet realized that over the past years most of my (point & shoot) photos were uninteresting or bland, typically because it felt like I had no control over how the picture actually looked. As SLRs were significantly out of my price range, when my last camera broke I simply went without. An SLR thread in H&A directed me towards the D70 and after doing a bit more research, I've had the camera for a little over 2 weeks (and taken about 800 pictures).
I don't have the confidence to post anything, as I've been mostly spending time learning (although I did completely revamp my own website to make it a photo site), but feel that I have a decent eye for composition. Anyway, just wanted to pop in and say I'm happy there's a photo thread ;D
<snip>
I don't have the confidence to post anything, as I've been mostly spending time learning (although I did completely revamp my own website to make it a photo site), but feel that I have a decent eye for composition. Anyway, just wanted to pop in and say I'm happy there's a photo thread ;D
If you post we might offer advice/crits, and that might help you improve your compositions. I doubt there's anyone here who has any personal animosity to less-experienced photographers, so I think you'll be safe from "you suck" and crits will be focussed on "if you did X, Y, or Z this picture might have been stronger" - which was the sort of stuff that really helped me improve.
Anyway, I really encourage you to get over the intimidation. We'd be happy to have you!
ok so ive been shooting with my canon 400D since april and im finally starting to see some improvement i think. gonna throw up a few of what I think are my strongest, any and all crits welcome.
most of these are not cropped at all/cropped very little, and shot with the base 400D lens and the awesome $100 50mm lens everyone here recommends. also i probably do too much vignetting and post stuff. so i guess keep that in mind? ok anyway
lemme know if the links dont work - im not sure if i can direct-link from flickr this way
Prosp - get the 5D, full frame rocks. I bought mine used, too. I would even say don't fret and buy from Ebay if you can. Check the number of actuations of the device, too, and it will give you a good feel of how much abuse it's taken.
I've been hell busy at work and the holiday season usually results in more party and family shots than I would care to do... but it is fun in it's own way.
First of all - baby shots!
Natural light and some reflectors / diffusers where needed.
Most of these are soft on purpose.
I bought my wife a Canon PowerShot 980IS, which is terribly fun due to its 24mm equivalent wide angle lens. I plan to utilize this a lot in trips.
And she got me this (which I'm madly in love with now)
Some shutter drag action with colleagues at a bowling alley
<snip>
I don't have the confidence to post anything, as I've been mostly spending time learning (although I did completely revamp my own website to make it a photo site), but feel that I have a decent eye for composition. Anyway, just wanted to pop in and say I'm happy there's a photo thread ;D
If you post we might offer advice/crits, and that might help you improve your compositions. I doubt there's anyone here who has any personal animosity to less-experienced photographers, so I think you'll be safe from "you suck" and crits will be focussed on "if you did X, Y, or Z this picture might have been stronger" - which was the sort of stuff that really helped me improve.
Anyway, I really encourage you to get over the intimidation. We'd be happy to have you!
Mostly it's that I haven't taken much that I think is interesting to even me. Still, your point is well taken; I might as well post up at least the stuff I've liked enough to put elsewhere.
I took these two in Georgetown a little over a week ago. These are undoctored, straight out of the camera. I've just shrunk them down. I particularly liked the one under the overpass because the light was reflecting up into the girders so was more than just dark or black.
PP: I like the first two, the last one doesn't do much for me. Don't like the way you've cropped the hockey player's head, seems a little too close to feel purposeful (i'm assuming you have to for the background).
Been working on my birdfeeder-enabled "wildlife" shots. I have two notable inhibitors to image quality (excluding artistic vision, etc): my lens (55-350/3.5-5.6) is just soft; also I am shooting through windows or a glass sliding door and usually my subjects are backlit. Consequently, I really haven't had shots worth sharing. But I like this one.
The discerning viewer might notice that each bird is sitting in approximately the same spot on the same branch. The pictures were taken about 22 seconds apart.
Jake - i really like the last one of the set, tranquil.
Pope - not sure if this is happening in post, but looks like an unsharp has been applied creating halos around the birds and branches.... or the post processing made it so. Hard to tell, but it's a bit distracting. Otherwise the color of the birds contrasts nicely with the gray of the bg.
So, for my senior year I got roped into taking intermediate photo as my random out of major class that's for funsies, However now I have to buy a camera. I'm looking for a Nikon Film body so I can borrow from my friends lens collection. Anyone got an FE-2 or something else they dont use and want to let go for cheap?
So I'm thinking of either getting a 5d mki (used) or a 7D. The 5D is going for $1100 right now on craigslist. Kinda skeptical about used cameras though... Thoughts?
Go for the 5D. For what you shoot, FF will be very useful. I've bought…7 used cameras in my lifetime, of which none have had any problems whatsoever. Just make sure you give it a very thorough checkup and test every single function before handing over the cash. Another $270 will get you a KEH 5D in EX condition, which might be something to consider if you're not all that comfortable with meeting a Stranger From The Internet in a coffee shop.
A full frame camera for $1100? Dear lord. Is that why I see so many people switching over from Nikon to Canon lately? A used D700 goes for considerably more than that.
Long time no shoot. So I went to a friend's wedding down in texas over the break. Here are some photos from the trip:
Little bit of experimenting with the 17-40 at the airport and fiddling around with some new processing styles. I'm not entirely happy with it but I figured I would ask for some advice on this. Is the subject just too boring?
The groom before his bachelor party. Woo skeet shooting, then bbq and booze.
Edit: The photographer they used for the wedding was friken kick ass. She was way better than any other wedding photographer I've seen: http://www.bloomaustin.com/blog/
CommunistCow on
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
Eggy - You've got a neat pattern in the first shot. The cropping is a bit odd - you're clipping the car on the bottom right and there's not much foreground. I like the foursome walking down the middle of the street. It seems like most of the left side of the frame is unnecessary - you've already established a pattern without it, and the subjects (the pattern in the girders above and the foursome walking) are not filling the frame as much as they could. As the photographic saying goes, "Shoot tight, crop tighter."
Not quite sure what you're getting at in the second image. The central crop would be more interesting if it were truly central - the door is just to the right of centre at the moment. The light is rather interesting. You might consider going slightly warmer in the white balance. As it is, your white balance is accurate, but the sunshine feels cold.
Not sure how much to read into "hese are undoctored, straight out of the camera.", but don't fall into the trap about thinking of post processing as cheating. It's a requirement for digital images - particularly if you're shooting RAW - and every half-decent photographer does it.
Jake! - Love them all. The snow barely looks real in 1 and 2. Fantastic texture. I have nothing constructive to add.
erasian pope - An even more discerning viewer might notice that those are male/female versions of the same species, respectively. Very neat pair of shots.
CC - The second shot is just lovely. The 17-40 experiment isn't too boring, but I'm not a huge fan of the angle nor the colour scheme. Lower shooting angle and either much greener or without a green tinge at all would be preferable.
I've finally launched a proper website for myself. It's hosted on smugmug, but I've tarted it up with enough custom code that you can't tell until you see the galleries. Thoughts?
@needOptic: re: picture of the girl bowling--I'm not sure if I like this shot because I feel like the movement in the photo is horizontal and the crop is vertical. However, the lighting, the motion of the subject, and the way the subject's foot is in the corner of the frame like that is really appealing and to me, it comes across as really technically adept. I'm really drawn to it even though looking at it this much is making me a little sea sick.
In short, if you wouldn't mind, can you tell me how you took this shot? I'd love to know the process on something like that.
@Houk: I love that upside-down mason jar. First picture is a bit too over-posted for my tastes and my eye is drawn toward the interesting shapes of the roof and unfortunately the sky, which is big bright nothing.
Picture 3: I have a hard time seeing it, it's like one of those images where it's an old maid no it's a young lady but instead it is a woman with an interesting costume no it's two dancers and the one in black is doing the great Cornholio. I hope I'm not the only one seeing that cause that'd be pretty weird. Maybe it's the overall brightness that's messing it up for me.
The bamboo pipe is nice. The processing works for this one where it's not working for me on the most of the others.
@pope: Man I love birds. I really like those two shots. From a design perspective it may be more interesting to crop them so the orientation and position of the branches are identical (as much as it's possible). It'd make it obvious that the two branches are in fact, the same branch.
(I've never critiqued photos before but there is a lot to learn in saying something stupid and being called on it, right? Right.)
Eggy - [snip]
Not sure how much to read into "hese are undoctored, straight out of the camera.", but don't fall into the trap about thinking of post processing as cheating. It's a requirement for digital images - particularly if you're shooting RAW - and every half-decent photographer does it.
Thanks for the comments; I feel like I'm currently still in the phase of taking snapshots, which is also why I'm not gung-ho about making a big deal out of anything that I shoot. As for the straight of out camera comment, it's not anti-processing (after all, the camera does processing on its own anyway), just that I hadn't cropped or 'shopped anything to fix or change anything.
I agree that the first would benefit from cropping, as most of the stuff on the sides is bland or cluttery. Probably more like this:
As for your own website, I only see your original Flickr links in your sig and profile?
Whilst I agree MKR, I think your example is a bit too extreme, given that you're not going to get a usable print from that;
The way I see it is this; there are two types of post processing, 'manipulation*', where you're changing every part of the image in the same way (things like cropping, curves, white balance, B&W conversion, etc.), and 'editing*,' where you're changing a single part of the image (like cloning, copying, touching up etc.).
'Straight off the Camera' is generally no more skillful than anything you can do with the former, particularly with digital.
** This post is utterly subjective and represents my personal tastes, not some half-cocked belief that I feel should apply universally to everyone **
I have always viewed post-production as the digital equivalent of darkroom work in film (Ansel Adams spent a LOT of time/effort in the darkroom and was very into dodging/burning to achieve the kinds of contrasts that he did). For me the only relevant thing about an image is not how it was achieved but is how it looks as a piece of art (or journalism) with the one exception being when an image portrays a realistic falsehood and is presented as real/true (ie - doctored journalistic photos like Reuters got in trouble over back in the earlier parts of the Iraq war).
An example is the semi-extreme processing in Gianni Galassi's work. Is it a photograph? Is it so manipulated that it becomes a digital work of some other ilk? Does it matter? I say no. I say, since it is presented as art specifically, the only relevant criterium is "Do I like it?" and is entirely subjective. Again, I think journalism needs different standards, as does any photography used to present "factual information." I am really talking about fine-art stuff, I guess.
Anyway, for me the ultimate goal is to present a beautiful image. To that end it makes sense to use every tool at my disposal.
From a relative beginner's POV, I like to focus on getting things pretty close or "as right as possible" in the camera because if your beginning image isn't good, then that's that. If you mess up the composition or lighting then, in many cases, you might as well missed the shot. Same with being out of focus or blurred.
Once you've got a good shot, I think it's definitely worthwhile to spend time seeing if you can make it better. Of course, you want to avoid analysis paralysis as well, which can be tough if you're dealing with hundreds or thousands of photos. After all, just taking a ton of pictures and letting them sit on your harddrive to be worked on "in the indefinite future" can be almost as bad as not getting the shot in the first place.
But you gotta have a good photo before you can spend time in the darkroom with it, imo.
I like these two photos. Is that a giant bubble in the first photo?
I think the second could use a little creative post processing. The foreground is interesting but the background is rather bland. Maybe you could do something like put a blue photo filter with a gradient over the top.
Also what pope and Eggy said. Eggy, just remember not to try and be a perfectionist in camera. Strive to be better with just the camera but you still need to practice using photoshop to get your skills up to speed.
CommunistCow on
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
Eggy - [snip]
Not sure how much to read into "hese are undoctored, straight out of the camera.", but don't fall into the trap about thinking of post processing as cheating. It's a requirement for digital images - particularly if you're shooting RAW - and every half-decent photographer does it.
Thanks for the comments; I feel like I'm currently still in the phase of taking snapshots, which is also why I'm not gung-ho about making a big deal out of anything that I shoot. As for the straight of out camera comment, it's not anti-processing (after all, the camera does processing on its own anyway), just that I hadn't cropped or 'shopped anything to fix or change anything.
I agree that the first would benefit from cropping, as most of the stuff on the sides is bland or cluttery. Probably more like this:
As for your own website, I only see your original Flickr links in your sig and profile?
BuckwolfeStarts With Them, Ends With UsRegistered Userregular
edited January 2010
The photo thread is probably my favorite to visit, but only once every month - month and a half. I like taking a break, and then sifting through the last dozen or so pages. It blows me away each and every time.
That's weird; it wasn't there before, but now it is. Maybe it simply didn't load in my browser.
As for the site, I personally prefer "portfolio" sites like this compared to Flickr, since Flickr has a lot of emphasis on the social aspect. One thing -- do you see anyone using the small>xlarge options? I know that's a feature of smugmug but it might be easier (and give you a smaller database) if you simply offer a "view larger version" option. After all, typically a user will want to see a photo bigger, at which point the size isn't much of an issue.
The software I'm using for my site lets me upload an image of any size and it resizes it for the thumbnail (and crops) and for the on-page view, with a simple magnifying glass to say "hey if you click me I get bigger," which is all I think a portfolio needs for viewing options. I mention it only because you said you're hacking at it, though; there's certainly nothing wrong with how it is currently.
Anyway, for me the ultimate goal is to present a beautiful image. To that end it makes sense to use every tool at my disposal.
I completely agree, but I think that the second path takes you to a point where you've no longer got a photo.
That can be true. Did you check out the dude I linked? He uses photography to make something that reminds me of cubism (cubism? whatever the correct name is for geometric abstract art). I dont entirely know what the best category is for him and I love that! I love pushed boundaries (well, I do when the result is pleasing to my eye) - but yeah, it can lead to something else (other than photography) and often people put forth what I consider to be slapdash crap under the guise of "dont categorize me, I am making ART!" so, yeah, I dunno what I am even saying. LOOK AT THAT! (runs away)
Anyway, for me the ultimate goal is to present a beautiful image. To that end it makes sense to use every tool at my disposal.
I completely agree, but I think that the second path takes you to a point where you've no longer got a photo.
Please lets not get into the discussion of how much editing is allowed before something is no longer "a photo". It is pretty damn subjective except for in journalism.
DM: I'm not really a fan of the color scheme you are using. Also your About page says people should shoot you an email if they are interested in working with you but you don't provide an email address.
Also the keywords seem weird to have below photos since this should be your site. Also if I click on one of them like "wild" it only comes up with one photo. Can you remove that part of the page?
CommunistCow on
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
Anyway, for me the ultimate goal is to present a beautiful image. To that end it makes sense to use every tool at my disposal.
I completely agree, but I think that the second path takes you to a point where you've no longer got a photo.
Please lets not get into the discussion of how much editing is allowed before something is no longer "a photo". It is pretty damn subjective except for in journalism.
DM: I'm not really a fan of the color scheme you are using. Also your About page says people should shoot you an email if they are interested in working with you but you don't provide an email address.
Also the keywords seem weird to have below photos since this should be your site. Also if I click on one of them like "wild" it only comes up with one photo. Can you remove that part of the page?
Thanks for the comments! I had entirely forgotten about the email - fixed. I agree on the keywording, and after a bit of jimmying have them gone.
Eggy, I haven't been able to figure out how to do that yet. It's a good idea, though, so I'll keep working on it.
Anyway, for me the ultimate goal is to present a beautiful image. To that end it makes sense to use every tool at my disposal.
I completely agree, but I think that the second path takes you to a point where you've no longer got a photo.
Please lets not get into the discussion of how much editing is allowed before something is no longer "a photo". It is pretty damn subjective except for in journalism.
We don't have to, if you read my point :P
Pope: I really like that guy's stuff, but I don't see it as photography. I'm not putting unedited work on a pedestal (I'd say photography is about the lie more than any other form of art I practice), I'm saying you can't really get away from photography by applying something uniformly to an entire image.
Posts
My Portfolio Site
Go for the 5D. For what you shoot, FF will be very useful. I've bought…7 used cameras in my lifetime, of which none have had any problems whatsoever. Just make sure you give it a very thorough checkup and test every single function before handing over the cash. Another $270 will get you a KEH 5D in EX condition, which might be something to consider if you're not all that comfortable with meeting a Stranger From The Internet in a coffee shop.
I've had a really dull month, photographically. I just don't have the epithelial fortitude to shoot in -40 weather. On the bright side, all the pieces of my new tripod are nearly here. Gitzo GT2340 legs, PhotoClam PC-44NS head and a RRS L-plate. Hurray for Christmas cash!
My monitor isn't giving me true colors right now, the video card I'm using as a stand in till my new one arrives is doing a poor job.
I don't have the confidence to post anything, as I've been mostly spending time learning (although I did completely revamp my own website to make it a photo site), but feel that I have a decent eye for composition. Anyway, just wanted to pop in and say I'm happy there's a photo thread ;D
If you post we might offer advice/crits, and that might help you improve your compositions. I doubt there's anyone here who has any personal animosity to less-experienced photographers, so I think you'll be safe from "you suck" and crits will be focussed on "if you did X, Y, or Z this picture might have been stronger" - which was the sort of stuff that really helped me improve.
Anyway, I really encourage you to get over the intimidation. We'd be happy to have you!
My Website | My "photo-a-day" 2010
most of these are not cropped at all/cropped very little, and shot with the base 400D lens and the awesome $100 50mm lens everyone here recommends. also i probably do too much vignetting and post stuff. so i guess keep that in mind? ok anyway
lemme know if the links dont work - im not sure if i can direct-link from flickr this way
I've been hell busy at work and the holiday season usually results in more party and family shots than I would care to do... but it is fun in it's own way.
First of all - baby shots!
Natural light and some reflectors / diffusers where needed.
Most of these are soft on purpose.
I bought my wife a Canon PowerShot 980IS, which is terribly fun due to its 24mm equivalent wide angle lens. I plan to utilize this a lot in trips.
And she got me this (which I'm madly in love with now)
Some shutter drag action with colleagues at a bowling alley
Some hockey shots from my friends team
Team portraits...
Trip to LA for MS Dev Conference
Santa Monica at night
Pfew...it's been a while...
(blown highlights on right guys face but don't care too much)
Mostly it's that I haven't taken much that I think is interesting to even me. Still, your point is well taken; I might as well post up at least the stuff I've liked enough to put elsewhere.
I took these two in Georgetown a little over a week ago. These are undoctored, straight out of the camera. I've just shrunk them down. I particularly liked the one under the overpass because the light was reflecting up into the girders so was more than just dark or black.
nO: first one is my favourite, very 1900!
PP: I like the first two, the last one doesn't do much for me. Don't like the way you've cropped the hockey player's head, seems a little too close to feel purposeful (i'm assuming you have to for the background).
The discerning viewer might notice that each bird is sitting in approximately the same spot on the same branch. The pictures were taken about 22 seconds apart.
My Website | My "photo-a-day" 2010
Long. my budget is probably under 250 preferably less since i want to pick up a used 70-210 if possible.
Pope - not sure if this is happening in post, but looks like an unsharp has been applied creating halos around the birds and branches.... or the post processing made it so. Hard to tell, but it's a bit distracting. Otherwise the color of the birds contrasts nicely with the gray of the bg.
A full frame camera for $1100? Dear lord. Is that why I see so many people switching over from Nikon to Canon lately? A used D700 goes for considerably more than that.
Little bit of experimenting with the 17-40 at the airport and fiddling around with some new processing styles. I'm not entirely happy with it but I figured I would ask for some advice on this. Is the subject just too boring?
The groom before his bachelor party. Woo skeet shooting, then bbq and booze.
Edit: The photographer they used for the wedding was friken kick ass. She was way better than any other wedding photographer I've seen:
http://www.bloomaustin.com/blog/
Not quite sure what you're getting at in the second image. The central crop would be more interesting if it were truly central - the door is just to the right of centre at the moment. The light is rather interesting. You might consider going slightly warmer in the white balance. As it is, your white balance is accurate, but the sunshine feels cold.
Not sure how much to read into "hese are undoctored, straight out of the camera.", but don't fall into the trap about thinking of post processing as cheating. It's a requirement for digital images - particularly if you're shooting RAW - and every half-decent photographer does it.
Jake! - Love them all. The snow barely looks real in 1 and 2. Fantastic texture. I have nothing constructive to add.
erasian pope - An even more discerning viewer might notice that those are male/female versions of the same species, respectively. Very neat pair of shots.
CC - The second shot is just lovely. The 17-40 experiment isn't too boring, but I'm not a huge fan of the angle nor the colour scheme. Lower shooting angle and either much greener or without a green tinge at all would be preferable.
I've finally launched a proper website for myself. It's hosted on smugmug, but I've tarted it up with enough custom code that you can't tell until you see the galleries. Thoughts?
In short, if you wouldn't mind, can you tell me how you took this shot? I'd love to know the process on something like that.
@Houk: I love that upside-down mason jar. First picture is a bit too over-posted for my tastes and my eye is drawn toward the interesting shapes of the roof and unfortunately the sky, which is big bright nothing.
Picture 3: I have a hard time seeing it, it's like one of those images where it's an old maid no it's a young lady but instead it is a woman with an interesting costume no it's two dancers and the one in black is doing the great Cornholio. I hope I'm not the only one seeing that cause that'd be pretty weird. Maybe it's the overall brightness that's messing it up for me.
The bamboo pipe is nice. The processing works for this one where it's not working for me on the most of the others.
@pope: Man I love birds. I really like those two shots. From a design perspective it may be more interesting to crop them so the orientation and position of the branches are identical (as much as it's possible). It'd make it obvious that the two branches are in fact, the same branch.
(I've never critiqued photos before but there is a lot to learn in saying something stupid and being called on it, right? Right.)
One of the bonuses of having bugger all daylight is there is almost constantly a sunrise or sunset to shoot
Saw the northern lights 8-) , but found them pretty challenging to take good crisp photos of (tips welcome)
this may only be interesting to me, but I like the photo
same geyser about 2 seconds earlier
Thanks for the comments; I feel like I'm currently still in the phase of taking snapshots, which is also why I'm not gung-ho about making a big deal out of anything that I shoot. As for the straight of out camera comment, it's not anti-processing (after all, the camera does processing on its own anyway), just that I hadn't cropped or 'shopped anything to fix or change anything.
I agree that the first would benefit from cropping, as most of the stuff on the sides is bland or cluttery. Probably more like this:
As for your own website, I only see your original Flickr links in your sig and profile?
The way I see it is this; there are two types of post processing, 'manipulation*', where you're changing every part of the image in the same way (things like cropping, curves, white balance, B&W conversion, etc.), and 'editing*,' where you're changing a single part of the image (like cloning, copying, touching up etc.).
'Straight off the Camera' is generally no more skillful than anything you can do with the former, particularly with digital.
*I accept I've used these words arbitrarily.
I have always viewed post-production as the digital equivalent of darkroom work in film (Ansel Adams spent a LOT of time/effort in the darkroom and was very into dodging/burning to achieve the kinds of contrasts that he did). For me the only relevant thing about an image is not how it was achieved but is how it looks as a piece of art (or journalism) with the one exception being when an image portrays a realistic falsehood and is presented as real/true (ie - doctored journalistic photos like Reuters got in trouble over back in the earlier parts of the Iraq war).
An example is the semi-extreme processing in Gianni Galassi's work. Is it a photograph? Is it so manipulated that it becomes a digital work of some other ilk? Does it matter? I say no. I say, since it is presented as art specifically, the only relevant criterium is "Do I like it?" and is entirely subjective. Again, I think journalism needs different standards, as does any photography used to present "factual information." I am really talking about fine-art stuff, I guess.
Anyway, for me the ultimate goal is to present a beautiful image. To that end it makes sense to use every tool at my disposal.
My Website | My "photo-a-day" 2010
Once you've got a good shot, I think it's definitely worthwhile to spend time seeing if you can make it better. Of course, you want to avoid analysis paralysis as well, which can be tough if you're dealing with hundreds or thousands of photos. After all, just taking a ton of pictures and letting them sit on your harddrive to be worked on "in the indefinite future" can be almost as bad as not getting the shot in the first place.
But you gotta have a good photo before you can spend time in the darkroom with it, imo.
My Website | My "photo-a-day" 2010
I like these two photos. Is that a giant bubble in the first photo?
I think the second could use a little creative post processing. The foreground is interesting but the background is rather bland. Maybe you could do something like put a blue photo filter with a gradient over the top.
Also what pope and Eggy said. Eggy, just remember not to try and be a perfectionist in camera. Strive to be better with just the camera but you still need to practice using photoshop to get your skills up to speed.
I completely agree, but I think that the second path takes you to a point where you've no longer got a photo.
I much prefer the crop! Very nice.
My website should've been linked via a big black and yellow banner saying "Garrett Elias Photography". Is…is that not there? Here's a plaintext link, just in case it's not.
Steam handle: Buckwolfe
That's weird; it wasn't there before, but now it is. Maybe it simply didn't load in my browser.
As for the site, I personally prefer "portfolio" sites like this compared to Flickr, since Flickr has a lot of emphasis on the social aspect. One thing -- do you see anyone using the small>xlarge options? I know that's a feature of smugmug but it might be easier (and give you a smaller database) if you simply offer a "view larger version" option. After all, typically a user will want to see a photo bigger, at which point the size isn't much of an issue.
The software I'm using for my site lets me upload an image of any size and it resizes it for the thumbnail (and crops) and for the on-page view, with a simple magnifying glass to say "hey if you click me I get bigger," which is all I think a portfolio needs for viewing options. I mention it only because you said you're hacking at it, though; there's certainly nothing wrong with how it is currently.
That can be true. Did you check out the dude I linked? He uses photography to make something that reminds me of cubism (cubism? whatever the correct name is for geometric abstract art). I dont entirely know what the best category is for him and I love that! I love pushed boundaries (well, I do when the result is pleasing to my eye) - but yeah, it can lead to something else (other than photography) and often people put forth what I consider to be slapdash crap under the guise of "dont categorize me, I am making ART!" so, yeah, I dunno what I am even saying. LOOK AT THAT! (runs away)
(really? TotP? crud)
My Website | My "photo-a-day" 2010
Please lets not get into the discussion of how much editing is allowed before something is no longer "a photo". It is pretty damn subjective except for in journalism.
DM: I'm not really a fan of the color scheme you are using. Also your About page says people should shoot you an email if they are interested in working with you but you don't provide an email address.
Also the keywords seem weird to have below photos since this should be your site. Also if I click on one of them like "wild" it only comes up with one photo. Can you remove that part of the page?
Thanks for the comments! I had entirely forgotten about the email - fixed. I agree on the keywording, and after a bit of jimmying have them gone.
Eggy, I haven't been able to figure out how to do that yet. It's a good idea, though, so I'll keep working on it.
We don't have to, if you read my point :P
Pope: I really like that guy's stuff, but I don't see it as photography. I'm not putting unedited work on a pedestal (I'd say photography is about the lie more than any other form of art I practice), I'm saying you can't really get away from photography by applying something uniformly to an entire image.
I haven't been here for a while so I'm digging a bit but I love this shot by Sheri. Ring flash I'm guessing? Good use of it.
Indeedy, and my first time getting to play with one! Thanks.
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