Some of my work can be viewed at http://www.flickr.com/photos/fstopping/. Please be critical and give me some good advice. I will try and use some of your suggestions this weekend when I go out on my shoot. Thanks for your help.
Captain Noodles
Favorite Answer
I generally only give a critique to someone if I see great potential in their work. You're doing pretty good, you've a solid eye for photography and your composition is generally decent. A few recommendations that I could make are all minor things, but they can keep a good photo out of the art gallery. Landscapes/Waterscapes with a clear horizon line tend to look best when the horizon lies on an upper or lower third of the image, or if either the land/water or sky is very boring, the upper or lower 1/8. Of course, this is just a guideline and should be treated as such, but it does tend to work for 90% of the shots out there. In "Easy Does It," for instance, I feel like boat at the bottom of the shot is clipped off for the sake of a not-so-interesting sky in the top 1/8 of the shot. Something else to try for this shot is a vertical composition, as the two boats and the interesting clouds mostly lie within the same vertical line. This would also allow you to keep both the boat and the upper portion of the sky. The photo "A Perfect End" works with the horizon centered, so as I said, just keep it in mind.
Also, the flower shots are nice and all, but many are indistinguishable from all the other flower shots. Please don't take that as an insult, the hardest part of floral photography is to make it unique. There are tens or hundreds of thousands of images of roses. Most of the photographic (as opposed to documentary) ones have been spritzed with water to make water droplets. Most are shot looking into the head of the flower from above. Many photographers think that flowers have been exhausted, but I disagree, you just have to find more interesting ways to photograph it. Take shots from underneath, up close, in black and white, or other parts of the plant. That said, I do love the color that you bring out in your floral shots, and I especially adore "I'm Buzzed." Finally, the shots "Soothing Flow," "Awaken Souls," and "Autumn Around the Corner" are superb -- they lead the eye throughout the image well, and there's plenty of detail, color, and interesting subject to be found.
As a side note, a lot of the locations in these shots are areas that I pass daily. You photographed my coveted fishing spot in "Nature's Coloring Book," and my commute to college in "Caution: Wet Paint." Heck, the Costco to which you refer in "Yellow Sweetness" may even be the one that I get my prints at. You showed me some sights that I normally consider mundane, and you made me look at them a bit differently. That's what a photographer does, and I appreciate it.
cedykeman1
I think there is many ways one can improve their shoots. I am sure you are already familiar with composition. There is a book out there that is very good at explaining how people compose. It is very in depth and teaches how to think when setting up a shot.
Another way to improve your shots is to have an agenda when you go out. For example get it into your mind that you want to shoot scenes that highlight the joy of summer. Your shots will improve because you'll be looking for specific situations and your mind will be thinking of ways to achieve this. Another example would be night life. You might go to where the action is and you would be prepared to bring flashes and a tripod. Different seasons brings on different moods and you should have no problems coming up with new agenda's. One of the reasons for using an agenda is that it keeps your mind focused and your not just walking around aimlessly looking for a good shot.
Knowing the limits of your gear is a great help too, take off any automatic settings and do things the camera wouldn't do if it was to make all the decisions. Even if your experiement doesn't come out perfect it will give you insight on how to achieve certain effects.
Read a great book about this stuff called "Photographic Composition, guidelines for total image control through effective design" it was written by Tom Grill and Mark Scanlon.
Zoe
I want whatever camera you're using! My God, I don't know how you could get any better.
I do some photography myself, and the only thing that really helps me is experimenting with effects and settings on my camera. Most of my best photos are happy accidents.
Keep practicing!
Anonymous
I enjoyed your photography. My advice is to keep doing what you enjoy and like doing the best. It shows in your photography that you are doing really good. I am still in the beginning stages of learning photography myself and am nowhere near where you are,
john
I don't know how you could improve, your photos are already great! I loved just about all of them, keep up the good work!
Please view my photography website
http://www.freewebs.com/johnnyphotography
Thank You
Johnny