UHOH!!

lisaface

...SO now, I've caught your attention....

[**I'm not sure, if this is the correct area for this, if not , a mod is more than welcome to move or lock this thread** I've searched and can't seem to find another thread/area within Photography! ]

I adore photography, I always have my camera on me, to snap something!
Below are photo's I have entered into competitions , the Cannes one is probably my newest, I haven't bothered with the competition in a few months, but please if you have time , give me feedback?!?

ps. Feel free to add ,some of your own

Thanks,
Lisa

Paulw

To me, the first image looks soft and out of focus, and a bit over processed.

The third doesn't really have a point of interest or focus point.

The 2nd, to me, is the best of the three, but lacks a bit of composition. The main subject is too central.

Just my view though.

melekalikimaka

WOW

ok got your attention....:p

the first two are very pixelated.... to the [poin where its hard to see detail... what are they res wise? did you shrink them... then blow them up or summa?

AnimalRights

I can only refer you to ancatdubh's kind words when he pops up.

lisaface

Paulw wrote: »

To me, the first image looks soft and out of focus, and a bit over processed.

The third doesn't really have a point of interest or focus point.

The 2nd, to me, is the best of the three, but lacks a bit of composition. The main subject is too central.

Just my view though.

Thank you, for your feedback

melekalikimaka wrote: »

WOW

ok got your attention....:p

the first two are very pixelated.... to the [poin where its hard to see detail... what are they res wise? did you shrink them... then blow them up or summa?

Lol!
I don't have a clue, I'm an amateur when it comes to photography. I messed about on PS (early days of learning my way around it..still kinda there tho haha) on the first two photos. When people speak of high res and what not I'm like wut now!?! No I didn't shrink and then blow up, I shrank the 2nd one, as you can see it's smaller than the rest, but this was because the comp i entered asked for it.

I did win 1st place with the top two photos though, so felt good for amateur level lol

AnimalRights wrote: »

I can only refer you to ancatdubh's kind words when he pops up.

Since I'm new to this forum and new to photography, I'll be defensive here and ask, wtf was your point??? Seems like if you can't be arsed leaving your OWN WORDS,rather than referring me to a user, I don't even know/haven't a clue who is, its pointless.

CabanSail

I have to agree.

The first is badly exposed & has a lot of compression artifact. I do like the low point of view but the white van is a distraction.

The second is the pick of the three. It could do with some cropping on the right & maybe a bit off the bottom.

Third image is too busy & is lacking a subject. I feel there may have been an opportunity to use the single red oleander flower on the left to make an interesting composition.

BTW - This is the correct section & what you ask for is C&C (comment & criticism) if you want people to give their opinions.

Kintarō Hattori

lisaface wrote: »

Since I'm new to this forum and new to photography, I'll be defensive here and ask, wtf was your point??? Seems like if you can't be arsed leaving your OWN WORDS,rather than referring me to a user, I don't even know/haven't a clue who is, its pointless.

Now now there's no need to be like that, we're all good natured people here.

DaireQuinlan

lisaface wrote: »

Since I'm new to this forum and new to photography, I'll be defensive here and ask, wtf was your point??? Seems like if you can't be arsed leaving your OWN WORDS,rather than referring me to a user, I don't even know/haven't a clue who is, its pointless.

It's a bit of an in-joke, that is true, for which AR ought to be ashamed (bad AR). AnCatDubh is someone who will doubtless, as he often does, come along and leave thoughtful, insightful, and wise commentary on your shots. So much so that AR evidently feels that any contribution he might make is superfluous. Knowing the general standard of AR's contributions, I can't help but feel that he's right (oooo ! fight !).

I personally can't even see them. Your hosting provider is probably blocked in work or something.

CabanSail

Please keep things polite.

Everything has been so nice lately, let's not spoil that.

To the OP .... Animal Rights has a unique sense of humor, hang around here & you will get used to it.

l pearse

leche solara wrote: »

He may not have left his own opinion as he may have been speechless.

red_ice

number 1 imho has no texture to it. Colour seems to be what would catch my eye in this image and at that its still very drab. It just seems like its a photo for the sake of a photo, no real thought behind the image itself.

I like number 2, as stated previously, the composition could be a bit better, however the subject is central for a reason and the focus is dead set on it. Again, its a pretty straight forward shot, but there's stuff there in that shot that suggest a lot of potential to my.. ignorant mind. It shows understanding of your hardware(to me).

Number 3 is probably the best tho imho. Not for any other reason than quality. Its the clearest of all the images, the colours are nice and there is some visual weight to the left of the image, however i feel that's not intentional. Again, a photo for the sake of a photo, you like it, so its dear to you.

I would suggest looking into making those colours more vibrant. Give more detail to the images. Dont go nuts with post processing. Thats the key, right now you have an untrained eye - to the trained eye the subtleties are what will make or break a shot. Thats my view anyways.

again, my opinion is humble, im new to this stuff myself. I would definitely take what is said on this forum as gospel and not snap at anyone offering words of advice, no matter how crude they may seem. The mass body of this forum is comprised of very talented photographers(regardless of their skill level) and they are always willing to help out.

Keep at it

nice shots

Morrisseeee

First off, I can't see the pics either.
Also I can understand how the OP got carried away with AR's advice, ie. probably not knowing him or AnCathDubh. Scarcasm is hard to see over the WWW, and contoversy seems to hang around AR like flies on ........:p
........oh, and nice title, it got my attention aswell

GhostInTheRuins

First off, you should probably stop saving your photos as .gifs if you want them to look good.

No1 has the potential, but the people are underexposed and it's terrible quality. It looks like you took a 300px wide image and stretched it to 1000px. Is that the full res?

No2 is probably the best but it still looks a bit out of focus to me, and like the first it appears to be bad quality.

No3 isn't very interesting, my eye keeps being drawn to the rather horrible buildings.

AnCatDubh

Hi Lisa,

Welcome aboard and sorry to have been the source of any misunderstanding above. Don't worry about it - we've all been new to the forum and it will probably take a while to get to know everyone

A lot of good advice posted above. Like all advice - remember they are people's opinion and take from it what you can. It takes a little courage to put your work out there for critique and try to understand that around here everyone is genuinely interested in helping all forum users along their path of their photographic journey.

So my opinions on your postings (again only an opinion) -

I like the composition in #1. I do think it slightly unbalanced though. About 10 steps to the right I feel would have had balanced the shot better. No you don't have to have everything centered - in fact a lot of the time you are far better not having it centered but i feel in this instance that having it centered would yield more balance to the image. The van is a big problem in terms of something that you would frame. The three posing to me are also a problem unless they are particularly important to the composition from a personal perspective - from an overall compostion perspective it is an undesireable element. With the laws of optics, the verticals of the buildings will naturally fall away in such an image but if you are interested in doing some more work on your image it can be somewhat corrected (straightened) although maybe not perfect. I'm assuming that you have sharp JPG's of the first as has already been notified.

#2 - I love high contrast black and white so this is great from where i stand on my own photographic journey. The concept is classic - a very narrow depth of field lots of potential for bokeh but i'm wondering have you post processed in blur - it's either the GIF of the image or it just looks a little unreal. Your subject (the bird) is a bit too centered (que - the pot calling the kettle black with reference to the #1 critique but that's how it goes - it's not a hard and fast rule). In terms of positioning the subject within the frame the bird is facing to the left so I would have it positioned just a little more towards the right of the frame (not a rule - just an opinion) - maybe use the ROT (rule of thirds) but don't get hung up on it. I would have liked to have seen more of the context of the image to the left - a wider crop overall.

In #3 - the scene must have been wonderful but the buildings just makes a mess of anything intended to be an aesthetic capture of the scene. the composition is sound enough. You have the added foreground element which is great and has nice contrast in the colours. The background is obviously fantastic too. It's the middle section which ruins it for you (again just in my opinion). I think I can see a little daylight seaside haze in the background which again if you were expending effort in setting up the shot, you probably would have shot earlier in the morning to avoid such haze. ( I could be wrong on this but landscapes are great at the breaking of dawn and shortly thereafter).

Anyhow, that's my own thoughts - they are only thoughts and I can be wrong very often

You have a load of great information posted in the previous posts. I hope this adds and helps you along the way.

lisaface

<snip>

thanks for the criticism , I'll take it on board. Like I've said before I'm new to all of this,but love learning and developing. Your opinions/views are not falling on blind eyes, trust me, I'll take it in mind when I'm taking future photos.

AnCat thank you for your detailed post, your pm also, greatly appreciated. I can't say much as that, I will take everything said well that , that I want into consideration when taking future photos. Thanks again

Oh and just to mention (to everyone) the 3rd photo is of the Cannes, yes I did PS over it a bit, I sharpened it,but the original actually to me personally, was crap lol.

City-Exile

What camera are you using, lisaface?
None of the pictures look like they came from the same camera.

The first one looks like it was taken with an early camera phone model.
They second looks like it was taken with an SLR that has a f/2.8 lens mouted.
And the third looks like it was taken with a digital compact (point & shoot).

Paulw

lisaface wrote: »

I did win 1st place with the top two photos though, so felt good for amateur level lol

What competition did you win?