Hi everyone. My name's Heidi and I just joined this site. I was browsing various captures and a lot of them literally took my breath away! Very talented photographers here!
I've always had a great interest in photography, but haven't really dabbled in it myself until recently. I received an HP Photosmart R607 for Christmas and I'm really enjoying it! AH! The power of digital. ^^
Anyhow, seeing as I'm a newbie to all this, I would really appreciate some honest constructive critism. Only way to learn, right? :)
Here is 4 pictures of my Great Dane/Lab mix Jetta. LOL She's my best subject and much more cooperative than my hubs :P
Hi Heidi, welcome to the club! Lisa was right, there are a lot of friendly and helpful people here. Just watch out for those crazy manic\depressive ones. :)
Your photos of Jetta look pretty good. In the first shot the color balance looks a bit off to me. There's too much blue in the snow. The colors look much better in the second one. I also think the composition is better in that one too.
Welcome...
The 3 first photos are really nice, the third one is the one i like best.
The B&W is really nice.
on the first photo u would crop almost to the tree but leaving the tree in the photo. IMO. i agre with mike on the color blue.
The second seems good to me.
The third on the only thing i can point out is the cables behind the dog, but everything else seems nice.
Hope you enjoy the site, it helps a lot. and for sure you learn a lot.
Just watch out for those crazy manic\depressive ones. :)
Your talking about me arent you? I knew it. If you have something to say just say it to my face....Just kidding ha ha ha. No really, you hate me dont you.....I knew it. :(
When you ask for an oppinion on this site often times what you will get is a lot of a** kissing, but not from me.
I know you are new to this site and to photography, but I'm of the persuasion that if you throw the pup in the water he will quickly learn how to swim. Ready to get wet?
1, 2 & 4 do not work. The composition is weak on each of these. 4 is the stronger of these three but suffers from a jubmled background and too much on camera flash (thus the glare in the eyes, the loss of detail and washed out colors).
Number 3 is the strongest composition, but like 4 has distracting background clutter (in this case wires) and suffers from the same on camera flash.
Advice:
1. Pay attention to what is in your composition besides the subject.
2. Get down on or below the level of your subject when doing portraits (of dogs, cats, kids, or monkeys. Most any living thing really.)
3. Crop close.
4. Lose the on camera flash.
Follow those 4 guidelines and your pictures will improve in less then a week.
Post this again in a week. Same subject. I would like to see what you can do.
Thanks so much for all the advice and comments guys! I'll definitly try a lot of those suggestions! :)
I know some of the backgrounds are jumbled because of wires and other things, but the pics were taken in the moment. I'll try to be more aware of the surroundings.
Question. If I photoshop things like the wires only-- is it still considered "real" photography?
Here I tried cropping the first one, and attempting to lighten up the snow with PSP7..
Not much better I guess... :/ LOL I guess I have my work cut out for me! ;)
Here's a quick-and-dirty remake of the dog; I missed the selection badly on the tail and the belly I know, but I don't feel like messing around with it anymore. For whatever it's worth :-)
By the way, you need to learn how to use your portfolio here and post thumbnail links in the forums, the big pix are using up bandwidth and are very slow for dialup people. Note you can click on my thumbnail and get a full-size.
Here I tried cropping the first one, and attempting to lighten up the snow with PSP7..
Go back to the original image. Rotate the image about 1 degree clockwise. Crop out the fence. Go to Filters and hit Sharpen. Don't worry with Unsharp Mask at the momment. Wait til you get better at this.
Next go to Image/Ajustments/Hue/Saturation. A dialog box will pop up. Go to the Edit: box, scroll down and go to Cyans. Turn the saturation on this channel down to about -70. Go back to the Edit: box and scroll down to Blues this time. Turn the saturation on this channel down to about -70. Ajust these as you need to.
good shots cosmic, welcome to the dpgame. I'm fairly new to and based on my scores I seem to be improving. Also, im not sure if its just because of over jpg compression, but you should be able to get sharper/more focused pictures from your HPR607.
I do like the laying down shot the best, I have a similar shot on my website //totaldis.fbeye.org/animals.html your dogs not a model so the background composition only adds to the photo, a feeling of home.
