A few photos and a plea for tips

[Lobo]

I've always liked photography, and have been looking forward to getting a DSLR for a while. Right now, I'm shooting everything on a sony cybershot 5mp. I enjoy photography, but lately a lot of critics have called my stuff "stale" and "amateurish." I know there are some talented photographers on here, so I included a few shots in hopes that you could give me some tips.

Sorry for the small pics. My old pic hosting site started charging, so right now I'm hostless and a slave to the board's attachment policy.

 

[Deefuzz]

as I am still learning, I am in no way authorized to give advice or criticism of any kind.

But I really like all of those pictures...thats the kind of style that I like to shoot, black and white...maybe a LITTLE color, of landscape and objects.

Keep sharing when you can...I enjoy a little bit of inspiration

 

[JDar]

Your pictures look nice. From the straight trees one can surely tell that is one leaning shack! There might not be many more days to photograph that particular structure.

Graveyards are fun to shoot. You might consider some background sky "burning in" around the angel (or is it an cherubim or seraphim?) and see if you like that. It would sort of vignette the photo.

Keep shooting and posting. About everyone around here is up for looking and we can all take constructive opinions.

 

[cyanide]

just a thought

one thing i noticed that you did quite well in one picture is use contrast to your advantage. i too enjoy b&w, and it can be trick to get contrast right in natural areas. the use of color atop black and white is wonderful, and i think as you continue to shoot, you should try to achieve the same effect without adding color to your black and white shots. keep it up!

 

[tech4all]

Overall, I like them. One thing you might want to do is instead of photographing the whole scene, focus on a specific part of an ojbect/scene. Like with the angel statue, maybe photographing the wings/head so you get a nice siloheette (yes I spelled that wrong but its late and I dont care ), or photograph the wood texture of that shack, you know that sorta thing, or even macro shots.

Is that photo of the flower Photoshoped? Because the flower is color while the background is b/w. On the flower one try, if you have the mode, using the macro mode to capture those "arms" (forgot their name ) coming out of it. I'm do digital photography myself and I love photographing flowers and nature.

What Sony CyberShot do you have? You said 5mp so I now those pictures are WAY larger than that My 5mp pics can't even fit on my 20" cimena display....but they could fit on the 30" cimena display

Anyways, nice job and keep up the good work!

 

[Calihafan]

Very cool!

I like them a lot! I'm an aspiring digital artist, and I am constantly in need of digital photos. Can I use these as stock?

Thanks! Keep it up. E-mail me at Calihafan@gmail.com with some more photos.

 

[3Memos]

Nice!

Love the lillies! Really gives a contrast and life to the stark contrasts in the other pictures.

 

[hcuar]

Nice photos... I wouldn't worry about your "critics". Art is subjective. I for one think you did a very nice job. Keep posting em.

 

[Benj]

Pretty good. My only tip would be to lay off the Photoshop a bit. Sometimes some aberations from what was really there add to the shot.

 

[OutThere]

Nice shots! Since you asked, I have a couple little tips that you might be interested in.

1) Shoot the pictures in color (stay away from using the camera's b&w feature - except with pro cameras), and move them into photoshop on the computer.

2) In Photoshop, open the "Channels" palette.

3) Pick each of the three different channels and look at how it affect the picture.

4) When you find the one that you like the best, leave it selected, and do apple+a and select the entire image, and copy it. Paste what you have copied over the original color picture, and save the changed picture.

This method creates better looking black and white pictures than they typical grayscale or camera b&w functions, and it allows for some choice in the process.

Here are examples of what I am talking about:

Original Picture:

Blue Channel:

Green Channel:

Red Channel:

Have fun, and maybe you can use this to impress your critics...and if they still don't approve, tell them to go take better pictures.