Well John, I'd say you are a very strong amateur. First off, I love the leading image. It's incredibly interesting and really needs a story. Love the mood. You did a great job of placing him in the opening and where there's a light background, but you do have some limbs coming into his/her face from the left. Moving an inch to your left may have easily fixed that and really sent this over the moon.
#2 Well put together. This isnt as overtly interesting because it seems like an every-day type of occurrence, but I really like this shot.
#3 Interesting composition. If you had something to really focus on, like an object, animal, person at that fence then you'd be there. I'm not specifically a landscape photographer, so I'd certainly like to see something that I know is the subject of the frame. With that said, the processing/light sets a nice mood here.
#4 Well shot. Nice placement of objects in the frame. Likely my only critique here is I wish the actual windmills were slightly brighter. It seems like there is interesting detail there, but I dont know that I get enough of it.
Keep rockin and learning. You're certainly on the right track!
Thanks so much for taking the time to look at these and give a detailed reply.
#1. It is actually me in the picture. I use a remote wireless trigger. A bit of trial and error to get the right placement in the composition and get a good definition of the figure. See your point about the branches touching the figure. I could of sorted that in PS. As for the story. I posted this on IG and it got mixed reaction. As well as lots of positive feedback (the folks on IG are very Positive) some thought it rather unsettling and even asked where was the axe!! An idea for the future :-)
#2 This was another selfie shot. Just as I took it of myself in the scene I saw the two dog walkers approaching and was able to just walk out of frame and capture them as they walked through the frame with my remote.
#3. The location of this one is quite challenging as hard to find any foreground interest. The fog was very heavy and I thought the tree looked good, the wooden gate was a decent foreground subject thou hard to get a decent angle. I usually do golden/blue hour shots on my IG account but this turned out to be my most popular photo ever.
#4 the sky really was this colour (and have video of it too!). I sorta deliberately underexposed it but a stop or so (I'm a bit of a live view, histogram freak on exposure) and was going for the sky, but good point on detail lost on the wooden windmills and buildings which are very good subjects (very well kept 17th Century buildings).
I get a lot of lovely comments on IG were I usually post. As I'm sure you know, It's a very positive community (which is great) but not necessarily much into giving any form of critique that might help improve ones efforts. So thanks again for the feedback. Very much appreciated.
Well John, I'd say you are a very strong amateur. First off, I love the leading image. It's incredibly interesting and really needs a story. Love the mood. You did a great job of placing him in the opening and where there's a light background, but you do have some limbs coming into his/her face from the left. Moving an inch to your left may have easily fixed that and really sent this over the moon.
#2 Well put together. This isnt as overtly interesting because it seems like an every-day type of occurrence, but I really like this shot.
#3 Interesting composition. If you had something to really focus on, like an object, animal, person at that fence then you'd be there. I'm not specifically a landscape photographer, so I'd certainly like to see something that I know is the subject of the frame. With that said, the processing/light sets a nice mood here.
#4 Well shot. Nice placement of objects in the frame. Likely my only critique here is I wish the actual windmills were slightly brighter. It seems like there is interesting detail there, but I dont know that I get enough of it.
Keep rockin and learning. You're certainly on the right track!
James
Thanks so much for taking the time to look at these and give a detailed reply.
#1. It is actually me in the picture. I use a remote wireless trigger. A bit of trial and error to get the right placement in the composition and get a good definition of the figure. See your point about the branches touching the figure. I could of sorted that in PS. As for the story. I posted this on IG and it got mixed reaction. As well as lots of positive feedback (the folks on IG are very Positive) some thought it rather unsettling and even asked where was the axe!! An idea for the future :-)
#2 This was another selfie shot. Just as I took it of myself in the scene I saw the two dog walkers approaching and was able to just walk out of frame and capture them as they walked through the frame with my remote.
#3. The location of this one is quite challenging as hard to find any foreground interest. The fog was very heavy and I thought the tree looked good, the wooden gate was a decent foreground subject thou hard to get a decent angle. I usually do golden/blue hour shots on my IG account but this turned out to be my most popular photo ever.
#4 the sky really was this colour (and have video of it too!). I sorta deliberately underexposed it but a stop or so (I'm a bit of a live view, histogram freak on exposure) and was going for the sky, but good point on detail lost on the wooden windmills and buildings which are very good subjects (very well kept 17th Century buildings).
I get a lot of lovely comments on IG were I usually post. As I'm sure you know, It's a very positive community (which is great) but not necessarily much into giving any form of critique that might help improve ones efforts. So thanks again for the feedback. Very much appreciated.
John