"little cousins on the dock"

[kimspics]

Today I went to a friends house to shoot pics of her little girl and cousin. I was practicing on continuous. I had thecamera on Ap and the aperture set on 4.0. I did crop some of the sky, however I did not want to crop the dock because it is an important part of the pic. I had no idea how fast continuous goes I was only there for 15 minutes before my card was full. Glancing thru them I only see two or three that I think may be good enough, I will post and yall tell me what you think. My biggest concern is that- while I have a nice camera and am just learning I seldom think my pics look professionally done -they just remind me of ordinary pics you would view in an album. very seldom do I say "Wow" to my own work. thanks - please take this pic and show me what can be done creativley by someone else !!!!

[windrider86]

Personally I like the way the dock leads you off of the picture but then also brings you right back to the girls. The plants in the foreground have been captured so they are not overpowering but still leave a nice frame to this.

[jiminyClickit]

kimspics,

Not to repeat myself, but---have you tried looking at this flipped horizontally? Just to see if you can tell the difference, or if you like it better.

No camera made can point to that one-in-a-million view. And no professional was born that way. Learning your camera and how to spot a great subject (and do it justice) are good reasons for sites like DPS to be so populated, and for you to relax with your photos. You are doing what it takes to get better photos, and soon you will see the difference. But using continuous is premature, meaning you may not learn anything about patience and deliberately framing a subject a certain way. It increases your chance of getting an accidental lucky shot, but what does it teach you?

[jiminyClickit]

kimspics,

As an example, here's one to compare. Using my workspace, I habitually crop towards 8"x10." The flip is a mouse click in Adobe PhotoDeluxe. One layer of higher contrast and darkening is adjusted to bring faces out, then a minor vignette added to further focus on cousins. This is probably possible in-camera as well.



Added "headroom" to more evenly place them in frame.

[Sandie]

Jiminy, it is little lessons like this I am here to learn!

Kimspics, I feel the same way you do most of the time. It is why I haven't added a picture to be critiqued yet. I tear my work apart and have yet to take a photo with my new camera that I have said wow to.

I agree strongly with Jiminy about taking single deliberate shots. The way I was taught with film was that it is best to take the same picture 5-10 times changing one element between (the F/stop, Shutter speed, ISO) than lots of different pictures. I am relearning photography the same way. Making one simple, but deliberate change at a time.

[peeperita]

this was a great afternoon i can just tell....

i disagree with jiminy on the flip.....i like my images to read from left to right, so i would leave it oriented as it is.....i am a big fan of the use of vignette because they often help me set the eye on my main subject....

continuous shooting mode i mainy reserve for either portraits, where a blink is devastating, or fast moving children.....and since these two young ladies were perfectly quiet i would have left my camera on single shots.....

i gave this a whirl because you asked....



i wanted the colors to pop a little and the light to soften so, i made a few layers....the first was to soften by adding a little gaussian blur and setting the layer to screen....above this i put a layer to multiply to take some of the edge off the brightness and above that a layer set to overlay....this one to heighten the impact of the color..i tweaked the opacities of the different layers til my eye was happy....and then lastly a vignette.....

now, this edit isn't for everyone but it accomplished what i set out to do....

post work can offer a lot to an image that's leaving me slightly blah about my work....

thanks for sharing this iamge as it leaves me warm and peaceful....

peeper