Is this worth pursuing?

[Jodie]

Hi. About a year ago i got an awesome camera and started experimenting with it, and found that i believe i may actually be quite good. Obviously they're not professional but I was wondering if you would let me know what you think. Here: http://realityisaprison.jimdo.com/
Any feedback welcome (including bad, im looking to improve) Also if you do like them i have a facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/JodieSherrellPh...phy?ref=hl

Again Thanks.

[Jeff]

You need to work on your compositions some of your photos have no interste to them or have distracting elements in them
You also need to understand depth of field so that you can highlight the subject better
if you can shoot in raw then I would recommend that you do so you can enhance the image to bring out the best in it
Apart from that good luck and keep practising

[Ara57]

Photography is fun and rewarding, and I am glad you enjoy it!

I liked your subjects. You do have a few compelling shots. My favorite was probably the colorful rooster weather vane. I also liked the coral stucco building, but the exposure and lighting let you down there. It is an interesting and colorful building, though, and if possible you should plan on trying again. There is a good shot there waiting for you! I like flowers, animals, horses and scenery as well, all are things I enjoy seeing even from novice photographers. I would say you are still at the beginner level in terms of execution and vision. You are showing a lot with focus problems. If a picture ain't sharp where it should be, then it ain't a keeper. A lot of the horse action shots are not sharp. You do have a couple of nice horse portraits, the shaggy foal is cute and I like the grey horse in B&W. Your bird work is OK, not close or detailed enough to be a wow. Also your canary really needs his nails trimmed!

In a landscape light and composition are everything. It is almost a waste of time to shoot at any time other than the hour or so around sunset or sunrise. I liked your tree silhouette best in the scenery department. That is a case where shooting into the sun worked. Most of the other sunset shots are ho-hum sun glare so what. Branches can make a nice pattern, but you need to control your DoF and background. Branches against clutter are too busy and have no real subject. Composition is important. Sometimes centering the subject can work. Often the middle is not the place to be. You have probably heard of the rule of thirds. It is one of several guidelines to lead the viewer into your image and present what you want them to see. Begin learning about good composition and start thinking about that before you trip the shutter.

Flowers. Well, they make great subjects, they stand still and don't care how much time you spend practicing on them. They are pretty and colorful and are good practice for focus and DoF. There are also a zillion great flower shots, so it is really hard to make one stand out in any way. Yours are average, the ones I looked at are in focus. The purple crocus was nice. Several were a little *too* colorful, ease up on the saturation. Again, the bugs are not close enough to be a wow. For really good bug shots you need a macro lens and lots of patience and some luck as well. Bugs are harder that it seems. I also do not have any good bug shots, and I have a 105 macro lens. Oh well...It ain't the gear, and that's true!

If I was guessing (I did not try to see any exif data) I would think you are shooting on auto. There is nothing wrong with that, especially as a beginner. Auto will get you in the ballpark most of the time. But there are times when your camera's meter will be fooled. There are times when you don't want to think in 18% grey. There are times when you want a different exposure than what is "correct". Learn to take control of your exposure. Learn how aperture, shutter speed and ISO work together. Think about the DoF you want, or if you should freeze movement or not. How dark do you want your shadows? How do you envision your final picture to look? These are why you should be able to take control of your camera.

Finally post processing: You haz it. You haz too much of it in some cases. Contrast and saturation are easy to overdo. Have a light hand in such adjustments. You don't want eyes to bleed! Your B&W conversions are mostly flat and muddy and all grey. A good B&W will have areas that are black and other areas that are white. Not every photo is better suited to monochrome, simply making a photo B&W does not automatically mean it's more artistic.

Overall I think you have made a nice beginning. What are you doing to learn more? Taking a class or joining a local group or club are great ways to improve. Also you will be more likely to get real feedback and mentoring at the local level. The fb here on Y!A is questionable in many cases. A lot will be gushing from other teen beginners, and at the other end the meanies who resent beginners for whatever reason. Neither extreme is any use to someone who wants to grow. The library will have books on basic photography and composition. There are lots of websites from beginner level to advanced. Also do not forget your camera manual to learn the ins and outs of the features and how to access them.

You seem to have potential and want to make progress, so I hope you keep at it. There is always some new thing to try, learning photography is an on-going process. There will always be something new to explore, so enjoy the journey and happy shooting!

[Eric Lefebvre]

1- Learn about compositional rules like the rule of thirds, the use of negative space, leading lines, the rule of odds ... right now, your pictures are all centered.

2- Dont do selective coloring ... just don't.

3- In your flower portfolio, some of the images are WAY over saturated.

4- Watch your depth of field. In your flower shots, you have a few shots that are out of focus or your depth of field was too shallow.

5- I have a feeling you shot these in full auto mode. this is an issue as it has caused some of your shots to have the subject under exposed. A good example of this is the rider standing on the back of two horses in your horse section.

6- You aren;t shooting fast enough ... you shutter speed (in the horse section) is too slow for the action in the scene and so oyu find yourself with alot of blur. speed up your shutter speed and compensate by increasing your ISO and/or in creasing your aperture (smaller f# = wider opening).

Also related to shutter speed and blur ... unless your lens has vibration reduction on it, you'll want to try and shoot at a shutter speed that is FASTER than the measurement of your current focal lenght. So if you are shooting with a 70-300 lens at 200mm you need to shoot faster than 1/200th of a second to help keep a nice crisp image ... if your lens has VR (or other similar system) then you can slow than down a bit ... also always keep the speed of the action in the scene in mind. Of course, the faster you shoot, the less light you get so you'll need to compensate by increasing your ISO or opening oyur lens wider (or adding more light with a flash or some such) ... photography is all about give and take betwen the various settings.

7- When shooting outdoors, it;s not a bad idea to use your lens hood ... it will help with contrast. You don't HAVE to shoot with a hood but it can help with contrast.

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That's enough to get started with. You really should start learning the ART aspect of photography ... 95% of your images, the subject/point of interest is smack dab right in the middle of the shot ... pick up some books on composition.

You might also want to go with a gallery that doesn't use Flash. Because of your galery system, I wasn't able to link directly to any images to give you a detailed critique of specific images. It also makes your site not very tablet friendly ... IPADS and IPHONES don't have flash after all.