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Insult the shots!..??? There is absolutely nothing to insult about your shots. All that matters is that you like them ...Sure others can offer tips and advice on how to improve them...But that is all, otherwise all that they are doing is placing their ideals of what makes a shot good as far as they are concerned. And it may or may not be advantageous to your artistic values.
That is a really important point. Good advice is how to make photographs match whatever it is you like! Good advice is not about what to like.
So... I don't aspire to tell anyone what is good art or bad art; but I might be able to explain some of the philosophy involved in evaluation of why something seems to be appealing, and most certainly can teach a few techniques for creating whatever it is that someone likes.
But the real point of a good critique is to inspire development of specific concepts and then to teach techniques that display those concepts.
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But again I stand by original statement... I like them! FWIW ... I do like Floyd_Davidsons assesment as he seems honest and sincere in his tips and advice. And not just into dissing your work like some others on here are prone to, on its inability to reach some lofty goal that only they themselves can attain, in their opinion. NNM
Thank you for such kind words. Before I posted the critique there was a short DM exchange between Braunwyn and I, which confirmed the specific things that caught my attention. The most significant point was that she very clearly knows what she is trying to communicate to the viewer. That is not a set of accidents, her style is by intent. Her question was not what is good style, it was how to implement a specific style using photography with her camera.
I'm pretty excited about the advice given thus far. Every day when I drive to work I pass a crew of "titled" homeless panhandlers that target the cars coming off the highway at a light. I call them titled because I've gotten to know one fairly well (they're not really homeless/homeless) while stuck in traffic over the past two years. I'd like to get a better lens, take a day off, and spend the morning with them. These guys just don't stand there in traffic and put their hands out, they work for it. I'd like to capture it!
I'm pretty excited about the advice given thus far. Every day when I drive to work I pass a crew of "titled" homeless panhandlers that target the cars coming off the highway at a light. I call them titled because I've gotten to know one fairly well (they're not really homeless/homeless) while stuck in traffic over the past two years. I'd like to get a better lens, take a day off, and spend the morning with them. These guys just don't stand there in traffic and put their hands out, they work for it. I'd like to capture it!
Rent a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. Use it for a few days on other things to get used to it before you do the guys at the corner. Get a couple days of shots with it at the corner. Then rent a wide to mid range zoom (I'm not familiar with Canon lenses, but get a f/2.8 with a range of something like 16-85mm) and do the same thing again, except of course with this one you will be closer.
Just be careful, you don't want to get run over by one of the crazy sob's driving by. It's dangerous to concentrate on looking through a viewfinder and dodge traffic at the same time.
Rent a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. Use it for a few days on other things to get used to it before you do the guys at the corner. Get a couple days of shots with it at the corner. Then rent a wide to mid range zoom (I'm not familiar with Canon lenses, but get a f/2.8 with a range of something like 16-85mm) and do the same thing again, except of course with this one you will be closer.
Just be careful, you don't want to get run over by one of the crazy sob's driving by. It's dangerous to concentrate on looking through a viewfinder and dodge traffic at the same time.
Thanks for the advice on the lenses. I'll seek those out. I will also try to shoot from below and up at the subject. I am curious how the background sky, if it's really bright or even not, will affect the pictures. And I'll be careful not to get run over! lol
I am curious how the background sky, if it's really bright or even not, will affect the picturesl
That's a really good question, which I can't fully answer. It depends in some ways on the characteristics of the lens, and I'm just not familiar with Canon's lenses.
Basically though, to the degree that a bright sky is the background the light meter in the camera is fooled into thinking the entire scene is well lit, so it reduces the exposure and you end up with a silhouette of the main subject and a nicely exposed (but less that bright white) sky. Probably not what is desired. There are a couple "easy" ways to correct for that. One is to set exposure compensation to something like +0.5 or +1 even, depending on how much you think the sky is affecting things. That will brighten everything up. But it also is basically a per exposure adjustment, so it's a time waster too.
The other way works if the lighting is going to stay about the same. So this isn't per exposure, but it might be "per scene". Point the camera at someone in the shade and it has to be changed, for example. But for everyone that is in the same light, set the camera to manual exposure and get the exposure where you want. Then you can point it at a face that has a black building behind it or at a face that has a bright sky behind it, and the face will get the right exposure in both cases. With any kind of auto exposure a dark background would cause extra exposure and a bright backgroud would cause less exposure, even though the main subject in both cases needs the same exposure.
Learning how to deal with exposure is absolutely going to be what takes up most of the initial learning curve for photography! When you get past the basics, your camera provides a couple of very sophisticated tools to help with exposure. It analyzes the data from the JPEG image it displays on the LCD screen and can either graph it or use it to blink areas on the image that are overexposed. I'm pretty sure you are technically inclined enough to understand it, but that can probably wait too. When you think you are beginning to understand "exposure", google "histogram ettr". That will disabuse you of the idea that you understand exposure!
The difference that lenses make is a bit more advanced. For example I have a fairly nice 28-105mm Nikon lens. It's pretty good for a "walk around" lens to have on the camera for snapshots. I happen to shoot events in a couple places that have big windows though, and the result is very commonly to have someone framed with a bright window directly behind them. Well, it happens that that lens simply cannot deal with that. The flare is horrible. So I bought a Tamrom 24-135mm lens, and in that particular circumstance it is much better! Of course the flip side is that if there is a point light, such as the sun, directly hitting the front element of the lens the flare the Tamron produces is much worse that with the Nikon lens! What a hoot. I broke down yesterday and decided to get the new Nikon 24-120mm lens. It's been out for several months and while it isn't getting rave reviews, they aren't bad either. The previous version of the 24-120mm was less than stellar to put it mildly, and was reputed to be the worst lens Nikon ever marketed.
Whatever, that is a good illustration of how lenses have unique character, and choosing the right one for a given situation is, at some levels, a lot more complicated than it might seem. An example would be that for shooting something where I need a 105mm focal length, say plus or minus 30mm... I have than half a dozen lenses that I actively use, and a few that just collect dust too. The ones that do get used all have distinct personality.
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