Your photo, critiqued and/or praised. It's about learning and improving.

I'll play. I've been shooting professionally for two years now. I have a nice side business when I have the time. I do senior portraits mostly for kids in the school district (i'm a music teacher).

These are all old captures from when I first started shooting a couple years ago. You're welcome to critique and offer some advice in post production in that I can't revisit some of these places. The three landscapes are from the badlands SD. Forgive the cheesy watermark....
I like this image. But the person is to centered in the image. My eye goes directly there and sorta bypasses everything else. I would crop the top blue band of sky and unfortunately about a quarter of the right side. Another version crop some of the foreground, just above the watermark and just above the big cloud. Make it a panorama.

Most people read and see left to right. That's how most stories unfold. The vertical line of the rock formations pulls the narrative up the slope and that's when and where you see the person.
 
Woke up this morning (ha ha sounds like a blues song) and saw this in the loch. I've a feeling I haven't prepared them properly for uploading though.
View attachment 927274
I like this one out of the bunch. I'd crop out the roof line on the bottom right. It's not doing anything and it's distracting. Also crop the top deck out to make it less busy and to balance the composition.
 
Hey! Never spotted this long standing thread. Here a few test shots I did sometime in the last few years to test out a Leica M3 I had just gotten serviced. No adjustments or anything just straight scans from the negs as provided by the processor. I was pretty pleased with the performance of the serviced camera and was glad I was able to get the exposure reasonably good with the occasional use of a hand held meter (when I remembered to check it) :) I wasn't laboring over composition or anything, was mainly wanting to try various things to get a sense of how the camera performed in different situations. These are downsized quite a bit, the originals are quite sharp when I got the focus right.

View attachment 913230

I find this one the most interesting. But it's cropped to tight. Seeing more of what's there would make it more interesting.
 
I like this one out of the bunch. I'd crop out the roof line on the bottom right. It's not doing anything and it's distracting. Also crop the top deck out to make it less busy and to balance the composition.
How's this? I must say, it does look better.
IMG_2080.JPG
 
Gosh, I didn't even think about the horizon. I keep thinking the sea has a horizon but that it didn't matter about other scenes. I suppose that's why the camera has a virtual horizon feature built in. I agree, it is much better. Every little bit of guidance is good, so thanks for the heads up.
 
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I find this one the most interesting. But it's cropped to tight. Seeing more of what's there would make it more interesting.
Thanks, I know what you mean, I was disappointed myself, I could have sworn I took some further out shots that day of this subject but I think I might have lost my chance as a crowd came by. I was wishing I had gotten something wider when I was looking at the resulting shots.
 
This is the Amaryllis which, when I googled it, I found out that the yacht cost £100m and costs £690,000 to hire for a week!

Ameryllis.jpg
 
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Here's one of my favorite images that I have ever captured. It isn't technically perfect, and it was shot with my first digital camera about 12 years ago - with a 6MP Casio point and shoot of all things - but I still love this image. I have thought about cropping it, but I love the look of the bamboo garden torch on the left side that adds a different element to the shot with a pop of colour and texture. I also like the way it adds another focal point without detracting from the subject of the image, as well as how it fades from in-focus near the top left corner to out of focus further down. Perhaps the background could use a little more bokeh, but I'm not sure what f-stop this was shot at. That camera had a 2.8 lens, so it could have been captured at 2.8 or perhaps at 3.5, but I'm not sure. Anyway, what do you say?

CIMG0276.JPG copy.jpg
 
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Here's one of my favorite images that I have ever captured. It isn't technically perfect, and it was shot with my first digital camera about 12 years ago - with a Casio point and shoot of all things - but I still love this image. I have thought about cropping it, but I love the look of the bamboo garden torch on the left side that adds a different element to the shot with a pop of colour and texture. I also like the way it adds another focal point without detracting from the subject of the image, as well as how it fades from in-focus near the top left corner to out of focus further down. Perhaps the background could use a little more bokeh, but I'm not sure what f-stop this was shot at. That camera had a 2.8 lens, so it could have been captured at 2.8 or perhaps at 3.5, but I'm not sure. Anyway, what do you say?

I'd say it looks good. Have you tried different crops just for grins and giggles?
 
If I had to further critique my own image though, I'd say the highlights are a bit blown out, and the greens in the background aren't as accurate as I'd like, but that is an unedited image. The red tips of the cone flower are also a little oversaturated, but I like the saturation levels of the overall image though.
 
I was in the business since 1983 and I learned a lot the hard way. Not to belabor the obvious but:

Don't take criticisms too seriously. Go back and look at your work and you will likely see some things that you could have improved on. Next time out, improve on it.

Realize that your camera is just a tool. It's your technique and imagination that will make a better image.

Don't rely on post processing to make you images better, learn to take better images and it won't be necessary. And when you must use post, be subtle and, for pity sakes, learn the software.

Take your camera off the AUTO setting once in a while.

Learn how to properly hold your camera.

Remember, a good tripod is your friend.

Above all, have fun. Don't sweat the small stuff.
 
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The first thing I would say is I wish the posted image were higher resolution - it begs to be viewed as a large print - it would be great as a jigsaw puzzle too.
 
I just tried cropping off about 2/3 of the sea on the right. Looks OK that way too, but loses a bit of the panoramic feel.
 
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