I looked through some of your "photo of the day" posts (and also your deviantart profile), as you requested. I can see you're searching for your own style, but it also seems to me that you're not always sure whether you're on the right track and watching the photos I'm not sure what really you wanted to show. You're doing a fine job choosing well-exposed photos (most of the time, at least). My advice is that bokeh (background blur) is not the only means of expression. I'm not trying to discourage you from using it, on the contrary. But if you're photographing macro, perhaps you should try to get even closer and try a more analytic point of view? Or perhaps analysis doesn't seem interesting, so perhaps you should try to look for an interesting piece of compositon, or a colour combination and try to get crop out all the elements that distract from it (or even better - retake the photo without them, focusing only on what's more important). Another piece of advice is read about the composition and rule of the thirds (you can find articles about them online). Knowing your theory will help you choose the right angles to photograph your subjects and get out of them what you really want, and not just pictures that either come out okay or they don't on random. Also if I were you, I'd give up the fancy colour enhancements for now, until you're really sure why you actually use them (the reason "they're cool" is not enough). Hope this helps. Cheers!
Thanks, I get plenty of comments, but never ones that actually criticize. Your right I need to get away from Macro and close down my aperture more. I hate rule of thirds, honestly I don't believe it works anymore, for finding individuality, I find breaking the rules more often than not more useful, though of course I will definitely try to bring out this advice and see what happens. I like shooting Lomo, and Macro style images because they are so easy to come by. The majority of the photo of the day posts are posted because I need to keep shooting, If you want to see more though out shots I hope you will take a look at my series, which have some kind of theme, and are hopefully well self critiqued.
This is where I differ in opinion. I have done the the rule of thirds, rule of space, rule of radials, I get that, they don't click with me. If that makes me amateur, so be it. Composition is definitely something I am going to focus on, but I still believe that some rules are antiquated, and living in them is only keeping me back.
Again this is a difference of opinion, I am not saying I don't value your opinion, or that your opinion is any less true.
I looked through some of your "photo of the day" posts (and also your deviantart profile), as you requested. I can see you're searching for your own style, but it also seems to me that you're not always sure whether you're on the right track and watching the photos I'm not sure what really you wanted to show. You're doing a fine job choosing well-exposed photos (most of the time, at least). My advice is that bokeh (background blur) is not the only means of expression. I'm not trying to discourage you from using it, on the contrary. But if you're photographing macro, perhaps you should try to get even closer and try a more analytic point of view? Or perhaps analysis doesn't seem interesting, so perhaps you should try to look for an interesting piece of compositon, or a colour combination and try to get crop out all the elements that distract from it (or even better - retake the photo without them, focusing only on what's more important). Another piece of advice is read about the composition and rule of the thirds (you can find articles about them online). Knowing your theory will help you choose the right angles to photograph your subjects and get out of them what you really want, and not just pictures that either come out okay or they don't on random. Also if I were you, I'd give up the fancy colour enhancements for now, until you're really sure why you actually use them (the reason "they're cool" is not enough). Hope this helps. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteThanks, I get plenty of comments, but never ones that actually criticize. Your right I need to get away from Macro and close down my aperture more. I hate rule of thirds, honestly I don't believe it works anymore, for finding individuality, I find breaking the rules more often than not more useful, though of course I will definitely try to bring out this advice and see what happens. I like shooting Lomo, and Macro style images because they are so easy to come by. The majority of the photo of the day posts are posted because I need to keep shooting, If you want to see more though out shots I hope you will take a look at my series, which have some kind of theme, and are hopefully well self critiqued.
ReplyDeleteThe point is, to break the rules you have to master them first, because if you don't, you're still an amateur.
ReplyDeleteThis is where I differ in opinion. I have done the the rule of thirds, rule of space, rule of radials, I get that, they don't click with me. If that makes me amateur, so be it. Composition is definitely something I am going to focus on, but I still believe that some rules are antiquated, and living in them is only keeping me back.
ReplyDeleteAgain this is a difference of opinion, I am not saying I don't value your opinion, or that your opinion is any less true.
Thank you so much for the advice.