Your photos (111) |
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 Hints and tips by Philip Grosset If you'd like to submit photos for criticism, click here. |
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with comments from Philip Grosset "Having recently taken some pictures at a friends wedding, I decided to experiment with Adobe to manipulate the picture. I dont really have much experience in using Adobe, and just seem to experiment until i feel that it makes a interesting picture. The picture I sent you was taken at the point of the throwing of the confetti. Any comments on what you think of the image would be welcomed." (Jason Taylor) |
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| I'm afraid I don't think this works very well. It all looks very dark and gloomy, you can't see the happy (?) couple's faces at all clearly, and the glaring light spot is a distraction. There's the basis of a good idea here somewhere - but it needs a lot more light (and color?) to bring it off. Sorry! | ||||||||||||||||||||
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"I recently bought a Canon EOS 300, with a 28-80mm zoom lens. This photo of my cat, Freyja, is from the first roll of film I shot. I haven't owned an SLR camera before, so I read through your site from beginning to end, to get some idea of how to take good photos, and get the most out of the camera. When I scanned the photo I lightened and sharpened the image a little to compensate for the scanning process, but the image is otherwise unedited and hasn't been cropped. I used ISO 200 film, and the lens was set to 80mm. I was trying to get a nice photo of my cat in one of the rare moments she stands still long enough for me to focus on her. Thank you for putting together and maintaining a wonderful web site, which has been of enourmous help to me, and hopefully will continue to be so." (Samantha Barrett, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia.) |
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| Your photo on the left is fine, but I'd be inclined to come in even closer, as shown on the right. I think there is still enough space in front of the cat to make this a really pleasing picture. When a person (or animal) is seen in close-up looking to the side, it's a good idea to keep the eyes more or less central. The result here is a very successful photo. "Thank you for your critique of the picture I sent you. Please find attached 2 more photos. Both were taken with a Canon EOS 300, using ISO 200 film and a 25-80mm zoom lens. The side lighting for the photo of the cat was delibrate - I was curious to see how it would turn out. Thanks in advance." (Samantha Barrett, Newcastle, NSW, Australia) |
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| Your photo on the left has fine dramatic lighting, and you've caught just the right moment, but it might be improved if you could avoid the distracting yellow patterns, as in my version in the middle. Or, if you wanted something even more dramatic, you could move in closer still, as on the right. Here I've also slightly lessened the shadow area on the face as it looked a little extreme in big close-up. In theory you could have used a reflector to produce a similar effect - but the cat might not have been so cooperative! |
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| The contrasting colors are effective, but the centre of the picture isn't pin sharp as it needs to be, and all that yellow makes it difficult to see what is what. A lower camera angle might have allowed you to use a background against which the stamens would have stood out more clearly. |
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| "Thank you for your comments the last time I sent in two photos. I would appreciate your comments again as I tried to take your advice and zoom in close. I know you only accept four photos so please chose two from the three I've sent as I'm having trouble deciding. The camera I used was Canon EOS 300 - 70-300mm zoom lens. The 'Crab' was taken at about 300mm, and the 'Children' at 300mm. Thanks." (Maureen Walker, London) |
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| Your photo on the left is full of interest, and you've captured some very happy expressions on the children's faces. You'd see these more clearly, though, if you moved in closer, as in my version on the right. Admittedly, I lose a bit of the setting which is a pity - but we don't see very much of it anyway. To capture both children and setting, it's often worth taking two separate pictures, each concentrating on the one aspect. |
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| The crab in your photo on the left gets a bit lost in the background. It would stand out more if you came in even closer and threw the foreground out of focus (but not as much as the background), as I have done on the right. You could do this by using a larger aperture (with a correspondingly reduced shutter speed) - it's a bit tricky though to get just the right effect. Much easier to use an image editing program as I did! Go to YOUR PHOTOS (112) NEXT PAGE PICKING THE BEST VIEWPOINT |
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