Hey all,

Recently decided to try and improve my photo taking as I have been in a few great places in the last year or so and my pics just never do them justice!

Wondering what pieces of advice you would give or sites you would reccomend? I have just started looking at MorgueFile for some help…

Here are some of the better pics from the last year-obviously I am just a point and shoot person and didn't put any thought into them! Could have been much better! http://www.flickr.com/photos/9655603@N08/sets/72157622388144440/
If anyone could comment on these as to how I could improve that would also be great!

Cheers

Will

If you're interested in going on a practical course to improve, and live in the South West, i can give this chap a recommendation;
http://www.prophotoinsights.net/prod/43/3-mystic-mumps-and-a-marsh
He's running a course here next month; http://www.themonksyard.co.uk/events.asp

Nice photos. One thing where you could maybe improve them is in the composition. A lot of those pix seem to have a big area of foreground with the point of interest quite high up in the image. Start thinking in terms of geometry – draw some lines through points and fiddle around. You could re-crop some of those you have and make some improvements imho. Subject, light, exposure etc. all good.

Always worth a read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds

check out http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/

Obviously nothing like your shots, but i think he takes fantastic 'out of studio' images.

IMO, try not to get hung up on rules etc but just shoot and think about what would look like a great photograph. rather than it having to be taken with a certain aperture or is there evenly distributed land/sea/sky ratio.

Also be selective with your processing techniques, i see you've applied sepia to one of your landscape shots and I'm not sure it really contributes to the picture. It does work better on the one of the guy mountainbiking though, although that again could do wiht the levels played with.

Overall though, you've got some nice photos and just go out and take more!!!

thanks for the feedback guys. will get out and shoot some more soon, possibly looking at going on a course up in my neck of the woods!

Try to avoid ever reading about the rule of thirds. It's a pointless corrosive meme 🙁 The only rule must be "there are no rules"

A few STWers have joined in this group.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/onephotoeveryday/

One Photo A Day.

Been forced to take a picture a day and post it up for judging really improves your shooting

The only rule must be "there are no rules"

there is a lot to be said for understanding the rules before you break them.

there is a lot to be said for understanding the rules before you break them.

better not to know lest they burrow into your subconscious

simonfbarnes – Member

there is a lot to be said for understanding the rules before you break them.

better not to know lest they burrow into your subconscious

I'm quite sure, Simon, that if you look at your better photos you'll find that they fall into the rules. You just have an ability to find them naturally rather than think about it. 😀

True. Renaissance artists were all talentless rule-following idiots who never produced anything good, . Especially that Da Vinci bloke. 🙄

I was going to suggest cropping some photos as well, particularly the last photo with the house on the lake. You don't need to keep the 4×6 ratio, you can crop to a letterbox shape if it suits.

Also, the guy riding over the rocks. Try getting closer and take the shot from low down looking up towards the rider so he fills the frame more, but still showing the rocky trail.

Your pics are far far better than many already 🙂

thanks spooky_b329-made my day! Lol!

Just started having a mess around with editing/cropping etc so will see what I can do with what I have already taken and work on future ones!

Think I will bear the rules in mind as they might help my placement of objects etc in the pics BUT I wont be totally help by the rules at the same time.

JonClimber-I might join that, could be an interesting challenge. Some great pics on there already.