Seeking Comments & Criticism

Aldazar · August 3, 2009

Hi guys (and gals),

I shot a friend's wedding a month or so ago for fun and learning (they had a paid pro shoot it, I just asked if I could bring my camera and shoot and they said ok) and have finally gotten round to cropping, editing (badly) and uploading them to SmugMug.

I would very much appreciate any feedback/comments/criticism you guys have that can help me to get better at shooting weddings and photography in general.

I'm very new to photography and I know I'm no good, so I'm braced for harsh criticism, but I reckon it's a necessary part of learning and will welcome it.

Thanks in advance for your time!

Here are links to the galleries:
http://aldazar.smugmug.com/gallery/8985330_AXYEj/1/597280210_2Eosj
http://aldazar.smugmug.com/gallery/9105694_8yQsS/1/606817639_edDmG
http://aldazar.smugmug.com/gallery/9122631_zi5vz/1/608027526_MZs9C

du8die · August 3, 2009

Welcome to the forum.

How 'bout this.

Instead of posting 3 galleries with a couple hundred pictures to wade through, how 'bout you pick out five that you think are the best, and embed them in the post. We'll then take a crack at them specifically. (You'll tend to get better feedback that way anyway.)

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=117

Thanks for posting!

Aldazar · August 3, 2009

Thanks for your advice du8die, I appreciate it. You're right that few (if any) people would have the patience or the time to click through the rather ridiculous number of photos I posted (though funnily enough I only put up about half the pictures I shot). As such, I'll try and do what you said and pick 5 pictures to be critiqued and embed them below.

Coupla reasons I didn't do that in the first place (I considered it):

I don't think any of the photos I took are outstanding, I'm just not good or practiced enough. In addition, with my beginner's eye, I might pick 5 pictures I like and miss what are actually pretty decent pictures and I would never know that those were actually the good ones I should try to replicate in the future.
Part of what I was hoping for was feedback based on the entire shoot, things like "What happens to the shots of [insert something I missed]" or "All your shots of [something] could've been improved by..." or "You took way too many shots of [something] and not enough of [something else]"
At my level (the beginnerest of beginners), I think there's a lot to be learned from critique of shots that are bad as well as the ones that are good. To be sure, I'll learn from people critiquing what I think are my best 5 shots, but I think I could potentially learn even more from people telling me a certain picture could've been way better with the right corrections, etc.

That having been said, you're right, can't expect people to spend time going through hundreds of shots just to help out someone who's not even paying them for their time! =P As such, here are my 5 picks:

Honestly though, I found it hard to pick 5 because I'm not really terribly proud of any of the photos I took - I'm telling myself that was a learning exercise because none of the pictures were really any good.

Also, all these pictures are from one of the albums - the ceremony one, I can try and pick some out from the others too if people are willing to look at more.

Thanks again to all!

lilmomma · August 3, 2009

ha ha you're joking right?

I only looked at the ceremony ones but you have every reason to be proud of them! A photographer on here said something to me once that i will never forget: Always shoot with purpose. In the beginning of the set I noticed a lot of shots of just people standing around, like no real meaning to the shot. But after those they just got better, lots of great moments! A few off focus here or there but not very many. I think they are great, you should play around with them a bit, mix them up with some nice b&w thrown in. One big thing I noticed is that you did a great job with not blowing out the dress in the harsh sunlight.

anyway i'm no pro and have only second shot two weddings but to me it seems you're being a too hard on yourself!

Scott_Quier · August 4, 2009

First - as has been said, I think you have every right to be quite happy and proud of these photos. I KNOW the B&G will be quite pleased.

A general comment - watch your composition. There are a large number of "bulls-eyed" shots in these sets.

Here's a blow-by-blow:

Beautiful exposure and good focus. Probably have way too much negative space to right and left. I think I would crop this to a vertical.
This is a candidate for the dustbin - focus is on the flowers behind the B&G - thus the B&G are badly OOF. Additionally, her gown is badly over-exposed.
It appears to be shot from too close and/or with too large an aperture - not all of him is in focus. That having been said, I think your clients will like it if you crop it a bit to remove some of the distracting background.
You were either too close or not using a wide enough lens. You nearly cut off the left most bridesmaid and you did cut into the rightmost groomsman. A bit of fill flash would have been a goodness to remove some of the racoon-eyes. Re-orient them so they aren't facing directly into the sun to help remove the squinting (this will require some additional off-camera light to avoid silhouette issues. It appears your exposure may be about 2/3 stop too high - her gown appears to be blown a bit. I think I would have worked to remove some of the chairs from in front of the group.
Exposure is just a bit high in that his collar appears to be blown a bit (on the sun-ward side) but this should be easily recoverable in post. ignore that statement - it looks good on a better monitor. There are a few dust specks just above his jacket pocket that a quick run past a clone tool would fix handily. Aside from these quite small nit-picks, this is a very nice image.

Notes from a quick run through your first two galleries (not much to be said about the photos in the third):
First, the Rehearsal Dinner set:

#11 - clasped hands - nice!
24, 26 - nice capture of the emotion/fun of the evening
28 - OOF, not a keeper
35, 36, 37 - plant in the foreground - toss these

The Ceremony

Your "setting up shots" are, for the most part, nice snap-shots. There are a few that are OOF and should probably not be included.
59 - the flower girls ... very nice but would have been better and so much more interesting had the camera been more on their level.
Most of the actaul ceremony are more than just a bit over-exposed. You've completely blown out her gown. If you shot RAW, you might be able to recover. Remember when metering a shot, the tux was rented, but she bought the gown - which do you think they will be more interested in seeing? I went back and looked at the wedding gallery on a much better computer - I was wrong. I don't see ANY blown gowns. So, just ignore the first part of this line!
#98 - This is a much better expsosure - you got all the beautiful detail of her gown. You also, BTW, got a nice shot of a spontaneous reaction/emotion - very good!

I hope that helps some!

bmoreshooter · August 4, 2009

Just curious, you said that it was ok with the bride if you shot some pictures but did you check with the pro that was paid to be there. You shot several hundred photos, many of them when the pro was doing his or her formals. Having someone shadow you all day and shooting over your shoulder can be a bit distracting. This can also cause people not to look directly at the pro when having their picture taken. It was probably ok with the hired photographer but I just think people should make prior arrangements first. Your getting your practice on his time. Why not look for someone who can't afford a pro.

du8die · August 4, 2009

Thanks for following up with your five best! Really helpful. The nice thing about forums like this is we all have things to learn, and we learn by seeing - and being critiqued. So, kudos to you for seeking that out!

Here's what I like about your stuff so far. You're not afraid to fill the frame. That's a good thing. Are you familiar with the rule of thirds? If not, Google it - it'll help you out a lot.

I agree with Scott's comments above.

I hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of cropping #1 - to vertical, as a suggestion - it eliminates much of the empty negative space (which isn't always a bad thing), but I also cloned out the minister's head.

FWIW - Ceremony #191 is excellent - just need a little bit of fill flash to get some sparkle in the eyes. It's off center a bit. That's a good thing.

#206 is a very nice moment.

Thanks for posting! Keep it up!

Aldazar · August 4, 2009

I actually did not speak to the official photographer, however I did take pains to stay out of his way and did not "shadow" him for the vast majority of the day. I did shoot a few shots from the sides and from a distance during the formals, which is why you'll notice that many of the shots are slightly off on angles and/or severely cropped (I was using a kit lens, don't have a long one) and/or have distracting things in the foreground. Only once did I end up being close enough to the photographer that I felt I might be crowding him and I immediately apologized and backed off.

As a matter of fact (and this speaks a little to the comments made by Scott), I took the majority of the shots from my seat in the audience, standing only when the rest of the audience was standing for some reason or another. I at no point instructed anyone in the ceremony to pose (obviously there are a few exceptions where I took snapshots of my friends in the audience).

While I appreciate that a pro needs room to do his/her job, and I welcome your perspective (and those of others) on the matter, I'm not sure I agree with your assessment of the situation. As I mentioned, I did not shadow the photographer and took pains to stay out of his way. You say I'm learning on "his time", but he's actually getting paid to take pictures at the wedding, not paying someone to have a flawlessly uniterrupted shooting experience for himself, right? As a professional (again, being paid a good chunk of change for his services and time), don't you think he should be used to/accepting of the fact that other people are going to be taking pictures at the wedding and able to deal with that politely and professionally?

If the bride and groom were to have expressed a desire for no one to take pictures so as not to distract the subjects or disturb the photographer, that I could understand and respect (it's their wedding and they're paying for it and the photographer), but barring an unreasonable level of inconvenience/interference, I don't think it's entirely unreasonable for a professional photographer to tolerate other people shooting around him/her.

Regarding learning at weddings where there are no photographers, you assume that a) I know lots of people getting married all the time and b) a good chunk of them won't hire photographers, neither of which is a valid assumption. In addition, I've seen it advised elsewhere in the forums that you should not shoot a friend or relative's wedding for them, especially if you don't know what you're doing. Why would a stranger you don't know allow you to show up at their wedding and shoot it when you aren't a professional and pretty much have to tell them you can't guarantee a good shoot? Given the above, I find your recommendation to be somewhat difficult to achieve.

Don't get me wrong though, I definitely have a healthy amount of respect for professional photographers (I wish I had what it took to be one!) and did, and will continue to, do my very best to stay out of their way. (Tenses were all messed up there, I apologize.) Given your feedback, I will most likely try to speak to the photographer beforehand if I get another opportunity to shoot a wedding.

Again, I thank you for your feedback and look forward to hearing your views on my response.

PS: I'd also welcome feedback from any other professionals out there!

bmoreshooter wrote:

Just curious, you said that it was ok with the bride if you shot some pictures but did you check with the pro that was paid to be there. You shot several hundred photos, many of them when the pro was doing his or her formals. Having someone shadow you all day and shooting over your shoulder can be a bit distracting. This can also cause people not to look directly at the pro when having their picture taken. It was probably ok with the hired photographer but I just think people should make prior arrangements first. Your getting your practice on his time. Why not look for someone who can't afford a pro.

Aldazar · August 4, 2009

Thanks for your comments and critique, much appreciated! I do know of the rule of thirds, but am still learning/practicing to overcome my natural instinct to bullseye everything! =P That shot you picked out below was intentionally cropped to have the subject to the right of the frame. I need to learn to use photoshop so I can remove that annoying pipe to the left though =P

Good point on the fill flash. Like most newbies, I don't automatically think of using flash in broad daylight (I do when I take the time to compose and setup carefully for a portrait, but not on the run). Believe it or not, that wasn't a posed shot, it was actually from my seat (I was standing) as the bride walked down the "aisle" to leave the site for the dinner. I happened to catch her eye and she turned and smiled, so I took the shot. No time to think about fill flash or eye highlights, unfortunately =(

The vertical crop you made of my original shot definitely looks better! I'm not yet comfortable with the idea of intentionally cutting parts of people off in my pictures so I need to work on that. Any tips would be appreciated. In any case, thanks for showing me how it should be done in this particular case.

du8die wrote:

Thanks for following up with your five best! Really helpful. The nice thing about forums like this is we all have things to learn, and we learn by seeing - and being critiqued. So, kudos to you for seeking that out!

Here's what I like about your stuff so far. You're not afraid to fill the frame. That's a good thing. Are you familiar with the rule of thirds? If not, Google it - it'll help you out a lot.

I agree with Scott's comments above.

I hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of cropping #1 - to vertical, as a suggestion - it eliminates much of the empty negative space (which isn't always a bad thing), but I also cloned out the minister's head.

FWIW - Ceremony #191 is excellent - just need a little bit of fill flash to get some sparkle in the eyes. It's off center a bit. That's a good thing.

#206 is a very nice moment.

Thanks for posting! Keep it up!

Qarik · August 4, 2009

In general they are no great but are not bad, except #2, which as scott mentioned..not a keeper...out of focus and blown highlight everywhere. The 1st shot is I think is your best shot wrt to exposure and focus.

In general I think the 4 remaining shots could use a bit of editing to get some more punch out of them. Look at the grass in #3 for example..it looks rather lifeless and dull green. Some saturation an constrast would punch that up as well as brining out some more color in the rest of the shot.

Aldazar · August 4, 2009

Thanks very much for your critique Scott, it's definitely helpful! I also appreciate the encouragement.

You're right, I'm still working to overcome my reflexive "bulls-eye" composition. It's one thing to apply the rule of thirds when you're sitting there thinking about how to compose a landscape or a portrait, and another to do it when things are happening and you're worried about missing a shot. I'll continue to work on this though.

1. As shown below, you're definitely right on the vertical thing. Need to work on "creative" cropping.

2. Good call on the out of focus. I did notice the subjects were quite OOF but I liked the facial expressions and positioning enough to include it anyway. I think I accidentally had the camera using only the center focus point and forgot to reset it to using the whole grid =( Sad, such a waste...

3. The picture was actually taken from a reasonable distance, I forget the aperture. The face appears to be in focus to me, but maybe I'm missing something.

4. Very valuable feedback on the lighting, thanks. Since I was shooting as a friend and not a pro (and there was a pro there), I wasn't able to move people around and had limitations on where I could move, but the advice will be helpful in the future!

5. I didn't really notice those dust specks before, but you're right, they're really irritating! =P

Thanks again for your comments!

Scott_Quier wrote:

First - as has been said, I think you have every right to be quite happy and proud of these photos. I KNOW the B&G will be quite pleased.

A general comment - watch your composition. There are a large number of "bulls-eyed" shots in these sets.

Here's a blow-by-blow:
Beautiful exposure and good focus. Probably have way too much negative space to right and left. I think I would crop this to a vertical.

This is a candidate for the dustbin - focus is on the flowers behind the B&G - thus the B&G are badly OOF. Additionally, her gown is badly over-exposed.

It appears to be shot from too close and/or with too large an aperture - not all of him is in focus. That having been said, I think your clients will like it if you crop it a bit to remove some of the distracting background.

You were either too close or not using a wide enough lens. You nearly cut off the left most bridesmaid and you did cut into the rightmost groomsman. A bit of fill flash would have been a goodness to remove some of the racoon-eyes. Re-orient them so they aren't facing directly into the sun to help remove the squinting (this will require some additional off-camera light to avoid silhouette issues. It appears your exposure may be about 2/3 stop too high - her gown appears to be blown a bit. I think I would have worked to remove some of the chairs from in front of the group.

Exposure is just a bit high in that his collar appears to be blown a bit (on the sun-ward side) but this should be easily recoverable in post. ignore that statement - it looks good on a better monitor. There are a few dust specks just above his jacket pocket that a quick run past a clone tool would fix handily. Aside from these quite small nit-picks, this is a very nice image.

Notes from a quick run through your first two galleries (not much to be said about the photos in the third):
First, the Rehearsal Dinner set:
#11 - clasped hands - nice!

24, 26 - nice capture of the emotion/fun of the evening

28 - OOF, not a keeper

35, 36, 37 - plant in the foreground - toss these

The Ceremony
Your "setting up shots" are, for the most part, nice snap-shots. There are a few that are OOF and should probably not be included.

59 - the flower girls ... very nice but would have been better and so much more interesting had the camera been more on their level.

Most of the actaul ceremony are more than just a bit over-exposed. You've completely blown out her gown. If you shot RAW, you might be able to recover. Remember when metering a shot, the tux was rented, but she bought the gown - which do you think they will be more interested in seeing? I went back and looked at the wedding gallery on a much better computer - I was wrong. I don't see ANY blown gowns. So, just ignore the first part of this line!

#98 - This is a much better expsosure - you got all the beautiful detail of her gown. You also, BTW, got a nice shot of a spontaneous reaction/emotion - very good!

I hope that helps some!

Aldazar · August 4, 2009

Thanks for the encouraging words! I'm starting to feel a little better about my shots, though to be honest, I still find it hard to pick out 5 that I'm really proud of as I really don't think any are particularly good, especially compared to some of the other pictures posted by people!

Being forced to try and pick them out was a good exercise though, as it really shows me how much improvement is needed! =P

I guess the "purpose" of the standing around shots was to capture the atmosphere prior to the actual ceremony, but as you've pointed out, that didn't work so well...=P

Good idea on the B&W, I have yet to figure out what would make a good B&W photo and what wouldn't, I should get to playing around with that stuff...

lilmomma wrote:

ha ha you're joking right?

I only looked at the ceremony ones but you have every reason to be proud of them! A photographer on here said something to me once that i will never forget: Always shoot with purpose. In the beginning of the set I noticed a lot of shots of just people standing around, like no real meaning to the shot. But after those they just got better, lots of great moments! A few off focus here or there but not very many. I think they are great, you should play around with them a bit, mix them up with some nice b&w thrown in. One big thing I noticed is that you did a great job with not blowing out the dress in the harsh sunlight.

anyway i'm no pro and have only second shot two weddings but to me it seems you're being a too hard on yourself!

Aldazar · August 4, 2009

Yup, still learning to edit/post-process. Don't know anything about it right now, but trying to learn from books.

Thanks for your feedback!

Qarik wrote:

In general they are no great but are not bad, except #2, which as scott mentioned..not a keeper...out of focus and blown highlight everywhere. The 1st shot is I think is your best shot wrt to exposure and focus.

In general I think the 4 remaining shots could use a bit of editing to get some more punch out of them. Look at the grass in #3 for example..it looks rather lifeless and dull green. Some saturation an constrast would punch that up as well as brining out some more color in the rest of the shot.

Art Scott · August 4, 2009

i tried to look at your exif of the first pic posted in your thread and the page came up blank.
Did you shoot raw or jpg? Did you "save as " or "save for the web" after processing??
do you use photoshop or other software?

As far as critiquing.......
Well Scott Q. has said it all

agree

Aldazar · August 4, 2009

I neglected to add the EXIF information as the URL of the picture and have done so now. Also, for some reason, I had it turned off in the SmugMug gallery. This has now been rectified.

Art Scott wrote:

i tried to look at your exif of the first pic posted in your thread and the page came up blank.
Did you shoot raw or jpg? Did you "save as " or "save for the web" after processing??
do you use photoshop or other software?

As far as critiquing.......
Well Scott Q. has said it allagree

Wil Davis · August 4, 2009

Aldazar wrote:

I actually did not speak to the official photographer, however I did take pains to stay out of his way and did not "shadow" him for the vast majority of the day. I did shoot a few shots from the sides and from a distance during the formals, which is why you'll notice that many of the shots are slightly off on angles and/or severely cropped (I was using a kit lens, don't have a long one) and/or have distracting things in the foreground. Only once did I end up being close enough to the photographer that I felt I might be crowding him and I immediately apologized and backed off.
…snip

It was good that you were smart enough to stay out of the professional photographer's way. What I've often done in that situation is to take a step back and take pictures of the wedding being photographed; it's an interesting point of view, and many of the pictures include the photographer. If you're really worried, then ask permission and remind him/her that you won't be crowding them as you're not going for formals (why would you be doing formals, anyway?) Just keep out of their way; they're pros and should be able to handle that. You can still go for candids, just don't get in the way!

HTH -
- Wil