Hello

Shoganai

I'm new to this site.

If I'm posting in the wrong section please point me in the right direction.

I don't have a super camera, just a point and shoot Sony.
I don't have PhotoShop, just Kodak EZ Share.
And none of that's going change in the next year.

So, I focus on one thing I have control over, composition.

I have a rough understanding of the rule of thirds (I think it's called)

So, what I would like to do is post a some pics and get your feed back on what's good or bad and what you would change to make the shots more attractive and why.










My knee jerk reaction...

I like the first the most, but I don't know why.

The last needed to crop the tree on the left, it draws my eye out of the frame I think.


I look forward to learning and hopefully taking better photographs.



Thank you in advance for your time,
Gwen

Scott_Quier

I also like #1 the best and here's why
Pros

• That which is the subject of the photo is right there where you can't miss it
• There's a line from the front wheel, to the rear, to the gate, to the tree, down the tree, back to the bike. Keeps the viewer's eye in the photo

Cons

• The subject is the darkest object in the photo. People's eye is naturally drawn to the brighter objects.

The other two fail, IMO, because the subject (the bike) is a relatively minor and dark portion of the photo. You've still got the circular thing going in all three, but less so pronounced in the last two.

Shoganai

Thank you, that's the kind of stuff I'm looking for.

I will look for the lines in #1 you are talking about. I don't know anything about lines in a photograph.

That bike is hard to shoot because it's so dark. When I increase the color saturation to make the blues deeper, I have to balance that with no making the bike a black hole.

jfriend

I think all three of these are good example shots to discuss. The issue here is what do you want the photo to be about. Here's some stream of concious commentary on all three. I hope this is helpful.

1. In the first one, it looks like the photo is trying to be about the motorocycle and you've tried to put it in a nice setting. My eye is pretty naturally drawn to the bike and then to the tree. The problem for me here is there's too much distraction around the edge of the bike and while I feel like the shot is about the bike, I feel like there's too much around the bike competing with the bike, particularly around it's edges. The stone wall is coming up out of the seat. The tree is coming out of the windshield, etc... If this one was to be about the bike, it's fine to have a nice background, but in my opinion, you don't want as much competition or intersection with it. Things that could help that are: blurring the background with a wide aperture, more distance separation between bike and background, a simpler background, shadows that aren't so dark under the bike, softer lighting at a different time of day to give you some tonal separation, etc...
2. The second shot looks like a nice tree with a bike parked in front of it. I think this one is more about the tree. As such, I feel like the bike is competing with the tree too much and kind of out of place with it. In fact, I can't really tell what kind of story it's trying to tell. One idea is that it's a nice place to park a bike, but there are probably better stories to tell than that one. Once I start thinking that the story is really about the tree, I start missing the parts of the tree that are cropped off. Now it feels like it's not really about the bike (too much tree), but not really about the tree either (part of the tree cropped).
3. The third shot is looking more like a landscape shot. It's a dirt road in a nice country side, out for a ride on a motorcyle and stopped next to a nice tree. It's actually a storyline that works better for me than the other two, but it still feels incomplete. I feel like I want a wider view. Give me more of the tree. Tell me more of a story with the left third of the picture which is actually fairly empty except for a piece of road. Where were you coming from, something interesting in the background, a view of a winding road, a city or mountain in the distance, etc...

Shoganai

Thank you.

So a picture tells a story.

That means I need to start seeing/thinking beyond my personal POV and into "What am I trying to tell someone else".

I've never thought about my pics like that.

I undrstand a bit more about lines. They must be like the rough draft of a drawing.