Photo Critiqing Thread

[Bushmaster6]

You're right, not a great photo.. Starts with composition. I think I got wrapped up in this enormous visual landscape and was trying to capture it all instead of focusing on the object that got my attention (the car). Funny that you mention the concrete piling.. that JUMPED out at me seeing it online and I hadn't noticed it as much on my local computer.

In my opinion, this just isn't that great a photo. It's not visually interesting enough. Here's what you did well, and here's what I'd suggest for next time;
1. You captured the context of the setting. It's abandoned in the mountains.
2. You edited out the power lines. Thank goodness! They were really jarring to me.

Things I would have done differently:
1. Detail photos of the patina. I'd try to zoom way in, almost to macro level.
2. Shift perspective. I would have shot this lower to the ground.
3. I would have excluded the concrete plug. It seems out of historical context with the car.

 

[Bushmaster6]

My comments on this one are a bit more complex, I tried to mark it up graphically. Not sure if this will post properly. See attached:
View attachment 325585

Hmmm... the image came out small. Here's the PDF:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3772540/car-photos-comments.pdf

Great points.. I had actually come to a dilemma with the shadows (where I had cropped the edge of the photo and cut off the one closest to the camera). Yep, the tire looks bad. As far as cloning out objects/areas.. I need to educate/train myself on this. I have only done limited cloning in LR and have struggle with it outside of small/background object... could be a better way to do it but the only tool I've seen in there is the adjustable circle. I'll try and find some Youtube demos.

Thank you, again, for all the feedback!

 

[nwoods]

I'm not an expert at Lightroom. In fact, I own it but don't even have it installed. However, I am pretty familiar with http://lightroomkillertips.com which is an awesome site for sole purpose of making everyone better Lightroom users. Also, if you are really interested, and have time to take advantage of all they offer, you can't go wrong with a year's subscription to KelbyOne. http://kelbyone.com

 

[jsexton]

Bushmaster - I'm no expert, but I do dabble in photography and LR as a hobby. The very first thing that jumped out to me is every one of your originals are over exposed. From my experience, this makes it harder to tweak in LR and look good. If you are going to error on exposure before LR edits, error on the slightly under exposed side. I find myself not making nearly as many adjustments when I do that.

 

[Bushmaster6]

Bushmaster - I'm no expert, but I do dabble in photography and LR as a hobby. The very first thing that jumped out to me is every one of your originals are over exposed. From my experience, this makes it harder to tweak in LR and look good. If you are going to error on exposure before LR edits, error on the slightly under exposed side. I find myself not making nearly as many adjustments when I do that.

Thanks J, good catch.. I'd have to go back and look at my library in total to see if it's a constant trend but it's very possible. I just learned (this month) about the "blinkies" feature in the LCD screen/histogram on the camera (shows overexposures) so I'll try and leverage that to improve. I appreciate your insight.