We had some fun with this little dude last weekend...

If you click on the storyboard, it will display larger... FM downsizes it for post display

Howdy,

First...my standard intro to anyone "new" to me on this forum...
My comments or suggestions below are not a criticism of you, your model, your talent or skill. I offer them in a friendly tone of voice and with the sole intent to help you with a second POV and set of eyes. If you read sincere questions and simple suggestions as "criticism" of you, then you will miss how I am trying to help you.

Of course this may be your own "style" or your own "vision" and I suppose we can assume that the images look just like they do because that is exactly how you like them. That is OK too. It just shows that there are differences of "opinion" on what looks good. IF these are exactly what you want and like, then by all means continue making your images look like that and have fun doing it. I can only speak for myself and what I do or do not find appealing in the posted photos. As I always say: "Follow your own muse."
_______________________


Quick Comments:

1. I think you will get better comments if you separate the images and post a number for each so comments can be specific to the image.

2. I see what appears to me to be repetitive images (almost the same shot) and so I think some better/stronger editing to reduce the number would make this stronger as a set....and you are presenting a set for us to view.

I like the images and don't really have a comment but ... Hey, Biff, get a load of this guy's life preserver.(from Back to the Future)

I've never seen this kind of display before. When I clicked on the image it really did enlarge them all. I like most of the images.

nice and clean, rich! i'm sure they are thrilled!

question, do you and anne shoot the family sessions together?

Steady Hand wrote:
Howdy,

First...my standard intro to anyone "new" to me on this forum...
My comments or suggestions below are not a criticism of you, your model, your talent or skill. I offer them in a friendly tone of voice and with the sole intent to help you with a second POV and set of eyes. If you read sincere questions and simple suggestions as "criticism" of you, then you will miss how I am trying to help you.

Of course this may be your own "style" or your own "vision" and I suppose we can assume that the images look just like they do because that is exactly how you like them. That is OK too. It just shows that there are differences of "opinion" on what looks good. IF these are exactly what you want and like, then by all means continue making your images look like that and have fun doing it. I can only speak for myself and what I do or do not find appealing in the posted photos. As I always say: "Follow your own muse."
_______________________


Quick Comments:

1. I think you will get better comments if you separate the images and post a number for each so comments can be specific to the image.

2. I see what appears to me to be repetitive images (almost the same shot) and so I think some better/stronger editing to reduce the number would make this stronger as a set....and you are presenting a set for us to view.



1. You are probably right, unfortunately, it's probably not going to happen. We do this professionally and this is exactly how the images are presented on our blog. Sharing them here in this form allows me to do so without any more "work" on our end and allows us to focus on other things that do make us money. When we first started, we did post them all separately and number them.. as our work has progressed I've found that more often than not, the comments we receive have simply become "pat on the back" type comments... i don't know if that means our work has gotten better or the forum as a whole simply doesn't comment much anymore... but from a cost benefit point of view it simply doesn't make sense for me to go through the process of hosting them all separately and then posting them all separately here for that type of comment. I've also found that when someone really has something important to say about them, some crit... not having the numbers doesn't stop them from doing so... i.e. if it is important enough to them, they'll make the comment no matter how I've presented them here.

2. You are probably right. This little dude was not a happy camper the day of the shoot... he really did not want his picture taken... because of this, I think the resulting images look repetitive because they were all captured in the few moments when he was smiling and laughing. You're probably right though, I tighter cull might result in a tighter viewing experience.

jhobgood wrote:
I like the images and don't really have a comment but ... Hey, Biff, get a load of this guy's life preserver.(from Back to the Future)

Thanks.. i guess.

DaveOls wrote:
I've never seen this kind of display before. When I clicked on the image it really did enlarge them all. I like most of the images.

Thanks.... It is because we storyboard the images for our blog. It results in an image that is 900 pixels wide but several thousand pixels tall. FM used to not have any post restrictions (I still don't get why a photo website would have restrictions for photos, but that's another topic) but about a year ago, FM changed their photo posting guidelines... primarily to control the size of the photos being posted in the buy/sell section, but the result effected all boards. I'm assuming that there is both a max. height and width limit.... but if they deleted the height limit, story boarded images like this would display fine... and the max width limit would still prevent 99% of the overly large images from being posted.

canerino wrote:
nice and clean, rich! i'm sure they are thrilled!

question, do you and anne shoot the family sessions together?

Thanks Chuck... As you can see in my reply to Steady Hand above... this little guy was not thrilled to have his picture taken on this occasion, because of this, Mom and Dad are thrilled with the result displayed here. They were worried we got nothing.

I'll answer your question with another question... what do you think?

Rich, I enjoyed the set. I would think Mom and Dad have to be thrilled!

And as always, I love your colors! When am I swinging by for a lesson? haha

As always, really solid work. Your color work is super clean and real with just the right hint of pop. For the first second that I saw the unexpanded photos the mix of B/Ws in near proximity to his brightly colored vest made it look like you had some selective color going on and I thought "that Rich is hilarious".
Only very minor nits on a few crops of hands and through his head on the walking away photo bothered me a bit.
Dave

Rich that does bring up a good point. I shot a Portrait session a couple months ago where the little girl was happy as can be playing around on gym equipment but to pick her up and get a couple family portraits was near impossible. It has made me rethink taking bookings where families want to do multiple things in a session. Especially children 6 and under it seems.

Also love the photos. I think more than anything I always like the richness in your color work.

SGallant wrote:
Rich, I enjoyed the set. I would think Mom and Dad have to be thrilled!

And as always, I love your colors! When am I swinging by for a lesson? haha

Sean... thanks man. If you want lessons on color, you want lessons from Anne... I'll let you know when she stats giving lessons, I'll be signed up too. haha

qwyjibo wrote:
As always, really solid work. Your color work is super clean and real with just the right hint of pop. For the first second that I saw the unexpanded photos the mix of B/Ws in near proximity to his brightly colored vest made it look like you had some selective color going on and I thought "that Rich is hilarious".
Only very minor nits on a few crops of hands and through his head on the walking away photo bothered me a bit.
Dave

Dave.. hahaha.. no way man, no selective coloring here. regarding your nits, I agree... always something to improve on.

fastcarsspeed wrote:
Rich that does bring up a good point. I shot a Portrait session a couple months ago where the little girl was happy as can be playing around on gym equipment but to pick her up and get a couple family portraits was near impossible. It has made me rethink taking bookings where families want to do multiple things in a session. Especially children 6 and under it seems.

Also love the photos. I think more than anything I always like the richness in your color work.

Thanks.... normally I wouldn't worry at all about doing a few things during a session with a kid. I actually think it helps to keep them engaged in the session a little longer. We've worked with this little dude before and he was fine. I think we just caught him on an off day. It was the week after the hurricane and they still didn't have power, so he was definitely out of his routine.

Every now and again we get people who post tiny little postage stamp pictures.

My only question is why you bother posting such tiny pictures in the first place. NOBODY wants to view them that size. They cannot be evaluated that size.

Post them the size we want to see them. Why should we have to "click" to see the pics? More people will see them is you post them large.
Fm doesn't downsize the pics, you do. Post them individually like everyone else does and they will come up the normal size.

Nice set, and as others have mentioned, great colors ("Rich" haha).

Only nitpick is the second to last one of them both squatting down. I always try (don't always succeed) in having poses that theoretically they could have done on their own. Something they'd naturally do. If they'd never sit a certain way, then I wouldn't want them to pose that way. I doubt they'd ever strike that pose in real life...

In regards to the size of the posting. I used to storyboard my images like this, but realized they show up horribly on the iPad and many other mobile devices (all pixelated). Now I just storyboard the verticals together and then just drag all the photos into my Blog editing app. I don't think it takes any longer... And it's much easier to reorder if you want to.

Jim Rickards wrote:
Every now and again we get people who post tiny little postage stamp pictures.

My only question is why you bother posting such tiny pictures in the first place. NOBODY wants to view them that size. They cannot be evaluated that size.

Post them the size we want to see them. Why should we have to "click" to see the pics? More people will see them is you post them large.
Fm doesn't downsize the pics, you do. Post them individually like everyone else does and they will come up the normal size.

Thanks... no bird photography here, nothing to see here.

zalmyb wrote:
Nice set, and as others have mentioned, great colors ("Rich" haha).

Only nitpick is the second to last one of them both squatting down. I always try (don't always succeed) in having poses that theoretically they could have done on their own. Something they'd naturally do. If they'd never sit a certain way, then I wouldn't want them to pose that way. I doubt they'd ever strike that pose in real life...

In regards to the size of the posting. I used to storyboard my images like this, but realized they show up horribly on the iPad and many other mobile devices (all pixelated). Now I just storyboard the verticals together and then just drag all the photos into my Blog editing app. I don't think it takes any longer... And it's much easier to reorder if you want to.

Thanks Zalmy... regarding the "pose," I agree. In this instance, they were looking in the water, trying to get the little guy interested in some fish... I got into position, just in case he came over, but he didn't... Then mom and dad looked my way and that was the result. I'm always looking for ways to stream line our workflow.... PM me the details on the blog editing app, please. Thanks.

Hey Rich, another sterling set. Curious how you and Anne work. Do you both go out for a shoot like this, or do you save your tandems for weddings? Also curious about the House for Sale sign. I guess you were shooting at the park and they were just happy to have bought the house, is that the deal? Too bad you couldn't do that shot in front of their house. It's good as it is, but would have been really cool to see the house.

Anyway, sweet job, nice series! I'm sure the family was very happy.

friscoron wrote:

Hey Rich, another sterling set. Curious how you and Anne work. Do you both go out for a shoot like this, or do you save your tandems for weddings? Also curious about the House for Sale sign. I guess you were shooting at the park and they were just happy to have bought the house, is that the deal? Too bad you couldn't do that shot in front of their house. It's good as it is, but would have been really cool to see the house.

Anyway, sweet job, nice series! I'm sure the family was very happy.

Yes... we both go out for a shoot like this... She's usually shooting a 50 or 85 and I'll shoot the 70-200 almost exclusively to get tight on faces. regarding the for sale sign.. they just closed on a house, so they brought the little sign with them. I think they're gonna use the shot for change of address cards to mail out to friends and family.

Is that Mindowaskin Park in Westfield? That little sliver of gazebo looks so familiar and so does the path on the first one lol....

Great set as usual. I like the ones on the playground the most, he seems to look the most natural and happy in those pictures. Probably because he's in his environment

I agree posting each image individually is a pain. I'd post more stuff if it wasn't such a pain to do. I bet the way you do it is much easier!

KibblesNbitz wrote:
Is that Mindowaskin Park in Westfield? That little sliver of gazebo looks so familiar and so does the path on the first one lol....

Great set as usual. I like the ones on the playground the most, he seems to look the most natural and happy in those pictures. Probably because he's in his environment

I agree posting each image individually is a pain. I'd post more stuff if it wasn't such a pain to do. I bet the way you do it is much easier!

Good eyes.... you got it.

Apart from the annoying film strip, I like the photos. They are great!

M Lucca wrote:
Apart from the annoying film strip, I like the photos. They are great!

Thanks....

Looks good. I dont know what the problem is. You click it, it will enlarge it. It does not make it any harder to look at. Click it people! It wont take you to any other website.. promise.