Hi all! I have been lurking around FM for a while, and am continually impressed by the exceptional talent of everyone here! I decided to finally bite the bullet and become an active member in the hopes of taking advantage of the advice and constructive criticism available here, and hopefully be able to contribute my own as well.

To share a little about myself, I live in beautiful Montana with my daughter, boyfriend, and our 2 dogs. Besides photography, I love good books, good beers, and the great outdoors. I am currently a "non-traditional" student and along with a degree in Environmental Science am attempting to pursue a minor in Photography. The program that I am in has a strong emphasis on the film medium. Ergo I spend a whole lot of time in the darkroom and not a lot of time in the digital darkroom - I am a photoshop newb and am trying desperately to learn and improve my editing.

I'm attempting to attach a few photos I've taken over the last few months that I feel encompass where I am at currently, we'll see if this works! Of course feel free to c&c (especially on editing - full disclosure, I am on an uncalibrated screen), there are a few obvious flaws I'm aware of in composition that point to my amateur status - I constantly need to remind myself to sloooow down

Thanks in advance for welcoming me to the FM community and sharing your wisdom and talent. I look forward to building some great relationships here!

~Lindsey

(And of course the photos are huge...any advice on how to fix that?)

Fantastic intro. You noobs with your great intros tick me off ;-) BTW, if you don't know, yes I'm a smart alek, sometimes.

Anyway, #4 is wonderful, nothing to save here. The fact that you got both eyes and mouth visible is pretty amazing.

#1 is pretty awesome, too.

#5 I agree that it would be nice to have this wider, possibly even *really* wide including a lot of the building.

For the colors, I'm also using poor man's calibration (looking at a print and matching my monitor colors to it), but this is how I see it. It'll be interesting to see if others chime in.

1 - maybe a bit magenta on her face, 'course maybe that's 'cuz it's cold and she is a bit pink already.

2 - seems pretty much perfect to me. Love that BG. Feels very northwesterly to me - where I'm from.

3 - Color looks pretty good, although the processing on this one feels a little odd to me. Can't quite describe it, other than odd?

4 - Maybe a bit warm? And her skin tones look kinda odd, almost like a hint of green/yellow in there.

5 - seems pretty good.

Anyway, welcome, and keep posting, I think you're off to a great start.

--David

Howdy Lindsay!

Welcome to posting photos here in this forum. I truly hope you enjoy your time spent here and contribute to the mix with more photos.

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The photos you posted are nice.

I enjoyed reading your intro remarks, and wish more people did that.

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My first Simple Suggestion for you: Before you spend another penny on any other photo gear, buy a monitor spyder (calibrator) and calibrate your monitors, ipad, iphone, or whatever you view your photos on to edit them.

You can get a very capable calibrator for about $160 that will calibrate laptops, stand alone monitors, Ipads etc.

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I suggest posting photos with the TALL side 800px maximum.

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Steady

(chalk this reply up to a newbie mistake and/or fumble fingers)

Thank you guys so much for the advice and the warm welcome! I promise to take no offense to any smart-aleck-ness, I'm pretty good at reading sarcasm font

Regarding images 1, 3, and 4 respectively:

1- This is one of my favorite personal images. It is of my daughter, directly after she took a header into a snowbank on her sled. I've debated with myself whether or not I should try to tone down the redness, the only editing here is a WB correction and minimal sharpening. Fun fact, this was taken with a Canon G15.

3 - This one doesn't sit quite right with me either, but I'm not quite sure what I did or how to fix it. I know I did some sharpening on her eyes, lips, and hair; did some spot healing and ran a brush over her skin to smooth blemishes (maybe too much?) and I'm fairly certain I made the all too common mistake of over-whitening her eyes?

4 - This was under some streetlights that had a mean yellow cast. I've struggled immensely with getting the white balance right, and in the process have done a number on her skin tone. This one is probably the one that screams the loudest to me that I need a calibrator

Love #1 !! Great shot!

Lovely intro and lovely shots to go with. Welcome to FM.

Based on these shots I'm looking forward to seeing you contribute more. I only hope the constant 'lurkers' posting for the first time at the moment gives more 'lurkers' the encouragement they need to post too. We don't bite, often, and its a great way to learn and develop.

Thanks for sharing. . I especially love the first one.

Thank you fgransee and ct8282 for the kind words!

I know for me personally, I always told myself, "Oh, I'll post when my photos are at x skill level,""Ok, maybe when my PP is better," etc, etc - there was always a marker somewhere off in the distance. But I just started reading this book titled Art and Fear, by David Bayles and Ted Orland, and it has been sort of a catalyst for taking a little risk and putting myself out there. I highly recommend it for anyone out there who has ever experienced any sort of self-doubt, it's a quick and easy read with plenty of pearls of wisdom in the pages.

nice set, like 1 & 2

Great lighting in all the pictures!

Thank you!

1- natural light: late afternoon sun
2- diffused on camera fill flash...I think at 1/16th or 1/32nd
3- late afternoon sun, under a small roof, small white reflector held somewhere slightly above and to shooter's left
4- incidental street light
5- natural light
(just because I always like to hear how things are lit for learning purposes)

LOVE #1...great shots all. THanks for sharing and I look forward to seeing more.

Greg

Hi Lindsey - welcome to FM and thanks for taking the time to tell us about yourself.

I enjoyed all of the photos you posted - particularly the first. I love the crop. I really love close-ups of people where you can peer into their eyes and get some kind of sense of their emotional 'place' at the time it was taken. Particularly photos of children and young adults (such as seniors).

Color balances look pretty good to me. And the snowy one - well, hey it was snowing heavily and you captured the person in it. It would look pretty weird if there was no snow between the lens and her face and as the other person mentioned her eyes and mouth are not obscured. Success!

I think it's the little things that you hone in over time as you try and improve your photography, such as developing a sense of how very subtle differences in a crop can make an image more appealing, noticing the small distracting elements before you shoot, getting the natural light to bring you highlights right where you want them, etc. And you are off to a fantastic start - at least the starting point as we see it here with your first post. But you've obviously invested a lot of time and attention to the craft before now.

BTW - you and I have a little more than an interest in people photography in common. I too have an Environmental Science degree (love books and the outdoors too, but beer gives me headaches in my old age... had to switch to wine). I've been working in the environmental consulting industry more than 20 years, but am a secret photog wannabe. Well, maybe not that secret.

Look forward to seeing more from you here in the people forum!

Ed

Superb photos! All are so good.
Love the capture on #1 and #4 is superb with snow as it is!

Beautiful shots, all. The eyes in #1 are as good as they get.

Lindsey, welcome to FM. I'm not going to reiterate other folks' comments, so I'll go directly to your point about not knowing why your third image "doesn't sit well" with you. It's the angle of the pose. This is a tight closeup, and the closest thing to the camera is her forehead. That looms larger in this image than it is in reality. And it occupies more of the frame than it needs to. In addition, your subject's expression is a dead stare. A hint of expression would cure that problem, but if you want to shoot down on someone, just be aware of how that proximity will emphasize what's closest to the camera. Back away some.

Now, in the case of your daughter, the symmetry of composition, and her sheer cuteness, wipe out any concerns about extreme closeness. Here it works. In the third, it doesn't.

Keep up the good work!

LMMphoto wrote:
Thank you!

1- natural light: late afternoon sun
2- diffused on camera fill flash...I think at 1/16th or 1/32nd
3- late afternoon sun, under a small roof, small white reflector held somewhere slightly above and to shooter's left
4- incidental street light
5- natural light
(just because I always like to hear how things are lit for learning purposes)




Thanks for posting. Great shots by the way.

Thanks for the warm welcome, Ed! Sorry it has taken me so long to say that, turns out 18 credits in ecology and photography (with a portfolio review looming) eat up a lot of free time.

I took a minute to venture over to your website and just wanted to compliment you on your work...I'm struggling to find the right descriptor with my fried little brain...I want to say your photos are "warm and inviting" but I don't think that quite sums up what I'm looking for. Suffice it to say I enjoyed seeing them, and I hope you are finding more time to get out and shoot than I am

Thanks so much Steve, I truly appreciate your feedback. I love shooting people but posing, and angles therein, are super novel to me so it really helps to have these things broken down for my untrained eye.

I think I was trying to incorporate a downward angle, because I had heard or read somewhere that it was flattering.

Just for kicks, here's another shot from the same day - again with me standing higher than the subject but a bit farther away. This one, to my eye, has it's own problems with the cutting off of various limbs. Anyone feeling so inclined is welcome to pick it apart for what works/doesn't work - I love the learning that comes from such critique and I hope there are others out there who would enjoy learning from my mistakes also

Lindsey,

thanks for posting these - they are wonderful, but particularly love #1. You got "the look", which is just priceless. And completely agree with :deinfaces: - the eyes really make it.

cheers,
John