I just want to post a few pics, and have people be brutally honest when critiquing them.

I would appreciate it a lot. Thank you in advance

Doesn't load. You don't have to use tags, just paste the link ending with .jpg right in.

Cheers,
Thomas

Great thanks Tomagado!

But first brutal honesty, unless you're delivering a premium print or other tangible goods and charging plenty or markup (think fine art print 11x14 for $$$, books for $$$, etc), your prices are low.

Assuming you book your highest paying gig ($250 family sess) and they buy $200 worth of prints EACH time, and you book 4 days a week, every, EVERY week, for the year, you're only grossing $80-90k. Since you're a team, that's combined income, before you take out all the fun little expenses. That number shrinks pretty quickly, and unless you have ridiculously low operating costs, I don't know how it's going to work out for you.

This of course depends on where you live and what the cost of living is there, but I'm looking at you, assuming you're a relatively new business, and just thinking to myself since I'm new too. If it's working out great for you, please help me understand how

The work is good, worth charging more for.

Don't undervalue yourself. If you're good at something, never do it for free.

Cheers,
Thomas

And now that the images are up, my feedback:

1: I'd of just shot the shadow. It's rad. Look at the color, rust, scratches, it's just begging to get a detail shot of all that grit with the shadow cast.

2: I've seen this done before. The nit is the background coming off, but it's cool, it captures her energy, which I love.

3: Too centered, cuts off the hands. You have a wicked background, use it more. Take them off center.

4: I'd of taken him even further off to the left.

And on all of these, I'd just say, development more processing skilss. No offense meant, but these are all missing polish.

Cheers,
Thomas

Tomagado wrote:
And now that the images are up, my feedback:

1: I'd of just shot the shadow. It's rad. Look at the color, rust, scratches, it's just begging to get a detail shot of all that grit with the shadow cast.

2: I've seen this done before. The nit is the background coming off, but it's cool, it captures her energy, which I love.

3: Too centered, cuts off the hands. You have a wicked background, use it more. Take them off center.

4: I'd of taken him even further off to the left.

And on all of these, I'd just say, development more processing skilss. No offense meant, but these are all missing polish.

Cheers,
Thomas

I agree with these points. Specifically, the newspaper shot would be far better with more contrast. It looks like you went heavy on the vignette and it made the whole thing look muddy. Maybe try black and white, or desaturation.

EDIT: looking again: maybe not vignette, but it's still muuud-dy.

Welcome to the FM.

In 1st place never ask for brutal honesty because there is no such absolute thing.
You may get opinions, hopefully honest, and all contradictory opinions are brutal
in varying degrees. Opinions are personal and obviously meaningless unless you
accept them as valid. So here are my 2 cents for what it may be worth.

1. Go easy on the plugins when processing your images.
2. They do looked a specific way aesthetically. Pop would best describe it.
3. They are nice images on that style, hopefully being what you intended.
4. They appear to be straight forward with reasonable choices of background.
5. Composition wise they are OK. They rely mostly on the look of the people
in the photo. Not much of a show in terms of diversity.
6. Not a fine or polished product as stated.

1. Like the composition. The shadow makes the image.
2. Looks like you either duo-toned it, and/or color balance is off. Maybe an aesthetic choice, but it doesnt work for me. Whatever, I'd bump contrast, sharpness. Composition probably has more personal meaning than I can discern.
3. Nice. Go less centered, watch the fingers, as others have said.
4. Looks quite washed out. Needs a bit of exposure adjustment and/or highlight recovery (I havent run it thru a program to see which) with the skin looking washed out. I'd bump contrast, try to increase the saturation, esp of the reds to bring up the hair. I like the off-centered framing, but not the cut off limb on the left.

Scott

First, I look at composition, as most other attributes (to me) become mute points if the composition doesn't do it for me (for shots like these). Of the images, only the first one offers, in my mind, great composition. This is a great shot in this regard, with the others being ho-hum. The shadow in the 1st image is what makes it special, the actual subject is less of a factor. But I like what has been done, showing two different points of view - one of the guy and the other of the shadow, this is nice. I like the idea of a shot of just the shadow, but feel that the combination of perspectives is the strength.

As to the post processing, I will leave that to others as I am no expert and could not offer you specific recommendations on the specific steps you could have taken to improve this aspect.

Image 1: The pose is uninspiring and slouched. Expression is more bored than disaffected, if the latter is what you were going for. The shadow is indeed the prize in this image...should have been the subject. Good mix of opposing color though if the subject would take more of a presence in the scene.

Image 2: Blue haze too pronounced. Do the newspapers have any tie in to the subject? If not, then this might be fine as a setup of a generic scene, but the background does not add to her. The pose and energy here are fun if somewhat buried in the cross process.

Image 3: Too centered and even toned in background. Would have been nice to get a few clouds in the sky. Also, look at their faces. They are in the picture but not interacting with each other. Comes off a little stiff. Just looks like a forced kiss between siblings and not more than that.

Image 4: Looks a little soft but is pretty good composition. His pose is again unremarkable. With so little else in the image, his pose/mood needs to be the anchor. Fine not to have other stuff in the shot, just realize how much the subject must then carry the scene.

Exposures on these look fine. Some selective dodging and burning would enhance images that were stronger on the expressions to draw the eye to the subject and through the rest of the scene.

Jim