- This topic has 17 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 10 years ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Well, guys, would be great to hear your opinion about the photos I have taken within my first 4 months in China.
http://photoslav.net/gallery-china
Some of the photos may not display due to temporary technical issues, just skip to a next page in such case.
Regards!
Hey Slavsky (catchy name),
You have some outstanding photos in here. I believe their strength is slightly diminished when being organized with so many mediocre photos though, I would trim that gallery down to highlight the gems.
For portraits I would get as close as possible, try to get eye contact if you can because that’s where a lot of the feeling and emotional impact is. I find that China is a great place for street photography because there’s always so much action going on.
Thanks for sharing your photos! What kind of equipment are you shooting with?
These are the strongest ones in my opinion:
Some of my photos taken recently in Chengdu:
Hey, Charlie. Slavsky is just a nick, my full name is Vyacheslav, the short one is Slava, that’s how the nick is formed as well as the name of the web.
Thank you for your reply. I have a canon 500d, tamron 17-50 2.8 F and tamron 70-200 2.8f, though major part of photos were made with other telephoto canon ef-s 55-250, tamron was purchased recently. Apart from that I use quite a lot of photoshop.
You have an impressive web, I do like your photos. My favorite one is the one with the guys playing cards. I would suggest you to set for the new photos to open in the new window, or to install proper plugin for that.
Do you suggest me to split the gallery in two parts?
Quote:I would suggest you to set for the new photos to open in the new window, or to install proper plugin for that.Thanks for the suggestion, for most of these photos they are displayed in blog posts at 900px width so there is no resizing or additional tabs necessary. For photos like these I use the Jetpack plugin which includes a Photo Carousel module.
Quote:Do you suggest me to split the gallery in two parts?I would make one with something like the 12 best photos.
Quote:Thanks for the suggestion, for most of these photos they are displayed in blog posts at 900px width so there is no resizing or additional tabs necessary. For photos like these I use the Jetpack plugin which includes a Photo Carousel module.Just have noticed, it takes a while for the plugin to load. When I was checking before, they were opening in the same window, though if to wait for 5-6 sec they open in carousel. Probably, my internet is quite slow.
About your suggestion – here comes the question: how to define whether photo is superb or mediocre? Everyone sees them differently 🙂
Hi Vyacheslav and Charlie,
I’m a shutterbug, want to learn more photography skills. I’m a student study interactive and visual design in Australia. I’m back to Chengdu for holiday now. Can you share me more photography skill with me? Thanks!
Quote:Just have noticed, it takes a while for the plugin to load. When I was checking before, they were opening in the same window, though if to wait for 5-6 sec they open in carousel. Probably, my internet is quite slow.That might be because we’re in China. The commenting system on my blog also doesn’t work in China because it connects to WordPress.com which is blocked. If they’re for my own purposes and I have a choice, I build websites for the global internet, not for the China internet. Your internet is also probably slow though since the gallery works pretty quickly for me. Keep in mind that each image is about 200kb.
Quote:how to define whether photo is superb or mediocre? Everyone sees them differently 🙂Great photos clearly communicate something and have focus. Photography is not entirely subjective, there are guidelines and principles to follow that will improve your skills. The essentials are composition and exposure (lighting), and then dive into whatever discipline strikes you (landscape, portrait, street, etc). Read Eric Kim’s blog post on why you should Buy Books, Not Gear.
I’ll give you an example.
This photo of yours: bridge is great because it uses the compositional rules of thirds and has a clear focus. The eye starts at one end of the bridge and travels to the other. It’s an interesting scene and it’s well composed.
By comparison, this photo: photo taking has no focus. It’s a busy snapshot that doesn’t communicate clearly.
Quote:I’m a shutterbug, want to learn more photography skills. I’m a student study interactive and visual design in Australia. I’m back to Chengdu for holiday now. Can you share me more photography skill with me? Thanks!Hi Chloe,
The most important thing is to take a lot of photos. They say that your first 20,000 photos are practice. The next thing to do is read (check the blog post that I linked to above).
These are some great blogs that I check regularly also, the last 3 are some of my favorite photographers:
Good luck!
Very good articles Charlie. The one about buying books than gear makes a lot of sense.
I have some photographs that I took during the last one year. Most of them are taken in china, but there are some from Europe and India.
Quote:I have some photographs that I took during the last one year.Very nice photos, India looks beautiful. This photo is awesome!
Hi Slavsky
My advice is to theme or set yourself projects.
Colour.. In this set my main focus was colour.
B&W In this set I focused on B&W faces.
Also cropping is very important. I never photoshop my pics I just crop and balance the exposure. With time and practice you can learn this whilst shooting. Some of my best selling photographs I just framed whilst shooting.
Keep your sets to a minimum.
Also get some feedback from friends. Some pictures which I have not been sure about have been favourites of others.
I hope this helps
I agree with Charlie – your great photos are drowning among mediocre photos. On the other hand personally I think it’s good to get photos out there even if one is not super confident about them. For getting feedback. And also for motivation – uploading photos motivates me to keep shooting.
Gotta disagree about bridge being great and photo taking not being good.
IMHO the first one is well executed according to the rule of thirds guideline and I like the lines, but other than that it’s not very interesting, while the latter one is a snapshot of a interesting moment and it does communicate something to me. Quick snapshots can also be good photos.
Quote:Gotta disagree about bridge being great and photo taking not being good.IMHO the first one is well executed according to the rule of thirds guideline and I like the lines, but other than that it’s not very interesting, while the latter one is a snapshot of a interesting moment and it does communicate something to me. Quick snapshots can also be good photos.
I agree, snapshots can be good photos! Regardless of theory, everyone will naturally have their own take on your photos. It’s surprising sometimes to see which photos people really like, often they aren’t the ones you expected. What I routinely do is go somewhere and take 20-50 photos in one place and just keep a handful of them (like this place in Chengdu, where I took a lot of photos but kept 5).
Thank you once again for all your critics, feedback and suggestions.
Meanwhile I have reviewed some of the processing and positioning techniques – http://photoslav.net/china-2013-photogallery – there are like 15-20 new (made with new camera) and re-processed photos. Would be great to hear your opinion now.
P.S. flash player is required to display the gallery properly.
This may sound like stupid question, but when you take pictures of people do you usually ask their permission? I notice that many of them seem to be candid, do people not mind being photographed in China as much as back in the States?
Usually I use telephoto lens, in majoir part of cases they don
t even see me, which in fact allows me to capture their sincere emotions. Sometimes I have chance only for one shot, then I get spotted and people hide. Last Sat one vendor threw pineapple at me and was swearing me all the way, till I disappeared from the street. Sometimes, if I see that person doesnt mind at all, I can ask him to pose for me, like the elder man with a fan. Smile, politeness and some Chinese may help you a lot. Apart from that you have to be quite aggressive: to spot, to decide and not to mind possible consequences – the main points for me. Much easier with children. Parents in 99% don`t mind. Only once I was aksed not to publish photos.
- The forum ‘Personals’ is closed to new topics and replies.