StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Well, I finally started a photography course, so this will be the first of a number of photography threads using stuff from each "excursion" .
This is from a very well known mall in Israel called "Dizingof Center", it's an old place that's known it's ups and downs, and there are a number of food, and design/clothing markets that take place there in addition to the regular shops.
The photos are around the theme/idea of "space", people in/out of space".

PLEASE comment on your favourites, and technical critique I need to whittle this lot down to 7, and best I've managed is 16 or so .

Side note: This was the first time I used my tripod, we got it in Wallmart in the states about a year ago. It broke into 3 separate pieces within 2 minutes. Bloody "made in America" hunk of crap .

IMG_0270



IMG_0241

IMG_0253


IMG_0278

IMG_0302


IMG_0315

IMG_0071-1

IMG_0084

IMG_0088

Food pot!

IMG_0121

IMG_0146

Face on the Door

Face on the Door

IMG_0192

Where are all the people?/Feet

Where are all the people?/Feet

Feet away

Feet away

IMG_0243

IMG_0251

railway

IMG_0257

IMG_0266

IMG_0282

IMG_0290


IMG_0269

IMG_0334

Where am I?

Where am I?

Lacking something

Lacking something
IMG_0303

Measuring clothing

IMG_0317


a quickr pickr post

I rather like IMG_0088. I don't really like the angles you used on the others, but that's just me. Oh, and the girl in IMG_0269 looks mad at you. Maybe she thought you were trying to look up her dress?

Darmalus wrote:I rather like IMG_0088.

Nice guy with that food stand, although I had trouble getting the spoons into angle, especially with the crappy yellow neon lighting.

I don't really like the angles you used on the others, but that's just me.

Forced to use a tiny, non working tripod=trouble. Yeah...

Oh, and the girl in IMG_0269 looks mad at you. Maybe she thought you were trying to look up her dress?

No... I have a picture from before and after, and the girl was squabbling with her mother nearby.

I'll shoot for concise again.

IMG_0270: You could do things with those balconies if you got closer and tried different perspectives, but this is just a frame full of stuff which happens to include some potentially neat balconies.

IMG_0241: In general empty hallways, being empty, are not interesting. Look for shapes or patterns and emphasize them; that might help. If there aren't any, put something in the hallway.

IMG_0253: Your leading lines lead the eye right out of the frame; this is not good. Try a vertical crop to omit the rightmost 3/5 or so, and crop out that overexposed sliver of wall in the upper left. The ceiling light and its reflections are all you have to work with, so let them gain prominence by occupying more of the frame.

IMG_0278: I don't really have anything to say about this one, which probably says enough.

IMG_0302: This one could have worked all right if the scene had been staged. The trouble with reflections is that everything reflects, so you will get a lot of clutter unless you can control what is in the line of sight of the glass. Also, the bottom 1/3 of the frame is probably unnecessary; try a crop and see what you think.

IMG_0315: Better than the empty benches, but that big chunk of wall horning in isn't a good thing. I would have looked at this one from several different angles; maybe a close-up of the wrapper with an empty chair out of the focal plane in the background.

IMG_0071-1: I'm not really getting anything from this. A forest of table legs requires, I think, more interesting table legs.

IMG_0084: Same comment as before for empty hallways and verticals out of whack.

IMG_0088: Not bad. Pity the guy had his back turned, so he's not really participating in the photo. You could probably have made more of the pattern of the spoons and hotel pans and the colors of the food if you'd wanted - this locale could have offered a lot of potential shots.

Food pot!: Would have been better if the fellow had been looking up, though probably at something other than the camera. If he had appeared to interact with or inadvertently mimic the woman in the posters this might have been pretty good.

IMG_0121: Not that great, but not that bad either. It's not a picture of anything, but good use of depth of field to control the empty space - see my comment for Lacking something to see how it could be applied. Also, the tilt does not immediately kill this picture because it is not immediately noticeable and because the picture is very diagonal anyway.

IMG_0146: That's a lot of dead space. Notice how all the 'action' both in terms of brightness and things in focus is concentrated in the bottom 1/3. You can try cropping this one, looking for where in the picture the eye naturally settles, and trying to crop so it 'naturally' settles where you want it to. You should be thinking the same thing when you compose a shot.

Face on the door: This would have been better if you had been able to shoot the 'face' straight-on rather than having to look up at it. The perspective doesn't add anything, and in fact it throws the composition off-kilter. A tilt-shift lens, or a stepladder, would have been useful here.

IMG_0192: The room/ hallway beyond this corner may or may not be interesting, but otherwise this is

Where are all the people?/Feet: Point 1: Composition isn't really evident here; this photo would have been a prime candidate for the rule of thirds because there are three sets of feet divided pretty evenly by two vertical lines. Point 2: Tilting the frame can help to convey action or reinforce existing compositional lines, but otherwise it only detracts from the picture. It should be used thoughtfully and sparingly; bad use of tilt in this case.

Feet away: Again, leading lines leading to nothing. Also probably not the best use of focus, since those casters are the sharpest and most prominent things in the frame yet they are of no import to the photo.

IMG-0243: Same comment about hallways; since this shot had people in an otherwise empty hallway they should have been much more prominent.

IMG_0251: You should have let the janitor enter and dominate the frame fully and be lit, and used a higher f-stop so you could draw the focus to him. As-is, this is pretty boring.

IMG_0257: Leading lines leading to nothing. Again. At this point I'd recommend having a photo buddy, or a stuffed bear or a garden gnome or any sort of figure that you can use for a subject here. Seriously, imagine a tight crop of a gnome perched at the top of the stairs, or a teddy bear leaning resignedly against the wall.

IMG_0266: There's the potential for some good abstract shape-based shots with this staircase, if you can get around the problem of the light from overhead. Simply taking a picture of the balconies won't do, though - you can see how a lot of other things are intruding into the frame without really contributing to the shot.

IMG_0282: This is another one of those 'photos of the empty space in the middle.' Not much else to say, really.

IMG_0290: This one is okay, if unexciting - shame the girl closed her eyes. Try to crop out that lamp, though - it's too bright, so it draws the eyes away from the real subject.

IMG_0269: In terms of content rather than technique, easily the best photo in the thread. Sure, the background is a bit overexposed. But you have got 1: A human subject 2: from a non-mundane-perspective 3: exhibiting character and personality 4: engaging the person who sees the picture with her eyes and expression. You have thus built a connection between the subject of the photo and the viewer, which is the thing that makes a portrait, candid or otherwise. Excellent.

You should do two things with this: First, vertical-crop out that plant and everything to the right of the point where the bottom balcony 'meets' the staircase you are standing on. Second, play around with curves and levels a bit to see if you can bring down the overexposure at the top. This girl is great, so you will want to prevent the rest from the frame from sucking attention away from her.

IMG_0334: Photo booths aren't intrinsically interesting, so if you are going to shoot them you have to make them interesting. Though this one could have been really good if by chance one of the sample pictures on the outside of the booth had been a mother and child, so you could have juxtaposed the real mother and child and the photographed one.

Where am I?: This comes off as just another photo of some things. Same problem as previously with the bright light in the frame as well; that's something to be mindful of as you go.

Lacking something: I know this goes against a lot of my comments thus far (and the ones I've already written at the end) but this is an instance where the photo could have benefited by showing off the empty room a bit more. I would say either from higher up and further back, so that the janitor's equipment still anchors the lower-left but the rest is empty room, or at floor level and much closer, with a high f-stop - letting the sign, dustpan, and broom heads fill the foreground and leaving the empty background apparent and visible, but out-of focus. As-is this one is okay but not terribly interesting, though you should at least go to post and make sure your verticals are actually vertical.

IMG_0303: Less successful than IMG_0302.

Measuring clothing: You might have gotten a neat result if you could somehow have framed the person in the rack or amidst the clothes, assuming you asked if she would be amenable to being posed. If not, you might have tried to shoot down the length of the rack with a mid-high f-stop to build on the pattern of the shape of the hangers and the lines of the garments. It might not have worked, but then again it might have. As is, this shot is technically good, but almost too straightforward to be interesting.

IMG_0317: Leading lines, but no payoff in the center. The space itself doesn't have much personality, and neither do the people because they are so indistinct. Someone doing something would be the obvious focus of a photo like this, but everyone is too far away.

General: This might not be apparent when your theme is "Space", but photos of empty space are really incredibly dull, because they are just that - empty space. The standard rules of subject, scene, and composition still apply. The trick with a theme like this is that you have to fill and compose your shots in order to create a sense of a space and its character without actually taking a picture of space.

The rule of thumb in this case, as really in most cases, is Robert Capa's: "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough."