RedImperator wrote:Grand Central Terminal's main concourse.
The concept for this one is sound. It's biggest weakness is that there is little visual separation between the people in the foreground and the rest of the concourse floor. The foreground melds into the background despite the good use of a narrow depth of field. I think a somewhat elevated position would have helped that.
Manhattan Municipal Building.
My only real issue with this one is the framing. Using landscape orientation left you with that big block of open sky, while there looks to be a lot of building that is out-of-frame. Although the photo is obviously all about the building, its prominence is weakened.
For photos like this it's worthwhile to experiment with framing and vantage points and take as many photos as you need to, and then pick out the good ones. Getting a really satisfactory shot is worth several frames.
St. Paul's chapel. Only surviving colonial-era church in New York.
This is the best of the three, and I think it's a decent photo all around. The building is shown to advantage - at least the facade, and enough of the structure that one understands its size and form - but it is placed into the context of some of the surrounding buildings and the streets around it. I did a little Photoshop edit to bring the exposure down a bit, which I'll post if you want to see, but that's an issue of preference. The image itself is sound.
I'm glad to see you got photos worth posting. Keep shooting!
The Grim Squeaker wrote:The first shot was what I was hoping to use for the Urban landscape entry in the photocompetition here on SDN, but, well, it just came out crap. (I stabilized the camera on a rock for a 2.5s exposure, but it's still very, very noisy).
Even if it had been tack-sharp I don't think it would have made an especially good photo. The foreground is both ugly and empty, the only things of remote interst in the photo are all crammed back at the horizon line, the lighting is very flat and the color - a sea of sodium-lamp orange - is not especially pleasant.
Landscapes don't have to be horizon-line scenes. A lot of really good ones aren't. But if you are going to make a horizon-line landscape, you can't ignore what's in the rest of the frame. Oberleutnant's photo a few posts ago does it right; the whole frame works together even through all the 'stuff' is at the horizon.
"Student life"
There are SOME benefits to a long zoom, I had the opportunity to take 3-4 shots of the guy without him noticing me.
Evidently he didn't do anything of interest during that time.
This photo doesn't feel like anything to me. It is an inexpressive shot of an inexpressive person, placed against a cluttered background to make him harder to notice, face obscured
and shadowed so there is no chance of detecting character or personality, and lit by midday light for guaranteed lack of mood. If this guy is a random stranger and not an acquaintance of yours, this photo becomes a 100% flop.
I'm going to go ahead and say that super-long-zoom candid shots are a terrible idea. Nine times out of ten they catch people who are relatively stationary or are just walking by, because if you are really far away from people striking interesting poses or expressions, or doing the kinds of human activities that make for interesting photos
you don't notice them doing those things. The merit of candid 'street' photos is in their immediacy, and if you stand a zillion feet away and stalk someone as if you are filming a wild gorilla you lose that completely. Man up, use a normal lens, and wade right into the crowd, or don't bother.
There are far too many cats here. Watching. Waiting. To STRIKE!
If this cat was a person it would be an okay photo and you could take some pride at being ballsy enough to shoot random people while they stare straight at you. As it is, you've got an okay photo but it's of a cat so most everyone who cares will be people who get soppy over cats, while you're still not out there getting good photos of people.
It is an okay photo, but your camera was stupid and exposed for the rocks instead of the cat. They need to be pulled down, and the cat and trees need to be pushed. The lighting is good, but since a.) it's incidental, and b.) the cat chose it, I can't give you any credit for it.