Sun Sep 28, 2003 5:24 am
Girasole,
I left a comment on your Chinese Village Gallery page, but also wanted to respond directly to your request for constructive comment. It is hard for me to believe that you are new to photography -- if so, either you have had excellent instruction or you have great natural talent, perhaps a combination of both. Digital cameras offer you an advantage as well -- you can see your image on the spot and work to improve it with the next shot and so on. Your G3 is serving you well. I have used the G2 for a year, and now I am using the G5, which is basically your own G3 with a extra megapixel. You have an excellent tool to work with but as I tell my own photography students, cameras don't make pictures. Photographers do.
The colors in your Chinese Village Gallery make it the most striking of your galleries. The Miami Beach images are not as varied in content or as rich in color -- the key to those images would be in the detail. Unfortunately, you are too far away from those details to isolate and emphasize them. In architectural studies such as these, light should play a bigger role than you are able to accomplish here. Go back in early morning or late afternoon, get closer, and watch things happen with your details.
The most effective shots in your Italian gallery are the black and white image and the mime. Both of those pictures are simpler, more abstract and say more by showing less. (If you crop most of the street away in front of that mime, you will see a big improvement.)
Your nature images are pleasing to look at it, but some of them are a bit washed out -- learn how to use the spot meter in the G3 and use it to paint your pictures with light. Also use the cloudy white balance setting to warm up your pictures, even in sunlight.
If you want to discuss any particular image or comment at greater length, please always feel free to send me an email. And be sure to take a look at the nine gallery 'cyberbook' on expressive travel photography I've posted here on Pbase. In it, I discuss and illustrate a number of important concepts that should be useful to you. Good luck, Girasole, in your adventures in photography.
Phil Douglis