Amy's Mish-Mash. (Updated 14/01/10)

Ok, some photos. No particular theme, most of these are older ones that I want to share; I will post some newer ones at a later date! Hope you like them...


"Danger, mines!"


Gorgeous George


Outside Vromolimnos bay


Staying alive through winter


Catching the last of the sun

I know that there's a lot of room for improvement (I am an amateur) so, yeah, please help!

Many thanks, guys!

~Amy

I really like the last one the best. I like how, even though the main focus seems to be the sun, there are two people that look like a couple in the bottom left.
I like the first picture, too. That is probably because I have never seen something like that before!
However, I do not like the pic with the berries very much. I think it would be much better if the background was brighter.
I don't know much about commenting on pictures, but I hoped I helped.
~Classy

Ames!

Good to finally see some of your photography, and you know? You're not half bad.

My main quip in all of these is your lines -- try to line them up, and make them parallel to one of the sides of the photo, or when you shoots, try to focus so that the lines draw our attention to something, dear. With crooked lines, it seems a bit like the photo is crooked. These could be easily straightened with photoshop or picnik.com.


Good clarity, good composition in these. Just, remember to turn your date stamp off when you shoot, dear, as it tends to ruin photos easily. I enjoyed these -- except the one of the berries-- didn't like that one much, haha. Underexposed, not excellent focus or clarity.

Good stuff, gold star, post more, and good luck!

June

Wow! This is amazing. It makes me speechless. I love your work. (: Also the black and white cat gives it more intensity because of the different styles i photos I guess I can say.
Keep up the amazing work. Looking forward to seeing more! (:

~Kat.

Hey Aqua!

Here I am to review your photos like you asked.

1 - I like this photo. It is the sort of quirky photograph that I like. I like how you have off centred the sign. So good job on the composition. I also like the tires and bits of truck that you have in the background, it stops the photo from becoming too flat and 2 dimensional and squashing everything onto one plane. I think it is good that you made it black and white, it makes the sign stand out but it seems to be washing out the grass a little so be careful with that. Sometimes on photo editing software you can play around with the black and white filter to create more contrast or take some contrast away. That may be useful here but otherwise good shot.

2 - Awe. This is a cute shot. However I think the framing is slightly off. After having just praised you for not centring your subject this may seem odd but this is slightly different. I think it would be better if you could see all of the cat, you are slightly missing off some of it's feet. I also think that this image is slightly fuzzy around the cats head and the light in the background is overexposing quite a lot of your shot and you are losing perhaps important detail in the background. Other than these few little nit picks though it's a nice shot.

3 - This is a beautiful shot but some of your lines seem a little off here. Not hugely so but just enough to throw off the composition a little. The horizon is slightly wonky, which I think is the main problem here. I like how the top of the mast hits the clouds though. I don't know if you noticed this as but the triangle of the boat is mirrored in the triangle of the cloud which is mirrored in the triangle of the island. Which when you think about it is pretty cool compositionally. But I think the wonky horizon and too much water at the bottom of the frame just throws that composition off.

4 - Hmm I don't think this shot is really working and there are a few reasons why. First the light isn't all that great. I know it is supposed to be winter but the light is so dull that you can't see some of the detail on the berries and on the branch. The next thing is that you have quite a messy frame and I think there is too much going on in the background that detracts from the berries in the foreground. This out of focus branch that you have coming in from the right cuts through the branch that is the main focus and so leads the eye somewhere that you don't want it to be lead. The big bush in the background is also interfering with being able to see some of the berries. So you have a lot going on here that is detracting from your main subject.

5 - I like this shot and the silhouettes the light is making and how you have shot at an angle that shows the line up of the umbrellas. However I think that I would have lowered the camera ever so slightly and gotten less sky and more silhouette because it feels like you have cut too much of the bottom off and that there is a little bit too much sky. Otherwise this is a good shot.

Overall I think your photos are good I enjoyed looking at them and I hope I get to see a lot more from you. But like June says I think you need to consider your lines a bit more because sometimes they are slightly off.

If you have any questions just PM me!

Bex x

Hi Amy! I hope you don't mind if I review this for you.

Mines!
Nice haunting effect with the black-and-white. I believe the sign is lopsided on purpose, no? I think this was pretty good!

George
The objects in the background look blurry. Very. Not necessarily bad; I just think it distracts the viewer. Also, the table and cat are, again, lopsided. I'm pretty sure the pic would look better if they were parallel to the bottom/top edges of the picture.

Vromolimnos Bay
Incredibly complicated name. Anyway, I think this was better than the previous two, though the lone puffy line of clouds in the sky is a little weird, and it seems lopsided yet again for some reason...! I'm sorry for the harshness!

Stayin' Alive!
Haha, love the title. I think the berries could've been clearer and more focused, but that's just me. Still, very pretty.

Last of Sun
Again, somewhat lopsided. (It's probably just me, but it might be the angle you take your pics at) I like the sun, but not the umbrellas. For some reason, I want them to be bright. Of course, that's impossible with your facing the sun. Darn; the pic would look so much better in my opinion if the umbrellas weren't darkened so much! However, I like the solitary couple and the islands in the background. Reminds me of some weird Lost episode...hehe.

Anyway, you might be an amateur, but your photos show a lot of promise! Thank you for the funny, inspiring, and beautiful (sometimes chilling) pics. Later!

Hi Amy, I'm going to attempt to review these but this will probably just consist of good things, so if it's no help sorry

1. I think this is a very interesting picture. I think it was a good idea to shoot it in black and white, it gives it an old timey feeling. What language is that in? Anyway it's a good picture.

2. The cat is adorable. But I did notice that the angle makes the table look crooked. Also it looks like you played with the background a little, making it brighter to eliminate whatever was back there. It catches my eye and I'm not sure if that is a good thing because I'm supposed to be focused on the cat.

3. I can't really say much about the boat, it's a gorgeous picture. There does, however, seem to be an awful lot of water at the bottom.

4. I'm not sure if the background got blurry because you focused in on the berries or what but it seems like it is getting more blurred toward the bottom. I can't really make out the berries because of the fuzzy....is that a tree? a bush? that is behind it. It is too dark for me to see the red.

5. The last photo is really good. But if you wanted me to see the people instead of just the umbrellas I didn't. I didn't see the two people until I looked at the photo again. Also in the corner it is sort of just a blob of blackness the composition of the chairs just seems to fade and that's all there is in on the bottom right.

I really hope this helped. They were good pictures with only small things that could be fixed.

~peanut~

Hey Daydreamer here:

For being an amateur, these pictures are very good!

I like them all except for the berries, compared to the rest of your work, it's not the best. The berries are a little hard to see because of how dark it is. It was a great idea however.

The cat one reminds me of one of my own cats! He's quite a handsome boy!

Keep posting!
Gold Star.

Hello there Amy. This was a very good set of photos.

First: I like this one, but I think you should have shot it an angle so that the items in the background don't look too titled. It's fuzzy and dizzying to look at that way.

Second: This was very cute, but I'm not really a fan of the black and white. I think it would have photographed better in either sepia or color.

Third: Absolutely beautiful. I loved how you captured the simple but calm peace of the ocean.

Fourth: This photo is too blurry. I think you should have sharpened it up a little bit.

Fifth: Good, but again, I don't like the tilted angle from which the photo was taken.

That's all for now. PM if you have questions.

reviewing or more likely criticizing

Picture 1.

Wow, its the nice black and white coloring that gives the picture depth, and meaning.. of some sort But seriously its great!

Picture 2.

Awww how adorable, a black cat! or more specifically a black and white cat. I like the perspective of the picture specially.

Picture 3.

It's nice and all but there's nothing special about it, only a boat, clouds and an island. Then again when you really get into it the picture gets interesting, like the hues of the sea in that.

Picture 4.

Ack, this one is the worst of it all. The lighting is horribly off making the picture get worse than its supposed to be. Sorry...

Picture 5.

Loved the way that the sun shines and the line of umbrellas. A slight crookedness of the horizon though.



Great work! (except for picture 4) You've certainly captures a few images that would be praised by any and all,

Keep it up Aqua!

Thanks for the comments guys! I found a cool little tool on Magix which straightens up horizons for me, and it all looks better.

Here are some more that I've found. Hope that you like them!

This is my sister. It was my art homework to take pictures of fashion; I have some more which I might post, but I do like this one!

Reaching for the sky.



“What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.”


Sailing into the sunset.


Grazing into the night.

Thanks in advance!

~Amy

Out of the last batch, here are my critiques:
#1--I love this photo. Everything about is absolutely right...my favorite.
#2--Good, but cliche. Try something that makes your photo stand out a little more, also, colors in this picture seem almost dull, but still good, the reflection is perfect.
#3--This has to be one of my leats favorites. You can't really see the outline of the boat against that rock.
#4--Too much light, too bright.
-Mizzle

Hey, Aqua. Thanks for the link!

Danger, mines!
That's an awesome sign, where did you find it? Even with this really incredible subject matter, it seems a bit more like a memory photograph than something for art. Putting it in black and white helped. I can't really see what's going on, in it, though. There's obviously a vehicle of some kind (Military?) and a crate, but I'd lke to see either less, or more. As a rule, don't put your main subject dead center. Also, crop or photoshop out the time stamp.

Gorgeous George
I love the focus on this one, how George is black and sharp against the soft white light. The other thing I really like is how this picture uses a foreground (the paws reaching toward the camera) a middle ground (the rest of him) and a background. Nicely balanced.

Outside Vromolimnos bay
Please fix the slanty horizon. This is another picture that looks a bit more like a memory shot. That's not a bad thing at all; it's beautiful and really well done. It would just mean a lot more if I'd been with you that sunny day. I think it would look a bit better if you zoomed in so that that tiny sliver of something else (maybe another boat?) on the right side below the island isn't visible.

Staying alive through winter
Awesome title. Try playing with the saturation here, see what happens if you make the berries really red, just an idea.

Catching the last of the sun
This is really nice. My favorite part is the people in the corner. They've got so much personality and motion to them. I also really like how it's basically a silhouette of the beach in front of the sun. Something to play around with maybe is the size and shape of your pictures. They don't all have to be these exact same dimensions. Experiment with cropping them into different sizes (long/horizantal, tall and skinny, square.) See what you like.

Reaching for the sky
This is amazing! I love the contrast between her bright tights and the black and white landscape. Please, post more of your fashion photographs, you really have a gift for them.

What is life?
It's nicely done. I like how the horizon is straight, and how the sun is right in the center. It's well balanced. The only thing is that sunsets, like flowers, are just photographed so, so often that they're losing their power. (Kind of like the photography equivalent of cliches.) You're really good at finding small things that other people might not notice and taking pictures of them, like the red berries and the cat. That's a rare talent-- you should use it!

Sailing into the sunset
Where's the sunset? I can't see the boat very well. I know where it is, but it's black in front of the black island so the shape, which would be very dramatic on its own, is lost.

Grazing into the night.
You know how I was talking about sunsets being cliche? This one is a sunset that is not cliche in the slightest, and that is amazing and wonderful. I love this.

Thanks for posting! If you've got any questions about what I said here, please ask. I'll be sure to check back. I love your work, you've very talented. Keep it up!

Wow, you've certainly stayed true to your talent. Proving again that you have a great imagination and great photographic skills. Congrats!

Picture 6.

Now that is soo cool! You've done a magnificent job. everything about it is so well done. Its so great that i can't tell you whats missing in the picture, that if there is even something missing.

Picture 7.

The reflection is cool and all but its been done so many times that its now just boring. Nice to see of course but its been done. Nice view by the way.

Picture 8.

Basically this is dull. The colors are only to the dark side and also the colors don't seem to give off any... color! Its... boring and its mysteriousness is lost due to the fact that the boat and island look like one entity. Sorry

Picture 9.

Too bright, too much light. Its original, sure, but i wish the sun was on the opposite side so we could see the horse better, great work anyway!

Well done, and like i said before, you should keep it up Aqua!

Ames --

I see improvement! This makes me happy!

Second post >

First: I like this one! The angle is great -- I love the sensitive coloring; it works well for this shot. I would edit the vibrance, though. Make this pop more with colors and brightness.


Second - A perfect sunset photo -- I do echo Jenna; sunsets are like skies and flowers. They get old after time, but this one is beautiful. The colors, clarity, focus; absolutely wonderful.

Third - This is okay. It's hard to distinguish the boat from the rocks, and I think we need to be able to see it better for this to work. I love the colors - very soft late afternoon light. Or early morning? Either way, I like it alot.

Fourth - As stalker said, this is overly light. We need better clarity, stronger contrast for this to work, but not bad.

Thanks for sharing! I look forward to seeing more. Glad to see improvement.

June