Photogaphy

For an art assignment this term, we're doing photography. We have to take a photo a day every day for 40 days, as well as participate in exercises in class. Mostly I want help and tips conserning placement, angle, ideas, editing... Please don't rar at my camera xD I know it's blurry and low-quality, but it's the best camera I have... a phone camera. My Art teacher is fine with this and the situation is unlikely to change, so just tear apart other aspects, pretty pretty please

Day 1: Lest We Forget

The WW1 and WW2 ventriloquist doll "Ginger" holding poppies and sporting a swanky family heirloom watch.




Day 2: Fallen Stars

Yep, it's tiny. An awesome little plant in our garden after watering.




Day 3: Music, Books and Chocolate

Don't worry, dear reviewers, I hate this one too. Ideas on fixing?




Day 4: Group

Yeah... blurriness courtesy of water smeared over the lens. Accidental, but I kinda like it.




And my personal favorite, the exercise picture. We were given three things we had to make an image around. We got a teacup, a set of punny ears and a packet of sparkles. We were allowed to use anything else in the artroom we could find.



(Don't worry guys, I won't be clogging the forums. I just want some start-up help)

Love, Durrs

I'm not a photographer, but I love these! Particularly the last one, which is just adorable in its own quirky little way. Did you really take these with your phone? Dang, that actually impresses me more than anything else. Virtually anyone can take some quality photos with a fancy camera nowadays, but if you can photograph anything that isn't a pixilated mess with a phone camera, let alone something of this caliber, I'm impressed. Also, I actually really like the third one you said you aren't a fan of! My one recommendation for it is improving the lighting, because the shadows do throw it off a little. Still, I can't find much to complain about.

Yo Durrs!

Thing about phone cameras is finding out how to get the best pictures out of them. Generally, everything will show up much better if you have proper, bright lighting on your object, which will improve focus and clarity. You can edit reduce the brightness later, digitally. My sneaky trick is to use a powerful light source at a proper angle/distance. Or you could shift your setting (if youcan) to under the tubelights.

Quickie comments on photos

1. Good compositional ideas. Maybe show a bit more of the doll? I like the watch idea.

2. Mfffmm. Not my fave. I don't 'see' the awesome plant in the picture. And there's a shadow falling. Is this plant outside? Then, try taking it at noon, perhaps. And don't zoom in from your phone, edit it with a digital zoom later.

3. Like the torn paper idea, and the blue background, but I dunno, maybe go for more clunky or cluttery or, a different set of words - a quote perhaps?

4. There's too much in the photo. I'm not getting a focal point here. And that's a hose running in the middle.. or a rope? Try to narrow your focus. But, good picture otherwise!

5. EPICLOVE! This could totally feature on DA. You should like totes borrow a good camera and take this and put it on DA! Only one nitpick : I don't like the way the cloth folds at bottom-right.

G;luck, dear!
~Lava

hehehe lol. now why does that last one look so familiar??? xD

There is lot of noise in first photograph. Same in the case with second. You're central theme of second picture is flower and dew which I was only able to recognize after reading it's description. Third and is really good one everything is good specially color and design. My favorite is fourth one. Its best! Apart from it, the effect you've created by focusing the main object and blurring background makes it look best!

Keep Clicking!

Wow girl these are amazing! Keep up the good photography! I really love how detailed every pic looks!

Wow, I really like the last one! It is more attractive to me than the others, i honetly am not sure why, but it is.
okay so in order..

Picture #1: I like this! It is not as sharp and clear as it could be, but it has potential. And it looks more vingtage and I absolutely LOVE vintage things..

Picture #2 & #3: Again if it were to be more clear and maybe ad in a little bit of contrast, it would help liven it up a bit.
I do like the over all picture though! Especially #3! I really like that! But if it were more sharp in its appearance that would help.

Picture #4: I like the blurryness honestly! But the picture lacks an interesting focus. Like, it seems a bit dull. Over all not as interesting as the ones before.

Picture #5: I REALLY like this one!:) I think you did an awesome job on this particular picture! I love the colors and everything!! great job!

I hope i've been of some help to you!:)

Hey, Durrie!

A lot of really interesting photographs that you've taken here. Don't worry. I'm such a mobile snapper too. And what's worse is that mine is a VGA camera. So you can imagine what quality photos that baby dolls out. But it's the passion and the flair that make even the dullest of cameras shine beautifully. It's not in the power of the sword (in this case: Camera) but in the power of the wielder (Cameraman)

Ahem... so let me start my review on your wonderfully creative pictures.

The first picture with Ginger was nicely angled. But I think that by just showing the hand by itself, it wouldn't be as convincing as it could be. Since you actually had the puppet, you could have shown the face a bit, no? That distinct puppet-y face and that eeriness attached to it would definitely beautify the mood a lot more in the pic. The overall background is fine and so is the watch's placement. So good job. ^.^

The second picture doesn't really look very artistic, to be honest, and is my least favourite. It's like I'm seeing a picture straight out of the biology text book about botanical studies where they show close-ups of various flowers' petals and stigmas etc. This one was a let down.

I don't know what '9' meant but I don't really hate this picture. It's frank and casual and doesn't give off the impression of being of a serious tone. I can go lightly with this guy and maybe even crack a few jokes with him. This picture and I can be good buddies too. So not bad. But I'm sorry 'cause there's not much to say on improvements since I don't thing that a picture like this is in need of improving with regard to the context.

The fourth picture is beautiful that moist effect on the lens worked beautifully. The leaves are nice and green and wet and I feel like sniffing and smelling for that scent of rain. The picture does look quite plain though. Maybe you could have angled it in such a way in which you catch a leaf or a bunch of leaves against the sun and having the rays crash in. There are too many leaves here, according to me. If it were an SLR you were holding, I would suggest that you keep only a single leaf in focus and the rest shall be obscured by being in bokeh. But since your camera is from a mobile phone, a shot at an upward-angle in a slant, capturing a single leaf against the sun would be ideal.

The last one is very creative and I like it all. Not much to say to improve on it here. It all looks pretty good to me.

This is great stuff. I'm looking forward to seeing more. Keep snapping!

Murtuza

Hi Durriedog,
I'm not a photographer but I like the concept of these. They all have so much potential to be beautiful but your camera quality is kind of distracting. I know you already said it was a phone camera and that you probably won't get a better one but I think you would be amazing if you got a better camera. As it is they're still nice. I like the angles you decided to take.

Haiiii! Okay so I haven't read the other reviews so my apologies if I repeat anything!

1. I love the poppies! I wish there wasn't such a dramatic difference in the number of poppy seeds in the middle of each though. There's something slightly off putting about that. Maybe if you'd moved the one on the right to the centre it would have drawn less attention to it. I love the watch in this image. Old watches are so cool, don't you think? It also works perfectly with the rest of the composition as the idea of time being applied to plastic objects which actually won't die in the way their real life counter-parts would is quite chilling and thought provoking.

My main issue with this one though is you needed more light. There's not enough contrast between the black of the dummy's clothing and the brown of the background so it's really hard to see that it's a traditional ventriloquist dummy, which is a shame! You should have had more of the dummy in. I'd love to see his face or at least a part of it, that would have added to the slightly sinister tone of the piece.

2. I've seen this done too many times and it's a poorer attempt than most so I'm not really wowed by this piece. It has to be a flower with unusual colours and you have to get the angle just right or it isn't going to make the cut.

3. I think what you needed in this one is more stuff! The three items on their own and the way they're spread apart, not interacting with each otther is boring. You need more items annd maybe you could have used just one word such as 'paradise' and somehow found items that would help you build the word. Like, you could have taken the P from Potter by coovering up most of the book and then picking out the P with a photoo manipulation programme. Then on top of the book so that you're climbing stairs almost, you'd have something that makes an A. Maybe some of the foil wrapper of the chocolate folded round into an A shape? Then an object placed next to the first and under th second so you're going down a step again would have the R etc.

4. I'm not too fond of this one. For me, a picture has to create a certain mood or create a story and this one does neither. It looks kind of pretty but that's about it and you can't look at it for more than a few minutes before you're bored. The best pieces of photography should hold a person's attention for days. It should be the sort of thing you could put on your wall and study at your leisure.

5. Easily the best. It's beautiful. My only advice for this one would be to have used a less distracting table-cloth as the back-drop and to have tried to hide the ribbon that fastens the ears to the tea-pot. I'm guessing that's why it's there? I find that it draws the eye too much when the focus should really be on the sparkles or the arch they create with the spout of the teapot.

Thanks for sharing!

Heather xxx