Beginner help!

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snowy91

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Hello,


I am currently completing my Queens Guide award (similar to D of E gold) and for my 'skill' section i'm doing photography.
I'm a fair way into my time (60 hours over 12 months) but my photos are all fairly rubbish, I'm supposed to be showing progression but looking at my photos I haven't shown any, if anything they're worse...
I'm using a bridge camera, as much as I'd love an DSLR sadly at the moment I just cannot afford it :(


any ideas on what I could do to show some form of progression?
 
Simple answer: study and work at it.

Longer answer: the camera gear is unimportant, if you want your pictures to be interesting, you have to shoot interesting things. What genres are you interested in? What other than photography excites you?
 
Can we see some examples? A good place to start, and probably an obvious way to show progression is by improving composition. Post some of your stuff and I'm sure you will get tons of great feedback.
 
Well they're not rubbish :)
The Monkee is a little soft and needs a lift in exposure but the other two are well focused.
As said, think about what interests you and fires your enthusiasm, if it's cars, for example, go out to a car show or even in the street and find some unusual angles, interesting styles/colours/situations etc.
 
I agree with gramps they're not rubbish. But I also think you'll be able to look back on these and other photos you took at the start and see some real improvement.

I'm pretty new to all this as well so can offer some thoughts from a fellow beginner.

Photography is all about capturing light. As Phil says, the camera equipment for us beginners isn't really that important - the more important "tool" is the light available to us and how we use it.

It's not so much about "quantity" of light (dark vs bright sunshine) but instead about its quality. Quality encompasses the diffusion of the light (where it comes from, how directed... "diffuse" is usually much easier to work with and can be more flattering), the colour of the light and how quickly the light falls away (sunlight is great - it just keeps going, flash light can fall away quite quickly as you pass the subject).

I'd suggest taking some pictures in the "golden hours" which are around sunset and sunrise. The light is quite directional but also not as harsh - you can get long shadows if you want them. The colour is warm - yellows and oranges are accentuated. It can be a very flattering time to take pictures of anything, not just scenery/landscapes.

I think if you take photos in the right light your pictures will come alive so much more... and you'll enjoy it. Then it just becomes a virtuous circle of getting out and taking more photos and enjoying even more!

Good luck and do come back to show us how you're getting on.
 
Based on the 3 pics visible, I'm guessing that the way you work is to have the camera on auto exposure and auto focus. That's the technical side of things. Then you frame what catches your attention. Your framings are quite quirky and personal, but could do with more interesting light. Think of taking some pictures indoors near a window where the light can have an interesting way of shading off as it penetrates the room. Outdoors, think about looking not just at 'things' that take your fancy, but how the light falls on and interacts with them. Maybe look at shadows and shapes ....

Of course if the light is too challenging (very contrasty) the camera (on auto) may have trouble coping. Some things will work and others won't, but you can learn and adapt.
 
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i think with the samples shown the issue is more subject matter and composition.
the first shot for instance. its looks sharp enough, colours look fine, but composition lets it down with the bottom and right hand side flowers chopped off and to much background greenery at the top.
also its rather dull and uninspiring as a subject . the second and third shots are both a little soft.
again composition and subject matter make all the difference.

dont dismiss the bridge camera though you can get some amazing shots with a bridge camera ( i recently posted a moon shot on here taken with the wifes bridge camera ) and she has plenty of great shots of everything from landscapes to wildlife, macro to portrait all taken with her fuji Bridge.

DO you have some other samples you can share. maybe some taken when you first started and some taken in past few weeks so we can compare and see where the improvements are and maybe what areas need improving
 
Subject! There are three photos there. Get out, catch your life. Capture the feeling of your local community and neighbourhood. Set yourself projects - such as looking down, or looking up, take your camera out. See what you can do with it. Can you capture tail lights at night, can you freeze motion, can you blur motion - set yourself projects and tasks. Try taking a photo a day or 52 week projects. Get enthusiastic.
 
There are a few tips I can offer you that I stole from videography:

1) Shoot a three shot sequence. A three shot sequence is usually a wide shot, a mid shot, and a close up. In video, you need to match the action, but not so much with still. If your subject is stationary, shoot your wide shot, move to a different location for the mid (like closer and a little more to the side), and get where you can for the close up.

2) Don't go out always with shots in mind. This is good sometimes, but in the effort in getting better, it's important to go out with the goal of shooting what you see. This helps a bunch. It's like the mantra with running. Run for time, not for distance. If you run for distance, you won't progress. If you run for time, you'll progress a lot further because you have no distance goal, and no finish line to call it quits. Do set yourself a cool little challenge though. Like go out and say "today, I'm only going to shoot close ups" so you start to look for things that can apply instead of letting the small things pass.

3) Zoom with your feet whenever possible.

4) People relate to faces. If you're at a car show, that's all well and good, but everyone is taking pictures of the car. Get the reactions of the people looking at the cars with maybe a little bit of the hood in it. It speaks leaps and bounds above everyone else's facebook car photos.

5) Choose a different perspective. Example, shooting a child or a pet? Get on it's level and shoot. Someone winning an award? Shoot from the bottom or from the top. The bottom gives the impression that the winner is a larger than life person. Above is just a different angle that can pay off. Like if they are raising their trophy over their head and you can see them looking up and shouting.

I didn't get a chance to see your pictures as they were blocked at work, but just go out and shoot. practice practice practice. New perspectives will always show improvement and don't forget to not let yourself get yourself down. What makes a good photographer is not the gear, it's the eye they see the world with.
 
snowy91 said:
any ideas on what I could do to show some form of progression?
Click to expand...

What are you doing towards improving your photography? Progression will come on it's own if you make the effort..
  • Take photos, take lots of photos..
  • Have a project - 100 strangers, a 365 or 52 project (photo per day/week)..
  • Share your project - Flickr, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc..
  • Look at photographs - pay particular attention to everyday photography in non-photography magazines and websites, these are the images that people see everyday..
  • Ignore photography magazines - there are very few interesting ones* and most of the popular ones won't improve your phtoography they'll just make it more like eeryone elses..
  • Read books on fun/interesting photography - e.g. "Hot Shots!" by Kevin Merideth (aka Lomokev on Flickr)..
  • Read books on famous photographers and look at their images - e.g. Henri Cartier-Bresson and Jacques Henri Lartigu both have styles you can be inspired by; Gisèle Freund, Vivian Dorothea Maier, Annie Leibovitz and Sally Mann are just four of hundreds of inspirational women photographers..
  • Attend a couple of exhibitions - they are everywhere when you start looking..
  • Keep a photo journal - to record the images you take, to record your thoughts on your own photography, to record your thoughts on the photography you see and read about. It doesn't have to be long and detailed but it should be at least weekly/fortnightly (see http://www.bumblesandlight.com/ as an example of very simple thoughts being jotted down about photography)..
 
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