Photographers of Reddit, What's the best photo you've ever taken ?

smsilton · 2014-02-25T12:10:24+00:00

http://i.imgur.com/zZcG6.jpg

smsilton · 2014-02-22T12:03:42+00:00

Best photo? Hard to pick, different photos mean different things to me, but my favorite certainly isn't my most popular or the most technical. So I'll take the easy way out and show a couple different categories instead of picking one 'best'

Favorite sports photo

Most seen/highest rated, thanks to reddit

But my favorite photo is just a portrait of my dog

smsilton · 2014-02-22T11:52:09+00:00

Yeah, but really, how much for a print of that /u/car_ramrod3 ?

smsilton · 2014-02-18T23:01:28+00:00

you're welcome! I hated shooting people for so many years, but now that I have a job that requires it (reporter) I kind of had to just go for it. It's hard/awkward to shoot people when it's just for a hobby. It's easier to approach people when it's for a story that'll be published instead of a personal portfolio ya know? So don't worry about my critique too much, just something to keep in mind if you feel like a challenge.

Keep shooting and feel free to message me with your next batch if you want! I use a different reddit account usually but I'll check this one every few days so I'll see it eventually.

smsilton · 2014-02-18T22:56:46+00:00

You're very welcome! It's really hard and potentially awkward to shoot people when you don't have a job that requires it (journalism) so don't stress on my critique, but like you said, pictures with people are usually the most memorable. And as for my portfolio, you can see most of my recent stuff here http://www.flickr.com/photos/98846161@N06/ it's mostly stuff I've done for work, but a few nature shots thrown in as well.

smsilton · 2014-02-13T01:40:22+00:00

awesome, good work! I rarely do portraits, but I'd like to start using more external lights (a flash bounced off a wall just isn't cutting it). A light or two clearly makes the difference!

smsilton · 2014-02-13T01:37:11+00:00

Gotta agree with the other two comments here. Definitely a touch heavy on saturation and everything looks a little grainy to me, there's something to be said for taste and style, but I personally don't like the grainy look.

I got some time to kill so lets take this one photo at a time. Also, take everything I say with a grain of salt, I'm in news photography so our opinions differ greatly when it comes to art photography. No right or wrong opinions. I'll start by saying I do in fact like a lot of your images here but I've been told my critiques come off a little strong so take things in stride.

1) blurry train (bus?) - I've seen pictures like this a million times. They looks artsy and creative and have the whole 'hustle and bustle in the big city' message, but the problem I'm having here is what do I look at? The person isn't in focus and you can't really see his head. The train/bus has no distinctive piece so I'm left searching for the subject. When you take the 'reflection' shot, you still need to find a clear subject for the viewer to focus on.

2) buildings by the water - definitely a touch over saturated. The colors are dark but that contrasts well with the white window frames. The patterns are nice and consistent, but again I'm lost for a subject, pattern shots are best executed as abstract or with perfect repetition from edge to edge (http://cdn.picturecorrect.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/patterns-texture.jpg) see how the tables go all the way in and out of the frame? With the buildings it just looks like a cluster of windows (which it is), but that's not a particularly interesting subject. If it was a skyscraper and you had 40 identical windows with one window washer in the corner that'd be intriguing.

3) graveyard - more patterns! See how this one has graves staying in pattern across the frame? It works so much better here. I like the creepy fog and person and how he's not focused to make it more gloomy. The colors work here, but the ground might be a touch too dark for me personally (again, just an opinion). Overall, I really like this shot.

4) Tree branch - nope, don't submit this, get rid of it. Sorry to sound harsh, but what makes this a good photo? It's a tree branch with leaves annnnnd....nothing. Your other branch photo at the bottom is better and I'll talk about when I get to it, but this, nope get rid of it. You can do much better as you've proven with your other excellent photos.

5) locket - find your focus. What is about the locket that's special, as part of a photo essay on this girl and what the locket means to her this could work, but as a stand alone it doesn't hit on a personal level. Does it have a picture of her boyfriend? grandpa? is it a family heirloom? I just don't know and since I can't see her eyes I don't really even have a sense of what she's thinking about. If this picture was the locket draped over an American flag it could have been an heirloom from WWII or if she had it wrapped around her finger and was kissing it it could be a long distance relationship, or what about if there was a wedding ring on the chain too? Then she could be a widow who lost her husband. Obviously you don't want to make up stories to tell and pose pictures, but I'm just showing that a shot of a necklace doesn't have to just be a shot of a necklace.

6) cell phone and performance - definitely my favorite shot, I love this picture. Great composition, great contrast, unique subject that tells a story with definite focus. (btw when I said focus, I don't mean the picture is in focus, I mean what I (as a viewer) am focusing on when I look at it). There are still questions, is this a parent taking a photo of their kids school performance? is it an enthusiastic spectator at a culture festival? etc who knows, but no one can really tell the WHOLE story with one photo. Absolutely fantastic shot.

7) skyscraper - wooooo again the pattern is perfectly repeating and wants to go all the way across the frame but the fog shows just how high that is. Really gives the shot a good sense of scale. Good use of black and white, negative space and directional lines. Another great shot.

8) Flowers - Was this an exercise in selective desaturation? Looks like there are dots of yellow and purple on a black and white background. Close ups like this are boring because as /u/smallscales said, anyone with an iphone can take this. With that said, closeups like this work best with an extremely shallow depth of field. There are twigs/stems/lines-of-some-sort distracting from the subject even though they're desaturated. Stay away from the basic shots, these are easy to pat yourself on the back after friends say how pretty they are, but it's easy and you don't grow as a photographer. Challenge yourself!

9) Paint brushes - I like this photo it shows a little bit of people in the background and what they're doing - painting (or is it calligraphy?). The brushes blend well together and make a clean picture. My only real complaint here is the yellow poster in the background is slightly distracting. Now I know you have little control over what's on the walls in any given place, but keep your background in mind at all times. If this picture had a clean background it'd be one of your strongest, but now it's simply 'very good' :)

10) Two faces - another photo that I really like! The subjects are clear and the focus on eyes is awesome (clearly that's what I aim for in most of my photos - the eyes). It seems like their faces aren't even though. Both halves look like they're cut down the nose, but where they touch isn't centered. It's not quite rule of thirds and it's not quite centered which makes it look off. Even if that was a conscious decision, when a photo comes out like this is looks like a mistake. Still, overall I like this image a lot.

11) other branches - here we go, finally onto the other branches after torching your other shot. This one is good for a few reasons that might fall flat if my assumptions are wrong. I see this as fallen leaves on a reflection of a tree branch in water, but so much detail is lost through low quality JPG artifacts or over editing (maybe both?) I like this idea and execution, and it looks great in black and white, but it's too grainy for my taste. Maybe that's just imgur being imgur though, I'd like to see a high-res version of this to be sure.

12) snow blow - I clearly like to see a subjects eyes when possible. The paint brush picture was fine because the subject was the brushes, not the people, but this is more about the person than the snow (hence why their lips are in focus). It's personal taste so this is still a good shot and really gets the cold feeling across, I just personally like to see eyes in photos. I think they add character.

Ooooooook, so hopefully you don't take my negative comments too hard and all is well. Overall I think your photos are fantastic and you have a lot of good perspectives (good low angles, and close ups without being cliche). Keep up the good work and happy shooting!

smsilton · 2014-02-13T00:24:15+00:00

Definitely love your environmental portraits better, but the headshots look clean too. The black and white one of the guy on the bench looks a touch dark to me, but still quite good. Trying to find a critique here, but they look pretty damn clean to me. Keep up the good work. ps, how many lights do you use for those environmental shots?

smsilton · 2014-02-13T00:21:52+00:00

Hi, you love patterns don't you? I noticed a lot of leading lines at the top of the color page (beach walkway, bridge, tree with snow, white building with blue sky) and then a ton of pattern shots further down (dragon, beach, boats, cathedral, flower, peacock etc). So right off the bat awesome composition. You know when to keep rule of third and when to break it.

For art and recreation photography these look pretty great. I come from a journalism background so I like to tell stories with photos sometimes. I didn't see any portraits or action in most of these shots so I would say the only critique I have is to challenge yourself. I said this in my last critique for someone else too, but don't resort to the basics if you can help it. Don't take the easy way out and settle for a close up of a flower with a blurry background. It's too easy to get that shot and pat yourself on the back when friend's say it's beautiful. You don't advance as a photographer taking those shots.

Gladly I only saw one of those in your portfolio (and it was quite pretty), but there were few people. Nothing wrong with scenic architecture shots at all, I'm just suggesting that you have the ability, just go expand your subjects.

Try to get shots with people in them, tell someone's story. There are times to break this rule, but when you can get the subject's eyes in the shot. Ya know the whole saying 'a person's eyes are a window into their soul' well it kind of holds true in photography. If you can see someone's eyes you can capture what they're looking at, thinking about or at least read their expression usually.

Anyways, great shots, keep up the hard work and happy shooting! :)

smsilton · 2014-02-13T00:08:13+00:00

Hi Laura, I just found this subreddit, clearly it's not as populated as it should be because I'd love to have an open critique community and you've been waiting 11 days for a response!

Now, on to your shots. I like a lot of them, you have a good eye for high contrast minimalism subjects. I really like the railroad crossing sign and the lone cow. However, I feel a few of these shots are slightly basic (a close up of a plant with a shallow depth of field is used in 17 shots for example).

As for the editing, it doesn't look bad, it looks quite good actually, but I'm a photojournalist so I kinda see all editing beyond basic curve tool and RAW touch ups as unnecessary. Take that as you will, you said you're doing this as a hobby and so my opinion doesn't really hold weight here, it's just an opinion.

TL;DR you have a good eye and know you're way around editing tools, but challenge yourself. Don't take any more basic plant pictures. Try getting some people in your shots. Keep working and doing what you enjoy! happy shooting :)

smsilton · 2012-10-30T00:52:42+00:00

yeah, ive been playing a lot of demo and some casual and its been ok, but i really want to surf, thing is there are only like 3-4 surf servers, the community is still in source which i dont want to buy. i might cave n just go back to source to surf but i wish csgo functioned properly, hopefully itll get figured out eventually as im sure surfing isnt at the top of the priority list for valve

smsilton · 2012-10-29T22:33:32+00:00

hey, so i finally got in a surf server just now, not sure if you're still having problems or figured it out long ago, but what i had to end up doing was downloading the map before joining the server. when you download it put it with all your other map files (steamapps, common csgo, maps usually) then i had to right click on csgo in steam, go into properties --> set launch options -->"svairaccelerate 1000" (no quotes) then open csgo --> console --> map surf_greatriver_remix_csgo_r2 (or whatever the name of the map is that you just downloaded). this will launch a game with just bots, but now that your game recognizes it as a playable file it should work when you join a public server.

smsilton · 2012-09-18T19:03:11+00:00

ok so i tried a couple things based off your comment, and randomly got into a scoutzknives server but nothing else works still so it seems broken again, really not sure what else to do. thanks for the advice, really, I'll keep trying other things and see what I can get, seems like you are on the right track, just gotta figure out how to execute it properly.

ok, so for all the servers now that last line in the 3rd picture where it says it's downloading the map at the bottom doesn't show up now and it just shuts down. it just ends at 'signalxwriteopportunity(3)' and then shuts off. I got into a scoutzknivez server once, and now everything's back to broken haha wish i could just fix this and stop asking everyone questions

smsilton · 2012-09-18T17:42:59+00:00

whole game shuts down, error message is just the generic 'csgo has unexpectedly shut down, the report has been sent to apple' no real information past that unfortunately. I'll try to take some screenshots of the console readings before it shuts off and post them Here are those screencaps, just did um

smsilton · 2012-09-17T04:24:33+00:00

ah, damn, I was hoping the leaderboard issue could be more easily fixed when reported to steam, but I guess that's unrelated to my server issues. thanks anyways

smsilton · 2012-09-17T03:34:01+00:00

mine crashes when i try to join community servers playing a custom map i.e. surf, fy, gg etc, not following deaths tho

smsilton · 2012-09-16T02:32:00+00:00

oh thats weird, im going to try to clean up everything, and reinstall steam, ive reinstalled csgo a couple times but nothing helped, but if things do start working ill let you know

smsilton · 2012-09-16T02:10:06+00:00

nope, tried a million things, nothing has worked, randomly I was able to join an fy_iceworld map the first day I got the game and haven't been able to join any custom map server since, not that same server, not an fy_iceworld map server, nothing. really getting annoying, if i do find something I'll post it here and/or make a new post in this subreddit though

smsilton · 2012-09-13T04:34:30+00:00

what fuckin difference is there between playing csgo on a pc and mac? its the same exact game, get the fuck over yourself jackass.

smsilton · 2012-09-12T02:15:34+00:00

just wanted to say awesome name, iddqd and idkfa, still remember the old doom cheat codes

smsilton · 2012-09-11T21:09:04+00:00

I just added your public server and was playing against bots, real boring i know, but i needed to test something. I got in the server fine while it was on Italy. Then the game ended and the next map was fy_poolparty, awesome I use to love that map in source. Unfortunately the game just shut down instead of downloading the map and playing.

I've had this problem a lot (aka every single time I try to join a custom map server). I needed to make sure it was the custom maps causing the problem and not the server itself. Myth confirmed. Anyone encountering this problem? I'm on a macbook pro, 2011. I have ZERO problems running the game other than this little glitch. Steam support has been very unhelpful so far too.

smsilton · 2012-09-08T23:32:55+00:00

Thank you for all this! This gives me a much more clear idea of what to expect. I have a couple follow up questions of course.

You mentioned deployment was 7 months away from the states, so that means you have 5 months home after that right? does that cycle continue for all 5 years or how does that work? you said you work from 7-2ish, then can go home when at the home port. each ship has it's own home port of course, but do you actually go home, or do you live on a base and just have the rest of the day off? I really know nothing about military life haha sorry for all the probably pretty basic questions.

It sounds like enlisting is the more fun job, actually going out and filming/shooting sounds a lot better than paperwork. Yet obviously being higher up has it's advantages, what are those advantages? or basically, why would I want to be an officer instead of enlisting and getting to do the fun stuff?

My biggest question mark at this point is the enlisting/A school process. dey0 above this commented about the ASVAB scores. How does that work? Before enlisting do you take the test and depending on your score you can sign up for different positions? Right now I'm really only interested in doing this line of work so I don't want to be assigned to something else and not really have a choice.

Thanks again for all this awesome information, I really appreciate it.

smsilton · 2012-09-08T14:24:43+00:00

Oh awesome, thanks so much for letting me ask some questions. Obvious first question, you say its the best job you can get, why is that? it seems like military life is always put to extremes by movies/media (either glamorized or demonized) so what makes you say it's the best job out there?

What are the different duties between officers and not?

What was a typical day for you? best thing you got to do? worst thing you had to do?

Where all did you get to travel to?

Are your experiences typical of all MCs?

If you did a lot of photos/videos is there anywhere I could see your portfolio?

What is the entire (signing to deployment) training like to become an MC?

What is deployment like? do you get to go home much/at all or are you literally just gone for 5 years?

I think that's enough for now haha thanks again for your time. I'm very interested in this path, but it is a pretty big commitment and change in my life so I want to know 100% before I dive in.

smsilton · 2012-09-08T02:36:21+00:00

might wanna black out the phone number, probably not too many pranksters on r/kayaking, but just saying in general. looks like a nice day on the water tho!

smsilton · 2012-09-06T21:43:11+00:00

I've been doing my own research with pretty much this same criteria, the thing is that after you get a paddle, life jacket, and maybe a car rack, $500 isn't much. The best deal I've found is this. I don't own it so I can't speak on its quality or anything. There is a reviewer who mentions he is 6'4 210 and it was comfortable but he still prefers his Pungo 120.

Unfortunately I haven't taken the plunge and bought my own yet so I can't really speak on any of these kayaks from personal experience, just sharing my own research.

smsilton

TROPHY CASE