kja

Ideas like a theme of what or how to shoot? - macro - pick a colour - shadows - reflections - motion - geometry - wide open - rule of thirds - verticals - common objects seen uncommonly - pick a plant and do a series (or any subject), get your funky on - stand on a ladder - lay on your belly - shoot to crop square or 2:1/3:1

oh no! So they not only put an apostrophe in "its" but made the i a j?? I hope it's easy for them to fix! I love her dress - too cute!

I've been watching a bit of it and frankly, I don't get some of the entries - the wouldn't have made my first cull much less taken my time to tweak them and enter them! For every great image there seem to be 7 meh ones. There have been some outstanding images in the little I've seen, though. The wedding pj seems to be harsher judging than the portrait environmentals. what have you got entered, Huga?

Gotta show us!! Remember, you can put them here to simply share them or you can add C&C to the title for critical feedback, too!

Yay for overcast!! Way better than big bright sunlight. Have fun, relax and you'll do great :)

Practice and be ruthless with yourself when you look at the results - then aim to improve them on your next practice session. Go to a park or the beach or the city or anywhere there are people and practice. Know your camera and know how to cope with whatever the light/clutter/disposition/background/etc throws at you. If you're asking yourself (or others) how to get the right exposure or "that blurry background" you're not ready to do a "shoot" - but that doesn't mean you can't go, take some fun & lovely photos and enjoy the day.

This is exactly why you must please only yourself. I find this all the time, too! I put up some uw & other photos (as some of you know LOL) here there and everywhere and what was the reaction to my favourites? while I was all Gotta just go with it :D

In this newest version I get the feeling the boy is being stern with the dog. That's a different story to the one I see in the previous versions.

I set it and forget it. I got into trouble last year when for some reason it reset itself to a different default - so all the stuff I had already edited reset to the new default and looked wonky. Took me ages to figure out what had happened! Just choose whichever one you like best and leave it alone, imho. Do all your editing from a standard start point. LR4 has a few differences, so don't get too intimate with LR3 ;) The reason you "didn't have to do much" with jpeg images is that your camera did some of the stuff for you already. RAW doesn't let it make decisions, you have to do that :) Explore presets - they are wonderful tools (that are fully adjustable so you can tweak each image as needed, but can batch a whole heap at once, too)

I set that in my preferences so I don't ever have to think about it again :) OK, LR3 is awesome - but the sliders are kinda outta whack. It won't make a HUGE difference usually, and you'll soon figure out what works for you. In LR4 the order is: white balance exposure contrast highlights shadows whites blacks clarity vibrance saturation the four in italics used to be fill etc in LR3 - LR4 gives a lot more control, but to be honest, I did equally as fine with LR3 so if you're happy, save your bickies and upgrade later :) Never stop playing! That's how you learn, imho.

Looking good! Don't worry about RAW. It's no different shooting RAW than it is jpeg. The difference can be in the processing because you are not letting the camera apply anything. Once you're in Lightroom - I assume the new version? - just follow the basic sliders in order at first. Most of them you might not even touch, just a bit of white balance, a bit of contrast and viola, you'll be all set in under 10 seconds. Biggest tip: the shadow & black sliders are extremely useful so have a play with them when you can :)

A right pain the numpty this guy was - these are as good as they get, unfortunately.

Four very loud birds (some kind of miner?) on my mango "tree" today.

Awww, so sweet when they love on each other

ok, no one likes octopus, how about some shrimp? All three of these guys were living with the eels, though we see two of them without eels, too. Scarlet cleaner Humpback cleaner Hingeback

@anniek - you're an amateur! I think I have at least 6 awesome bags...though I only have older model camera bodies, so I guess I suck after all My strengths, to my own eyes (I may be in my own universe on these): - good at trouble-shooting - good at calming people down - ok at offering solid advice, which in turns helps me think more critically on my own - love to get down low, into tiny or twisted spaces or any really awkward and uncomfortable position to get a shot - good at finding creatures underwater, my chosen arena - happy as a clam to move sliders around and twiddle with things to try out new (for me) ideas - good at getting it done, no matter what the universe throws my way

Welcome :) I hope it helps - remember, internet advice is worth what you paid for it sometimes

You have more willpower than I would have had :)

I think the square crop can work sometimes. It's not my personal preference for this shot, but it's fine and if you like it, then it's great :) I don't know if this will help but maybe - I know I find it useful when something just doesn't POP out at me: - identify the essential information of the photo ...boy's connection with dog - identify what elements of photo are essential to promoting that information ...boy looking at dog, boy's hand on dog - identify secondary elements that portray that information ...for me, a bit of a sense of empty space around them - identify any distracting elements ...bright blue car and for me, the awkward empty right side There really are no right and wrong answers; the above answer are MY take on the image, yours may be different. Once you know those things it should help decide how to proceed.

Kirislin - what do YOU like? Which version makes you satisfied? While all of our input is great and playing around with different can help with an image or an idea on what to look for next time, if you're not feeling it for whatever reason then maybe it's not really a keeper image for you.

Piper & ari - thanks!! ari - sigh, I never get around to printing anything. Maybe one day. I am simply incapable of swimming past an octopus without taking a photo of it. On the upside, it means I have a nice range for playing with editing :D

There are plenty of second hand sub $1000 (hell even sub-$600) cameras out there that would work perfectly fine as backups. I'm not going to apologise for the irresponsible comment. If you are out there selling yourself as a business and a professional, then you need to step up and have the tools and responsibility of a professional business. If you blow a shoot because you don't have a backup, well, that's just not acceptable as a professional.

how about an even tighter crop? For me it's about the boy & the dog, so maybe try making it more about them? There's nothing helpful really about the right-hand side of the image. Quickly but you'd have more room/time to play to get it just right -> oh, btw, I prefer 2:3 aspect ratio for most images, I think it just makes them look more pleasing overall - I think your first one isn't?

OMG cute on the one with Maya sleeping on Zeke!!

gap - very pretty! anniek - goofy! 20/52 - joy at sunset