beautiful car....

gave my card to someone with a 355 at a car show recently so hoping they'll call for a shoot soon....!

great light and position in the frame

All I'd suggest is that the processing has made the front, which is in shade, brighter than the back of the car, which is in sunlight... I'd be tempted to apply the same processing to ALL the car that you did to the front, so it looks even.

It's especially obvious over the front wheel arch.

You can probably do it pretty easily with the quick selection tool and a curves layer, just brighten the red parts of the car that way.

cool reportage shot of the wedding - nice to have a smiling happy bride, the full extent of her dress and the kids playing, and a couple dancing too. story telling rather than contrived "setup" shot

Main observation is the high contrast - most of the lighting is from the flash, so the distant parts of the image are black.

Bounceing the flash off the cieling helps, where possible...

and using high iso/slower shutter will help with the ambient.

yeah - it's the lighting that's the issue really

we did this at a Welshot Academy night - where we had a bowl of water in front of a white background, then an off camera flash a foot to the right of the bowl pointing at the background, at low power. when the drop hits the water, you shoot your shot, the flash bounces off the card and freezes the water from behind.

maybe try that?

if you've not got off camera flash, then it may be tricky

concepts great and I love silhouettes

however - with this one I'm not sure what I'm looking at till I read the text below.

I'd say we need more visual clues as to the what/where/who of the scene. the low angle is great, but its hiding most of the industrual background, so we loose clues there.

also the woman's body position is hunched up and shows no outlines/shapes we can recognise - maybe wait and take many photos as she moves around next time

you're onto a great idea here, hope those suggestions help for next time - remember, we need recogniseable shapes in silhouettes

without the description I'd have had no idea what this was - I think a better clue would have been to focus on the wax model in the background rather than the flame - if we could see the detail on that, we'd be better guided.

I photograph babies occasionally and they are tricky little things to get right - you've got a very different shot here, one where the action is away from the camera, where's the baby looking? Makes you think doesn't it?

It's probably a bit on the dark side for most baby photos - you could maybe use curves or levels to brighten it up a little

a bit of a dodge in the eyes would bring those to life.

look forward do seeing more of your work on here

it's got a lot of impact, but for me, the grass being so bright doesn't work - it's just because in reality you'd ever see it so bright, so when I see it in a shot, it looks a little... out of place.

you've done an amazing job on the sky, that's awesome - the 50-50 horizon is ok, I usually do 50-50 on refelctions and it works in most cases, but maybe think about trying the horizon a bit lower in the frame, I think it could work really well

if anything, the crop's a bit tight for me

you're nice and close in, but the eye';s right in the middle of the shot - which doesn't sit right somehow. I'd probably have a bit more room to the right so the bird can look in to that space, but with the crop so tight, you lose that option.

well at sunset with snow, you get some lovely long shadows - so i'd maybe have walked towards the fence here and looked for shadows of from the fence posts or the bushes and used those in your composition

also, shooting directly into the sun isn't always best - try to vary it, shoot with the sun in one of your ears - i.e. at right angles to the sun.

get a defined focal point, something we can definitely see as the most important ting in the frame. e.g. a fence post, a sheep, a bird - whatever. in the shot above, you're missing the focal point and this is why its not as strong sa it could be

if you're doing self portraits with a compact camera, have a go at sitting by the window in your house and switching the flash off.

if you sit with 1/2 your face next to the window, and the other half on the room side, you get this lovely soft lighting - it looks really good and is free

really nice pose but that blur at the bottom really spoils it for me

maybe use a darkening vignette in this situation

the bright bit inside the tunnel needs toning down - use "curves" or something like that - make it dimmer then the eye will go to the couple not the bright bit

I prefer the unedited version - looks natural and she's got good skin anyway, so no real need to do much with it.

You can maybe duplicate the main photo, then on there using the Healing Brush to do away with any eye bags etc. - then fade the effect with the opacity slider. This way, you lessen the size of the bags yet retain the "real" look of the shot.

Its pretty yellow for an orange - sure it's not a lemon ?

I'd crop away the lower part of the shot as that's not really the point of interest, yet holds much of the frame - and maybe some of the right for the same reason

It's not really my thing Mike - it's probably a subject that can take more processing than others, but you've gone quite a long way with it

When you crank up the strength, you start to get halos and you've got the biggy on the horizon - you can use light smoothing on it, but it never quite sorts it out.

I've taken to using Exposure Fusion for HDR now as it seems to find that happy "almost real" look easier than tone mapping.

I'm gueesing the light#'s at about 8 or 9 oclock here?

maybe a bit too far round when the model's looking straight at the camera like this, you loose 1/2 the face

Maybe try the same shot with the light at 7 oclock, or at 45 degrees

that said, both eyes are lit, so that's a nice touch

Lovely smile for starters - you can see the happy eyes, which is a give away that's its not forced

SO the lighting

Well you seethe benefit of being off camera straight away, a little more 3D, shadows below her jaw giving that impression as well as a her cheek on the right being a little darker due to the light direction. all good.

all in all, very pleasant and well done for a first attempt.

Suggestions for a more creative shot...

well unless you've got really long arms, you can't really get the light source any further around her to get a side lighting effect - imagine the light at 8 oclock on a clock face, your daughter in the middle and you at 6 oclock. That would give more shadow and more drama. You could maybe use a wide lens and get in closer to do that.

Height - hold the light up high, again at 45 degrees but fro mhigh up and pointing down - that's going to give a classic look, a shadow going down her face, almost "rembrandt" lighting

Maybe try holding the light almost directly above her at 6 o'Clock - this is used a lot in fashion and if you get it right it's very flattering.

To get very directional light, make a "snoot" out of newspaper by wrapping the newspaper around the flash and sellotaping it secure, then point it at a vertical reflective surface (white wall, tin foil etc.) - all the light that his your daughter will now come from the wall, not spill from the flash, so it looks like the light source is from one direction.

A few things to play around with when you've got a TTL flash chord

very shallow DOF shot - I think the eyes are sharp, maybe a bit too dark to tell though?

I'd give it an extra stop or 2 in your RAW convertor so the face is brighter - the background may blow out, but for me, it's the face that counts most in these portraits

I'd have panned right for this - not much, but the mill looks a bit squished into the corner here and the fence is very dominant.

just a few degreees to the right and you'd get the mill on the right 1/3 and less fence

you want the fence to lead to the focal point, not dominate the shot

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I've been doing this kinda thing - though not with flashes. Using the 50mm f1.4 as well, really does make you think more which can only be a good thing

the foreground and flash you have used has allowed you balance the exposure well - I guess the distant stuff was really bright?

Its refreshing to see Staithes in a different light, and also to see Lobsterpots used in a new way too - kinda blasting 2 cliché shots away in one

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