Dylan's photo gallery is online

[Dylan Couper]

I'm putting myself up for public display and critique! Please take a look through my photo gallery. I'm looking for any kind of feedback, good or bad. All these photos were taken with my Canon S100 2mp Digital Elph camera.

http://www.pyroglyphfilms.com/gallery/index2.shtml

[Frank Granovski]

Thanks, Dylan. I'll go have a look.

Okay, I had a look. Dylan, you have talent.

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

I like the Dobermans. Dobermen?

[Adrian Douglas]

Hey Dylan,

There's some nice shots in there mate. I like your dog, I had a doberman when I was a kid and it was one of the best dogs I've ever had. Super friendly and loyal, but weighed twice as much as me so he had no problem taking me down when ever I was playing with him.

[Rob Lohman]

Looking great Dylan! It seems like you, Chris and myself all own
the same digital camera. Heh. How 'bout that!

[Dylan Couper]

Thanks guys.

Any feedback on specific photos? Can you pick out the best 3 or 4 for me? Overall impressions? I'm trying to get more into photography, so I'll take any criticism I can get.

[Charles Papert]

I own an S100 too--although I just today replaced it with an S400, while also buying a D10 and lenses. Big photo day!

Not that I want to sound like I just walked in and bought them--it's been months of looking and thinking, and finally diving in thanks to a "sales tax free" event plus some amazing discounts at a local camera store. Can't wait to start snapping!

Nice pix Dylan. I like the sun flare over the water. If I had a criticism, it would be that there is a tendency towards too much headroom in some of the portraiture for my taste. Plus, you might want to play around with the compositions a bit more--shifting the weight of the subjects away from the center. For instance: people, animals, objects #1, the girl with the blue eyes, is a strong, interesting frame, while #6 of the gent in the kimono is somewhat less interesting. By cropping the top frame down to nearly resting on his head, he will seem more powerful. Also it might have been better to have rotated around him so that the sidelight had become more of an edge light; this would have put more of his face in shadow and thus been more mysterious and strong.

Composition is absolutely in the eye of the beholder, so it's more than likely that the next person might disagree with me. I certainly had a few disagreements with my photo teacher in college. "That composition doesn't do much for me" he said. "Really? It works for me. Maybe we just have different taste" I said. And then I quit college. Then again, I was a punk-ass kid and he was probably right...!

[Rob Lohman]

I actually have the S200, but it's all more or less the same. Great
camera's at the size. I imagine you take the S100/400 with you
everywhere as well Charles? Is the S400 the one with the 3x
optical zoom? That's nice to have.

I liked the following photos the most: the girl nightie shot,
boy by the fire, sun over the water, weird tree against blue sky,
harbor shot with fog(?).

[Adrian Douglas]

Ok I found two,

The Lexus. This car has some interesting lines, maybe instead of a bit of a 'happy snap' you could have explored the design and shape of the car a bit more. "Less is more" according to Picasso and it's good to let people use their imaginations. On the exposure side the side of the car is totally blown out which also adds to the 'happy snappyness' of the shot. With digital still cams you really have to pay attention to range just like with video.

The Grouse/Syprus? lift. Good composition but bad timing. The shot look a little bland and uninteresting colourwise, it's a bit flat and the snow looks grey. The clouds are nice and I can see your idea but 30mins before sunset probably would have produced a more spectacular shot. Probabley 90% of landscape photography is about being in the right place at the right time, when all the natural elements come together. This is why landscape pros will spend a whole day, sometimes weeks, in one place waiting for the 'magic shot'.

[Dylan Couper]

Ah! Excellent. This is the stuff I'm looking for guys. Thanks.

Charles, thanks for pointing that out. I always knew somehting was off with that photo #6. Thats one thing I will watch from now on.

Adrian, the Lexus was totally a "happy snap" :) I was just walking by it and snapped that one without thinking about where I exposed the picture. THat's something else I will watch in the future.

The Cypress lift is one of my favorite pictures. If you like something enough, you don't notice what is wrong with it, which is why I need feedback. I agree with what you are saying. Is there anything I can do with Photoshop to punch this picture up a little without making it look manipulated?

[Adrian Douglas]

You couuld try setting the white point in the 'Levels' to try and whiten the snow a little. Then you might be able to fine tune the saturation to punch the sky up a little. Or, go riding again and reshoot the shot. Personally I'd be reshooting, one, because I wouldn't be happy with trying to make the shot better, and two, another day riding!!!

[Dylan Couper]

I'm going riding...


R I G H T ....
NOW!!

:D

[Adrian Douglas]

Doh!!! I havae to wait until the weekend and now it looks like it might be raining on Saturday. Sunday is supposed to be fine and sunny but Sunday means ski's/board on...check, leave brain and common sense in car...check, ride around like I'm the only person on the mountain...check.

[Dylan Couper]

Here's how my day went...
8am, get picked up by riding buddy.
9:30am, get to Cypress mountain.
10am, first warm up run.
10:20am, second warm up run.
10:40am first difficult run.
11am 2nd difficult run.
11:06am, riding buddy wipes out going over a small jump. Land on his shoulder, starts groaning in pain.
11:30am, First Aid building, buddy has dislocated shoulder, they can't get it back in.
noon- leave Cypress
The rest of the day went something like:
Get him to medical clinic, the doctor dislocated it again accidently (it had relocated while driving home), then to the hospital for X-rays, and blah blah, turns out he fractured the bone that the arm bone (whatever its called) goes into. Yay!
Could have been worse, could have been me! :)
Anyway, back to the regularily scheduled thread.

[Steven Digges]

Dylan,

One of my mantras is “you can teach technique but you can not teach talent”, you certainly have talent.

This is not a criticism but a general suggestion. Angle is everything. I rarely take a picture standing up with the camera at eye level. I stand on chairs, lay on the ground, use Dutch angles when appropriate etc.

For example, dog running (cool shot) and dog on beach, Those would be from ground level.

Lexus and a few others? You have posted these on your business web site, it does not matter what camera you used many of them look absolutely professional. I would be cautious however, about posting your snap shots on a site that is representing your professional image making.

Steve