Winter's not so bad......

[casil403]

Some pictures from a stroll taken on a bit of a bleak "between winter and spring" day around my neighbourhood.

[jjeling]

I stole a critique from MA earlier so I will let him do the work here. You have some real potential. Your eye is already noticing some awesome subjects. Once you learn how to compose your subjects, you will become obsessed with this.
Being your own critique is the best thing you can do in photography. Tell us what you think of these images, you might learn a lot just by writing it down and verbalizing what you feel. We will tell you until we are blue in the face, but it doesn't mean anything until you internalize it and use it when you are out in the field. Good luck. Your off to a real promising start.

[casil403]

Thanks so much for your nice comments; I feel very encouraged!.
The first photo, the one with the sign holders was behind a chain link fence, so I was trying not to get the fence in the shot. I took several shots, and this turned out the best of the bunch. I may go back and ask if I can go into the yard and take some shots at different angles and see what comes of it.
I used the illustrator tool on my Pentax k200D and I really liked the effect it had on the pipe shot. I took many different angles/compositions of the icicles and this in my opinion was the best shot. I guess the best way to learn all this stuff is to just go out and try and experiment. It is very much fun though and a great way to kill an afternoon!

[Mad Aussie]

No no no JJ ... you go right ahead ... if I agree with you and can just say "I agree with JJ" it saves me time

AND ... I agree with JJ You have found some cool (excuse the pun) subjects here and some more effort on composition is really going to help.

Love the birds nest with the ice egg in it!

Chilly neighbourhood you have there Casil.

[jjeling]

Hey Casil, I will critique these a little more when Im done editing my batch of pictures tonight. In the meantime, How do you like that K200? Heard really good things about them. As an older 6meg, I like my K110 more so than the Sony 100. Been trying to get rid of my Sony 100 to get a K10, 20d, or 200 since they are all about the same camera.

[Mad Aussie]

Ok I'll critique a little more harshly then ...

Shot 1 .. not sure what it actually is but I do find the vehicle in the background a distraction to the shot. Another angle (if possible) might have eliminated that, Always look for background (and foreground) distractions.

Shot 2 - Cropped a bit tightly I think. Seeing as the icicles are obviously a feature of the photo I really feel we needed to see the bottoms of those stalagtites (sp?) I think a higher aperture may have given a better depth of field also.

Shot 3 - Always hard finding a nice angle through all the sticks and branches. But once again a background distraction is visible in the form of a post 'growing' from the nest. I think placing the nest more to one side or the other would have helped here. Not sure the white balance is quite either ... feels like a strange colour cast on this shot.

Shot 4 - Not much I can say on this one. It looks like the angle might be fighting the subject a little. The icicles are all kind of blending together when they would look better contrasted against a darker background if that was at all possible.

[casil403]

Hey Casil, In the meantime, How do you like that K200? Heard really good things about them. As an older 6meg, I like my K110 more so than the Sony 100. Been trying to get rid of my Sony 100 to get a K10, 20d, or 200 since they are all about the same camera.

Thanks JJ I looK forward to your comments....I really like the K200 (it's a very solid and well built camera) but holy (!) there's so much more to it than my old Powershot A75 and my trusty Konica Minolta. This is my first SLR and 3rd digital camera. Yeah (sigh) I'll be glad when winter in Calgary is finally over...it's been a cold one this year for sure!

[casil403]

Hi MA, thanks for your suggestions...know that they are really helpful and I get everything you are pointing out! Always way cool to have a 2nd, 3rd, etc. set of eyes observing what one misses! We had a really warm day today so I doubt if the Icicle tree/bird's nest ice egg is still there but that's the beauty of being able to just capture the moment!
I really appreciate everyone's comments/observations so thanks so much!

[Barefoot]

You’re oh so right! I love the winter months. Not so much for the little bit of snow and ice that we occasionally get here, but more for my hatred of the intense heat and humidity we experience in our summer months. It’s the pits to wake at 85ºF with an accompanying 85% humidity at 5:00am in the morning. I think our average temp during winter is somewhere between 55º-60º F, but I wouldn’t mind in the least if it were much lower.

These are some nice images and thanks for sharing them.

On another note; although you accept the critique of members with both grace and aplomb, I hope we don’t lose the distinction between the “Show Your Photo” and “Critiques” sections of our forum. Just my

[Mad Aussie]

Oh crap Barefoot ... just realised this ISN'T the Critiques forum thanks to your subtle hint!! I saw JJ's first post and didn't look any further

I gently placed the same hint in another thread in Show Your Photo a few weeks back.
Even though I don't care where or when people critique my photos I do try to respect the Show Your Photo thread as being a place we can just show a photo and not be bothered with critique/opinions.

Casil ... my humble apologies ... I'm happy to remove my comments if you wish.