What do you all think of some of the photos I've taken with my OMD-EM1?

All shots are either with the 12-40mm Pro or 40-150mm pro. Please only constructive critiques and observations, not looking for anything hate-mongering. (**note I have a few generic photos of my family in here just for personal reasons. I think it'll become clear which ones I'm striving for more photographic expression)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/chris_salvi/albums/72157657187411753

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.  Love some, some OK and some I would put in the trash bin.  Difficult to apply a full critique to the whole album.

Agree with Trevor. Some I really like. Keep shooting and have fun. It's not the gear, it's the eye.

You have a good eye and you use focus and isolation well.

On a number of the images, my preference would be to do more post processing and/or exposure bracketing.  Sometimes the light didn't fit the picture you had in your mind.

At least that's how it seems to me.

Really liked some of them!

thanks

Andrew

There's two photos there that I like very much. Both are b&w; one is of the little girl peering over the wooden rail, and the other is of the couple under the huge tree. I do think the second is slightly oversharpened however, especially noticeable as slight halos around the people. I think a little selective unsharpening would help a bit.

Keep 'em coming; a lot of us love to look at each others work.:-D

Richard

The shadows in most images are all black, showing no detail. They'd look better i.m.o. if you could avoid that. Clogged shadows sometimes result from editing the images on a laptop with a mediocre screen (laptop screens often have a gamma error that makes shadows look brighter than they are).

Another suggestion would be to try and see the world (through your viewfinder) in terms of lines and geometrical shapes (squares, rectangles, circles, etc) to aid in finding a more balanced composition.

Trevor Carpenter wrote:

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Love some, some OK and some I would put in the trash bin. Difficult to apply a full critique to the whole album.

Exactly my thoughts Trevor......

B

donsalvadori wrote:

I figured as much. How bout you give some just general comments about how I could improve?

You're doing fine, better than I can do.  I'm OK at my specialities but general photography like this requires a good eye which you have got.

Some thoughts:

Little girl with umbrella is lost, picture doesn't work.  Fisherman in river, very similar but works.

Bubble picture could be good but it isn't.  Not much you could do it's  random event but you could have taken a 100 shots, one would have been excellent

I really like the two guys and the table

Stream around shrubs is very bland

Lady I front of Cabin nice portrait

Sunsets can be boring but you have a couple of nice ones here

Little boy with arm, very easy improvement crop arm

You seem to be obsessed with people from the back, nothing wrong with that but sometimes the shots don't work very well.  I like the man with the hat in front of the surf.

donsalvadori wrote:

All shots are either with the 12-40mm Pro or 40-150mm pro. Please only constructive critiques and observations, not looking for anything hate-mongering. (**note I have a few generic photos of my family in here just for personal reasons. I think it'll become clear which ones I'm striving for more photographic expression)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/chris_salvi/albums/72157657187411753

among your shots this is my favorite:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/chris_salvi/21983026091/in/album-72157657187411753/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/chris_salvi/21973224825/in/album-72157657187411753/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/chris_salvi/21960958332/in/album-72157657187411753/
TIP:
on outdoor shots use +exposure compensation until your subject is in good exposure.

And good exposure in general. Your general weakness IMO is composition. If you wish to improve, I'd suggest reading a good book on composition principles. The vast majority of images shown at the link suffer from one compositional issue or another, that could have easily been corrected. Many centered subjects, many accidental cropped subjects, many distracting elements that a slight move of your framing would have eliminated. Learn about balance of masses, color contrasts and golden triangle, study images from the pros and ask yourself what make them work so well. Keep in mind the basic principles when you shoot, and they'll soon become second nature and you won't even have to think about it.