Clinic: Open 24 Hours

I like the color of the cows against that weathered barn. But other than that, it's kinda just a picture of a cow, so it's not really grabbing me. A couple things: You cut off the cow's butt while keeping an out of focus and distracting stick in the lower left hand side. You also cut off the knees. Animals photograph similarly to people. You want to avoid cutting off odd parts of their body, and make sure the eyes are in focus.

I think a square crop focusing on the right side of the picture, with the cow's head in the right-third of the photo might save this one.

Honestly, I never thought of the cow's body, and odd thing to slip my mind! However yes, the sticks and things bothered me, but of six or seven tries, this was the photo that came out best. It was a very noisy background going on there. If I remember right, it was a well or something beside the cows, that mat be why I cropped there?

Thanks though, I find it easier to understand what it is I'm doing when people critique my own photo's, as opposed to when they exp[lain what's going on in their own. At least then I know what was out of frame and how it was edited to correct or do things different next time.

Just started taking some pictures aqain after getting a new camera and a couple of lens. I really had a hard time with this one. I was driving around in the country just looking for subjects. The light was strong and I set the white balance in temperature to cool it off. This is the .jpg. I am sure I could correct in raw but wanted to post this. I need to pickup some filters.

I to took a drive with the camera today, but you look like you had the better weather. I had to stay on the sanded roads!

This thread seems like a great idea! Time for a little bump with a pic of mine.

Thoughts on this one?


Not really photographed animals a lot, cropped in a bit, better or worse?

I always hate staring right into eyes for some reason, but that said I prefer actually the second cropped version. Seems to draw more attention to the face, which is what I assume you would want?

If I may, delete the pets rule. if I want to try something with lighting, say, I have a choice to getting Anne to pose (Never gonna happen without a 3 hour makeup application session) or the cat I prefer working witht he cat, he is much more agreeable.

second, increase the long side length to 1200 pixels. that' what I export as a matter of routine for Forums, and it works well, IMHO.

Third, put in a caveat that posting an image i granting tactic permission to manipulate images posted to this specific thread, so the commenter may show what he'she means, for example, I would have tactic permission to take the OP's original photo and , say, Solarize it or run it through a filter, to show how the post process could be modified, or how a crop may enhance/ change the way a photo looks.

holy crap I just realised how old this thread is....

WarrenB said:

This thread seems like a great idea! Time for a little bump with a pic of mine.

Thoughts on this one?
View attachment 649932

Not really photographed animals a lot, cropped in a bit, better or worse?
View attachment 649935

Click to expand...

what are you trying to convey? personally I like the crop, it removes much of the ground and the dog's leg which is sorta distracting. it might be ok uncropped with a deeper DOF, dunno

LogisticEarth said:

I like the color of the cows against that weathered barn. But other than that, it's kinda just a picture of a cow, so it's not really grabbing me. A couple things: You cut off the cow's butt while keeping an out of focus and distracting stick in the lower left hand side. You also cut off the knees. Animals photograph similarly to people. You want to avoid cutting off odd parts of their body, and make sure the eyes are in focus.

I think a square crop focusing on the right side of the picture, with the cow's head in the right-third of the photo might save this one.

Click to expand...

I tend to agree. the framing of the shot is lacking. a rule I am constantly reminding myself of is better to have extra background. you can always crop in post

I have VERY quickly learned too, to get more picture than I need. Doing that, I find often there's usually three or four good ways I can crop, not just the initial picture in my head that I was going for.

thoughts on color and BW

When I shot this, I was thinking I wanted the blue sky and clouds, but Anne suggested I play with B&W.
I'd appreciate thoughts on the shot(s)

Personally I'm a black and white fan. Now what I get here is that in black and white the building seems bigger, and it's almost like the clouds are farther way, so more depth I guess. Great shot!

B&W works here for me as well. Most of the time, with architecture shots, its more about the textures. Especially on a building like this. IMO, the color one just looks a little bland since all of the windows are reflecting the sky color. The B&W makes the building look prominent and imposing.