Image Doctor: The critiques!
A regular part of Australian Photography magazine for more than a decade, the Image Doctor, professional photographer Anthony McKee, can give constructive feedback on your images, with a selection of his favourite submissions appearing in print in AP mag every month.
If you want feedback on your images (it's free!), you can find out the details for submission here.
This month's winner
“This photo was taken at Mornington Peninsula Victoria with my Sony A6400 camera. I did some basic editing in Topaz Studio. Unfortunately I don't have the exposure details (I still work on Auto quite a lot!).”
Anthony’s Tip: Hi Di, working on Auto is not a bad thing, in fact most of the time you will not get into trouble, particularly if you are making photos during the daytime and your the subject is evenly lit. Learning to take control of the numbers (the shutter speed, the aperture and the ISO) can be useful though, particularly if you want to start getting creative with the exposure.
I do like this photo; the colours look great and I do like your placement of the person in red against that cream wall. The one thing that I want to change though, is the field of view in this image – I want to see more of what is to the left and right of the frame which is why I would have probably created a panorama in this situation.
It is rather easy to do, just make your first photo slightly to the left of the subject, recompose and photograph the central scene and then make another image slightly to the right. Then you just have to stitch the images together using your preferred imaging software. On the whole though, this is a good effort.
TITLE: Colour Blue
PHOTOGRAPHER: Di van Santen
DETAILS: Sony Alpha 6400 (Details unrecorded)
“I only got one shot of this shy, very fast, olive-backed oriole in my backyard crabapple tree. I like the way the colour of the crabapples match the bird’s eyes, and the way it is partially obscured by branches. I had to crop out a block of bright sky on the left, but hopefully left the image balanced.”
Anthony’s Tip: Hi Dani, bird photography is not easy, in part because birds do have this bad habit of flying into trees hiding amongst the branches. That being said, your 200-600mm lens has made fine work of capturing this oriole; the bird is sharp and the colours are great.
What would make this image stronger is if the bird and the crabapples were both in focus; to make this happen though, you really need to have the bird and the fruit on the same plane of focus.
I would have another go at reshooting this image but before doing so, keep an eye out to see if this bird becomes a regular visitor, and then note where the bird typically lands; the trick is to position the camera where you know the bird and the crabapples will be an equal distance away from the camera (on the same plane of focus), then it is just a case of waiting.
With this image, the only adjustment I would make is to crop more out of the top of the picture so that the sky is not so distracting. Otherwise, good effort.
TITLE: Hungry Oriole
PHOTOGRAPHER: Dani Maver
DETAILS: Sony A7 III, Sony FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G lens @ 600mm. 1/350s @ f6.3, ISO 125.
“This image was captured in the Basilica di Sant Antonio in Padua, Italy. As it was quite dark inside I had to have the lens wide open at f/2.8 and I did not want my shutter speed less than 1/60, hence my ISO was pushed out to 1600. This was a hand held, single image.
As is often the case with a reasonably wide angle and looking up, it was quite tricky to get the perspective correct. Edited in Lightroom for basic black and white points and to open up the shadows.”
Anthony’s Tip: Wow, what an incredible building, and dedicated to my namesake too! Photographers often feel daunted in challenging light conditions, but I think you probably could have made this image at f4 and 1/8th of a second at ISO 400.
The trick is to place a bag or a jacket on the ground and use that to support the camera; thanks to the built in image stabilisation you would have got a sharp shot without so much noise. I would also go back to the original RAW file and use masks in Lightroom to gently lighten up the top half of the picture.
Remember, our eyes are drawn to the brightest part of an image; if you open up the shadows our eyes will appreciate this visual journey a lot more.
TITLE: Basilica di Sant Antonio
PHOTOGRAPHER: Geoff Kaiser
DETAILS: OM System OM-1, 12-40mm lens @ 17mm. 1/60s @ f2.8, ISO 1600.
“I took this image in a tiny ghost town of Emmet in the Longreach region of Western Queensland. We were passing by on our way to Yaraka and this beautiful little long-forgotten railway station stood out to me as it sat under dark and ominous clouds overhead.
As we were just driving by and not stopping, I snapped a photo out the window as we passed by, with no time for framing or adjusting. But I loved the mood of the photo once changed into Monochrome in Lightroom.”
Anthony’s Tip: A drive-by shooting – that’s what bad guys do (and bad photographers!). Then again, if your other half is driving there’s every chance you’ll get out of the car to make a photo and get left behind!
The one thing that strikes me with this image is the weight of the sky; typically in a photograph we want to be able to enjoy the main subject just as much as the rest of the picture, but in this instance the sky is almost too dark and heavy.
I would be softening the shadows both beneath the central cloud and also in the right of the frame, and I would lighten the building slightly too. Make these adjustments and this image will get its soul back!
TITLE: End of the Line
PHOTOGRAPHER: Jillian Holmes
DETAILS: Canon 6D, 24-105mm lens @ 75mm. 1/000s @ f8, ISO 800.
“I was watching the seals play on the rocks at the Bermagui Blue Pool. I waited until a big set of waves came through to give the spectacular wave crash I was after. I discovered the silhouetted seal when I got home.”
Anthony’s Tip: Hi Phillip, seals can be quite a challenge to photograph; I have quite literally had a seal wander right up to me for a sniff, yet on another occasion I have had a whole colony of seals disappear into the water when they caught whiff of me (hmmm).
To take a page out of the National Geographic playbook, the secret to getting great animal photos is simply to invest time in the subject, be it waiting hours or even days for the perfect moment.
Of course, most of us don’t have that luxury, particularly if we have family in tow. In making this image, I probably would have used a longer lens and cropped in closer on that seal on top of the rock.
Working with this image though, I would be inclined to crop the bottom of image to lose that rock in the foreground and then use Photoshop (or similar) to open up the detail in the main rock so we can see the other seals more easily.
Maybe this site is worth another visit!?
TITLE: Bermagui Seals
PHOTOGRAPHER: Phillip Hay
DETAILS: Canon 80D, Canon EF 24-105mm lens @ 105mm. 1/320s @ f8, ISO 100.