What's Wrong 4--Discussion

This is from the second wedding I ever did. A friend of the bride called me up at 8:00 the morning of the wedding, said that the other photographer had bailed, and would I do the wedding pictures at 12:00. Since it was a desperate situation, I agreed. I did this wedding for only $100 or $200 (I can't remember) and gave them all the images on disk. This image just goes to show you that you get what you pay for!

I had no clue what I was doing at this wedding. Quite a few images came out like this, and at first, I couldn't figure out why. It all has to do with the sync speed of my on-camera flash. What this means is that my flash will only fire at a maximum 1/200th of a second. When your ambient light requires a slower shutter speed than this (say, 1/60th of a second) there's no problem. But in my case, I had my aperture set to f 2.2 (very wide, thus letting in a lot of light) and my corresponding shutter speed should have been something like 1/2000th of a second because of the outdoor light. However, since I used my flash, this automatically set my shutter speed to 1/200th of a second, thus letting in WAY too much light. So I did what any amateur photographer would do--I changed it to black and white and pretended I did it on purpose to be "artsy."

Now, do you want to trust your wedding pictures to someone like me? (I mean, someone like I USED to be?) Make sure you get a PROFESSIONAL who has lots of experience, and who is preferably a Certified Professional Photographer. Yes, you will pay more, but it's your WEDDING. It will happen ONCE, and when it's all over, your photographs are all you will have left. The flowers will die, the cake will be eaten, and you'll probably never wear your dress again. But you'll look at the images of your special day over and over and over. If you have to, skimp on the cake and the flowers--NEVER THE PHOTOGRAPHY! (Since I don't do weddings, I can refer you to fantastic wedding photographers. I do bridals and engagement shoots, though, so don't hesitate to ask me about those!)

What's Wrong Wednesday

Here's where I once again embarrass myself by posting a "professional" picture from my early days in which I really screwed up. It's up to you to discover how! Tell me everything that is wrong with this picture, and for a bonus, how I achieved this "artistic effect." Just leave a comment at the bottom.

What's Wrong--3 Discussion

This is one of the first pictures I took when I was just starting out and trying to figure out what I was doing. I had hung some white muslin in front of my sliding glass door and set my daughter in front of it. The light was diffused, but flat, and there wasn't enough to turn the backdrop white. (Actually, you really need artificial lights to get a truly white backdrop). I had no idea about the rule of thirds, so her head is too high, she wasn't looking into the camera and there is no light in her eyes. This is a total "blah" picture.

What's Wrong-3

Here is a lovely (ahem) picture from my earliest days when I had no idea what the heck I was doing. Now it's your turn to tell me everything that is wrong with this picture! Don't hold back. My feelings won't be hurt :)

What's Wrong-2 Discussion

This picture was taken with a one megapixel camera using ambient light. There was not enough light, so my shutter had to stay open too long, and my daughter moved (or I moved) which caused the image to be blurry. Having a one megapixel camera means that the quality is terrible (obviously) but even worse is that the image is underexposed. This causes the whole image to be grainy. Also, the auto white balance feature chose to make my child red in this case. I had no idea about the rule of thirds at this point (remember, I was not a professional photographer--just a mommy taking a picture of her new baby) so the composition is blah. Maybe I was looking at this picture from far away, and viewing it as a pointillistic piece of art, like those created by Serat. Because far away (very, very far away) is the only way this picture would ever look good. And even then, knowing what I know now, it would still not look good. Thank goodness I've improved since then and hopefully made it up to this poor child :)

What's Wrong-2

I took this picture before I was a professional photographer. The problem is, I actually thought this was good! So good, in fact, that I used it for my daughter's birth announcements. I just can't explain what I was thinking. Maybe it was all those pregnancy hormones that hadn't gotten out of my body yet and were messing with my judgment skills. So, barring the yellow blobs (I blurred out the birth announcement information) what is wrong with this picture?

What's Wrong--1 Discussion

Yesterday I posted this picture. It was from my very first photo session. I asked a friend to let me practice on her family. I hung a white sheet from my ceiling in front of my sliding glass door and used natural light. I also used a point and shoot 1 MEGAPIXEL camera. I know! But that was back in the day....

As you can see, there are numerous problems with this photo. First of all, there was not enough light to turn the background white. In fact, you really need studio lights if you want a truly white background. There was also not enough distance between me and the subjects, so I ended up cutting off parts of their body that should have been in the frame. Because of the lack of light and the fact that my camera only had one megapixel, the whole image is grainy. There is also a blue color cast because I had no idea about white balance back then, and when you let the camera determine that for you, 90% of the time, it's going to be wrong. (I just came up with that percentage on my own. I once heard that Auto White Balance really stands for Auto Wrong Balance, and I totally believe it!)

So, don't take pictures like this! And especially don't take pictures like this and then charge money for them! (Luckily, I hardly charged anything when my work was crappy. So, you know, you get what you pay for!)

What's Wrong--1

A series in which I post horribly embarrassing pictures from my early days as a "fauxtographer" and you get to tell me what is wrong with them. Leave your critique in the comments sections. Check back tomorrow for my assessment.