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esqueleto
Feb 12, 2008, 6:35 PM
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hey guys, just got my web site up sorta. i got all the pics up and am working on the bio and stuff. tell me what you think.www.kcmphoto.com
(This post was edited by esqueleto on Feb 12, 2008, 6:37 PM)
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philbox
Moderator
Feb 17, 2008, 10:14 PM
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Moved this from the photo critique forum to this one.
The website is rather painful to view as it is very unfinished. Try again.
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carlos_a
Feb 17, 2008, 11:53 PM
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I was just wondering where the pic's were taken, looks like hueco rock, but not really like hueco hehe.
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pyrosis
Feb 18, 2008, 12:10 AM
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Don't listen to Philbox. I enjoyed your site.
Your landscape shots are amazing. The climbing shots were just ok... Well composed and executed but the action was really lacking. I like the one of Rio's Secret Arete anyway..
Carlos, as for the rock,
Looks like Happy Boulders, Joshua Tree, and Santa Barbara?
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altelis
Feb 18, 2008, 1:24 AM
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esqueleto wrote: hey guys, just got my web site up sorta. i got all the pics up and am working on the bio and stuff. tell me what you think. www.kcmphoto.com
if you want people to see it you must understand first people is lazy biatches---make your links click-ABLE
http://www.kcmphoto.com
EDITED to fix tagging
(This post was edited by altelis on Feb 18, 2008, 1:28 AM)
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altelis
Feb 18, 2008, 1:32 AM
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wow, kinda wished i hadn't made it easier for people to view that site. i think i hurt now.
no offense dude, but you have pretty much overexposed EVERYTHING....and not like "oh, that overexposure was used to better illustrate the landscape, or mood, etc.", but like "oh, that overexposure was used to show the photographer does not yet exhibit honed technical prowess over his camera"
to be fair, there are maybe 3 shots in there that i really liked. shots where if i had seen them by themselves i would have said you were a talented photographer. but given the rest of your portfolio (which we would have to assume is the best of your work) i have to say they seem more like 3 lucky shots. very lucky shots.
generally you have a decent eye (except in the climbing shots, pretty uninspired and some really bad) but you really need to work at your exposure.
and the one climbing shot that had promise in terms of exposure (the one on the left of the split screen bouldering shots) totally ate it in terms of eye---what happened???!?!?!!?!
these are meant to be helpful critiques----work on the technical aspects of photography!!!!!!!
you wanted feedback, here it is!
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guangzhou
Feb 18, 2008, 7:34 AM
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I have to agree. Your images need some work. If you are shooting for friends and family, you're photos are fine, but you site leads me to believe you are hoping to sell you images.
In case someone else is interested here is a quick edit you can do to images before posting them online for the world to see. Makes a big difference in the long run:
Open in photoshop
Level Layer- Adjust your sliders to the left and right side of your histogram.
Saturation Layer- boost you saturation 3 to 6 %
Layer mask- luminous
Flatten, save, upload
The whole process should take less than a minutes.
Cheers
(This post was edited by guangzhou on Feb 18, 2008, 7:41 AM)
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pico23
Feb 18, 2008, 10:37 AM
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In reply to: hey guys, just got my web site up sorta. i got all the pics up and am working on the bio and stuff. tell me what you think. www.kcmphoto.com
well apparently we are going to build you up by breaking you down.
1. Don't post links to an unfinished site. the first page isn't even done. don't expect people to go back a second time when they were stiffed the first
2. I kinda liked the Land shots, some of them (4 or so).
3. I won't critique the climbing shots cause you have a bigger portfolio than me, the only one I liked though was the one with the fill flash at dusk and the blurred foot.
4. If you are building a site, why not just post your 5 best shots, I agree, if I saw a few good ones I'd be more impressed than 3 good ones and 5 average or below average images. I never understood why people post crap next to good work, it just makes the good work look like a lucky shot.
(This post was edited by pico23 on Feb 19, 2008, 1:34 AM)
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shoo
Feb 18, 2008, 2:47 PM
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Thumbs up for the landscapes, but everything else is a little lacking. All of your climbers are on top-rope. Get them on lead.
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guangzhou
Feb 19, 2008, 12:42 AM
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shoo wrote: Thumbs up for the landscapes, but everything else is a little lacking. All of your climbers are on top-rope. Get them on lead.
With the right angle, even a top-rope climber can make a nice image.
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cloven-hitch
Feb 19, 2008, 8:01 PM
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Hope I'm not butting in, but guangzhou , in your advice on Photoshop, what did you mean about mask layer luminous? I only have PS 7 but am intrigued by what you meant by this. As for me the standard PS practice is always change into Lab mode, bump up the unsharp mask the levels and finally dodge and burn if needed. Anything else I'm missing out on as far as standards? Thanks!
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esqueleto
Feb 22, 2008, 9:44 PM
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thanks guys,
so i agree with most of the climbing shots, the action is lacking. what could I do differently for the action? I've tried getting above most climbers, but I still seem to be missing the action.
as for the overexposure, this is the first time hearing about that which makes me think that possibly your screen is too bright or i over did it when it came to converting the color profiles from PSD to sRGB.
When I converted the image profile I lost a tone of contrast and saturation, but I didn't feel like it was too hot. as far as the shooting everything is underexposed with the exceptions of a few images where I sandwitched different exposures and when it comes to the print, it is still a little under. Numbers in all files are dead on in the PSD file so I'll recheck my converted jpgs.
the shots of the climbing were taken at happy boulders, joshua tree and santa barbara. overall santa barbara bouldering is really hard to shoot with the exception of Lizards Mouth because there is absolutely no light at Brickyards or Skoefield. I need more lights for those areas to look good.
Thanks for the feedback guys and a lot of changes are being made to what is up. This is the first time I've uploaded images and I am trying to get a feel as to what the public thinks what belongs and what should be tossed.
(This post was edited by esqueleto on Feb 22, 2008, 9:47 PM)
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pico23
Feb 25, 2008, 7:41 PM
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well, I'm using a color calibrated monitor. And seeing as how my prints look great that I get back from the printer, I'm thinking you might need to calibrate your monitor.
I'll add both my laptop and desktop are perfectly in sync so you definitely need to shell out as little as $70 for a Pantone Huey and take a look at those shots.
basically, when one person says your shots look different than they look on your monitor, it's probably their monitor, but when 5 people say it, it's time to check your monitor.
Also, PSD ?? why does that have an affect on the color space?
You probably meant AdobeRGB to sRGB. My advice is skip the AdobeRGB and take the shots in sRGB (if your shooting RAW you can always change the colorspace in post processing), however, often the conversion from AdobeRGB to sRGB yields the same results as just shooting in sRGB in the first place, but if you don't correctly convert your image looks like crap.
Also, most continuous tone printers still only use sRGB as do most web browsers, so if printing or posting to the web is your output, you are always better off in sRGB.
I recently realized this myself and while I had been using 16bit Tiffs/PSD in AdobeRGB right up to the final sharpening and save for web or print output, I now work with sRGB pretty much the whole way. If you ever count the actual colors in sRGB and AdobeRGB they aren't vastly different, yet the conversion may alter your image enough to make things worse rather than better.
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bennydh
Feb 25, 2008, 10:24 PM
Post #14 of 31
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2 landscape photos were exceptionally good. Maybe 1 lifestyle photo. The climbing photos could have been taken by a noob climber with a 4.0 megapixel camera and would have come out the same way.
Unless you have to for some reason get into action sports photography, you are probably better off just sticking to landscape, or looking at some really really good climbing photography for tips.
From a graphic art web developer perspective, the drop menu navigation is "interfering" with the rest of the site. And the layout is so-so. You can probably improve the feel of the sight and still preserve whitespace for a clean look.
It is straight to the point however, and does exhibit your work well.
Improve it a bit and you have an extremely good platform for your photography.
Cheers
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akornylak
Feb 26, 2008, 5:27 AM
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A good rule for climbing photos is, if it looks like he is lying on the ground, it's not very exciting.
Don't worry about lighting, exposure, your camera, color profiles or layer masks.
For now, don't worry about what the public thinks. My four year old shoots amazing photos, because he shoots what he dreams about all day.
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esqueleto
Feb 26, 2008, 7:36 PM
Post #16 of 31
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thanks pico,
i've never thought of using sRGB all the way, but it makes perfect sense now. digital shit is still complicating to me even after finishing photo school. when i get my computer out of the box and move back home I'll recalibrate and rework files in sRGB to see whats up.
right now, i did take down some images that I felt weren't as strong as others. i always feel attached and proud of everything I do, even if it does not flow well or look good together.
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pico23
Feb 26, 2008, 9:45 PM
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In reply to: In reply to: i always feel attached and proud of everything I do The moment you post something and ask for opinions anybody who sees it can say anything they want about it. You have to be pretty tough skinned to put your work on display like that. Kudos to you! If your willing to put up with the pain, you'll learn something. By the way, have you noticed that most posters here can argue and talk all day about the quality of this or that brand of photo gear but will never put their photos up here or on the Photo Critque forum and ask for a critique? I wonder why? 
As someone who doesn't even use a real camera brand I say have at em...No probs with critiques (because I can always use my inferior gear as an excuse sorry I couldn't resist waving my pompoms
 )
actually I love it when someone says, that a great shot BUT...I'd do this or that. Most of the time I agree, and maybe was even thinking that myself. There is one guy on flickr that always critiques my stuff, and I actually appreciate it. Sometimes I completely disagree, but often I see there is room for improvement.
But bear in mind, when putting stuff up for professional use you are held to a higher standard than when posting some shots you took last weekend just for shits and giggles. Not every shot is a masterpiece, I bet you all your camera gear (because I need a real brand at some point) that Ansel and Galen took a few "snap shots" in their day just because it was an important moment. Some are simply, I was here, I saw this, the light sucked, I had the wrong lens, and no tripod, but fVck it, I couldn't come back so here it is!!!
The thing is you DON'T post those on a site you are trying to make look professional, you narrow down you best 100 shots, and then from that you narrow down to the 10-20 best of the best. No room for maybe shots.
Even when posting a trip report I aim for the best shots of the trip, not just 10 shitty shots. Because every shitty shot you post makes all your work look like crap. It's about having self respect. Heck I weed out the shit before my wife even sees them. No joke! Yet, people seem to post the same crap I wouldn't even show my wife.
It just boils down to basic respect for yourself.
BTW, last I checked the photo critique forum was for "on route climbing shots only". Perhaps a sub forum for the rest of us would be a good thing so we could all be held to a "higher" standard and hold our heads high as we rip everyone a new asshole.
Bottom line, don't publicly post anything you aren't willing to take some BS for. Sure there are just rude comments, but there are also harsh constructive comments. I think the OP got mostly harsh constructive comments.
Rude would have been, "dude you suck, put the camera away and save internet bandwidth, jesus I put a camera around my dogs collar and set it to interval and he turned out better work than the crap you wasted my time viewing. Try saving the planet and not wasting energy charging your cameras batteries, how many milli degrees did you raise the earths temperature to take that garbage."
 
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climbsomething
Feb 26, 2008, 9:48 PM
Post #19 of 31
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guangzhou wrote: I have to agree. Your images need some work. If you are shooting for friends and family, you're photos are fine, but you site leads me to believe you are hoping to sell you images.
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guangzhou
Feb 27, 2008, 2:09 AM
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"Choking on trail mix "I am note sure what this means, but ...
I decided not to add images to this site awhile back for several reasons.
First, the site makes it to complicated to add images to the site because of the Data base linking. They have made uploading photos a long a tedious process. Link photos to country, area, state, specific area than a specific route. I rather do other things with my time. Then, when the route you have a photo of isn't already listed, you need to restart the whole process. A waste of time, like much of the site.
Second: rockclimbing.com makes it to easy for people to steal my images and use them elsewhere. I don't feel my images are protected here. yes, the site has a disclaimer, but so what. Hot linking of my images means that I can't offer first time use any more if a photo buyer want that.
Third, I do lease my images. Some on the micros, and some for more specific uses. Images posted here lose value. Especially since some member here like to attack anything that even remotely looks like advertising. Some wonderful images here get dive bomb because the photographer puts a watermark with is company name on it. It's insulting. Me, I don't mind saying I like to make money. I like earning enough money to go climb where I want. My photography earns me some income, my teaching job does too, selling my guide service also did, and now so do some of my other online business start-ups. I've considered buying this site to revemp and have it start earning money too, but it would be easier to start from scratch instead.
Fourth, while not all my images are outstanding, I don't understand why I should post my good and great images here for Rockclimbing.com to use and earn money from without me getting my share. yes, images posted here earn RC money. How? people surfing the net can look at your images. That builds up RC's hits which they use to sell advertising on their site. I don't even post that many trip report here anymore. I prefer to put them where someone can appreciate them.
One post above mention people not posting to the critic forums. I posted a few images there awhile back and people commented who knew nothing about photography. One person wrote that the images was a waste of time, hurt his eyes, and was unworthy of being published anywhere. That very images has netted me over 1000.00 in revenue. Why would I post images to be criticize by people who's goals it is to insult instead of educate.
I am sure several people will say I got my feelings hurt. No, not really, what I got was a taste of reality, the people here hide behind screen names and try to make themselves sound better than they are. I found this when I meet some poster to climb with only to find they don't have half the experience they say they do. yes, they are exceptions here.
If you want to see my images, go to http://www.alamy.com/...mmanuel+Lacoste.htmlI don't need a critic because they are my photos and I like some and I don't like other. I have my images reviewed by photo editors and people with real credentials who can actually move my photography forward. Some of their reviews hurt, so don't, but all give advice on how to fix what's wrong.
The photo critic forum on this site should be renamed to photo criticize forum. Yes, there's a big difference between critic and criticize.
I am sure many will now criticize this post and make sly comments about what I just wrote. keep in mind, this will just reenforce what I said, so keep posting. .
Now, I have to go bolt a couple of routes,
Cheers
E
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climbsomething
Feb 27, 2008, 2:39 AM
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Oh for fucking out loud, man.
You ARE rc.com embodied.
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akornylak
Feb 27, 2008, 3:10 AM
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akornylak wrote: don't worry about what the public thinks. |
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guangzhou
Feb 27, 2008, 3:18 AM
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climbsomething wrote: Oh for fucking out loud, man. You ARE rc.com embodied.
Not sure what that means. I guess it's another perfect example of what I posted.
A straight up insult with no explanation to back up the post.
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climbsomething
Feb 27, 2008, 3:21 AM
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Truth is, the OPs stuff isn't that bad. We have become spoiled on carefully composed shots that follow a very rigid aesthetic; see the anti-Carter threads here to see how this is coming back around. That doesn't mean much of the climbing (and climbing lifestyle) stuff is good just to be contrarian. It's quite average. But I see a photographer who is probably pretty skilled in general, and simply not well-practiced in climbing photography-- especially for such a discerning audience.
I like the Flash, and the landscapes are nice. And actually, the site seems more like a slick personal site than a "hey folks, buy my stuff, embrace my brand" site. Am I right? Wrong?
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no_email_entered
Feb 27, 2008, 3:26 AM
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marry me!
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