Portfolio Critique

[CarlosGandiaga]

Hello all:

 

I'm finally to the point where I have a decent amount of images up and for sale.  I'd like to ask if any of you would be willing to look at my portfolio and offer any critiques (positive AND negative).   I figure the only way to get better is to hear from your peers and betters and take their advice to heart. 

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated by this amateur.

 

Cheers!

[Brasilnut]

Hi Carlos and welcome!

 

I see you're going for the saturated look, which I tend to do as well, but it seems that you've pushed it too far on your images. I find that stock is less art and more science and that you need to appeal to as broad number of buyers as possible...in your case, some will love it, but most will hate it. Also, some of your crops/angles are unconventional and perhaps too artistic. Sticking to lens corrected with lots of copy space and PEOPLE in the frame is the best way to go about it. Since this is a predominately editorial agency, I find that commercial images have less value, so if you're shooting a public place, might as well include people.

Didn't look at keywords but the captions look OK. 

Anybody else want to have a go?

Good luck

Alex

[CarlosGandiaga]

52 minutes ago, Brasilnut said:

Hi Carlos and welcome!

 

I see you're going for the saturated look, which I tend to do as well, but it seems that you've pushed it too far on your images. I find that stock is less art and more science and that you need to appeal to as broad number of buyers as possible...in your case, some will love it, but most will hate it. Also, some of your crops/angles are unconventional and perhaps too artistic. Sticking to lens corrected with lots of copy space and PEOPLE in the frame is the best way to go about it. Since this is a predominately editorial agency, I find that commercial images have less value, so if you're shooting a public place, might as well include people.

Didn't look at keywords but the captions look OK. 

Anybody else want to have a go?

Good luck

Alex

Mille grazie, Alex!  I appreciate the honest feedback.  That's GREAT advice that I will take to heart.

[Bill Brooks]

Good advice from Brasilnut. Important to have your own style, but I think you are overdoing it in high saturation and empty black shadows.

 

I expose and process my images so that there is lots of shadow detail and no skies drifting off to black. I do not use a polarizer filter on the camera, but up the saturation in software. Lots of extra detail in the shadows, on normal images, using the shadows slider in Adobe software.

 

To see what I mean, have a look at my image processing and compare them to yours.

[Jill Morgan]

I agree with Alex, over saturated images.  Very arty and visually impactful, but not what a typical stock buyer is looking for.  Also, supply the latin names for any animals or birds.  You have a Peregrine Falcon but no latin name.  I was too lazy to look it up, but you should add that to any images you have of fauna.

 

I looked at your first few pages and you really do need some with people in them.  

 

Jill

[Ed Rooney]

 

And I will have to agree with Bill -- way too much saturation. And I wonder why you are going for a dark, threatening look? All is not lost! With a few adjustment, you should have a set of more sellable images. 

 

People in the frame is something I keep telling myself. Let's do that, both of us.

 

Good luck, Carlos.

[John Mitchell]

3 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

 

And I will have to agree with Bill -- way too much saturation. And I wonder why you are going for a dark, threatening look? All is not lost! With a few adjustment, you should have a set of more sellable images. 

 

People in the frame is something I keep telling myself. Let's do that, both of us.

 

Good luck, Carlos.

 

I'm actually seeing an increase in images without people selling these days. A sign of the times perhaps. I often try to take one shot with people and one without if possible.

 

Case in point: Yesterday one of my images of a storefront with no people sold. A couple of months ago, an image of the same storefront with a person walking by licensed. I took both images on the same shoot.

[vpics]

You do know that you can't use Sanssouci Palace images commercially, don't you?

[CarlosGandiaga]

Thanks, guys.  Hey, at least you're not telling me my images suck..

 

Great advice.  A lot of these images were manipulated in Lightroom.  I still have the unsaturated originals.  What would you suggest I do with them?  Is having two versions of the same image with different saturation levels kosher, or is that to be frowned upon by the group?

[CarlosGandiaga]

1 minute ago, vpics said:

You do know that you can't use Sanssouci Palace images commercially, don't you?

Hmm.. no I did not.  Thanks for the heads up.  I will make those changes.

[Brasilnut]

Quote

Is having two versions of the same image with different saturation levels kosher, or is that to be frowned upon by the group?

 

I would suggest a medium level of healthy saturation, not nuclear. 

[John Mitchell]

Carlos, have you calibrated your monitor? Using calibration software makes a big difference. I worked for awhile with a poorly calibrated monitor. As a result, some of my older images are too dark. I need to go back and redo them one of these years. That said, a number of the dark-ish ones continue to license.

[ColdCoffee]

I see a lot of good photos with potential to sell mixed with some where the lighting could be improved.

 

The lighting needs some work to it, in my opinion. It was already mentioned the dark shadows, but you also have some photos that are just too dark, and some photos where the background may be OK, but the focal point is too dark. You can easily brighten up key features.

 

I love PE2H95, PE2H9G and PE2HFP but PE3112 and PEJ8G are examples of under exposed focal point.

 

Perhaps also decrease the saturation a little.