Hello there Steemit!
My name is Laurens Jansen from the Netherlands and I'm a photographer. I love going out into the world and shoot pictures of people, places and objects that interest me.
Photography, for me, is a combination of expressing your creativity and looking at the world at a more thorough and open way.
When I got introduced to photography, the world immediately seemed more interesting to me. I started seeing lines, patterns and light in a totally new way and this added perspective made it all even more beautiful.
Improve, improve, improve..
I constantly strive for learning more. One of the main aspects I focus on in my life nowadays is looking at other peoples photos and try to learn from what I see. The different styles of photography challenge me to express my creativity in various ways and thereby improve my photos.
It's not only photography that I want to learn about. I also constantly focus on being a better man, both to myself and the world around me.
This, in combination with my very analytical nature, encouraged me to start this Steemit account.
What is it all about?
I made this account, because I want to help other people improve their photography and storytelling skills, while improving my own skills as well! Your photos will help me look at photography in different ways and vice versa. In this way, we all learn from each other, so we can show the world to the people around us even better (through our photographs)!
How does it work?
If you have a photo that you want to have reviewed, please send it to:
In your email, please include the settings of your camera (see example later in this post) and a short story about where it was shot, why you shot it and what you wanted to portray.
I will select the photo that I think is most interesting to give feedback on. Not because it is the most beautiful, but because it has the most potential to teach us something. I will give very detailed (and personal ofcourse) feedback about composition, lighting, lines and so forth. I will also edit your photo with Lightroom, to maybe enhance it, or just to show a different view on the colors or crop.
In the next paragraph I will give an example of this, using one of my own photographs.
Example of a photo review
This is the original photograph:
Settings:
Nikkor 35mm 1.8g prime lens, aperture at f/4.0, ISO at 100 and shutter speed at 1/500th of a second.
This is one of my colleagues during his lunchbreak. He always enjoys smoking a quick cigarette during his break to relax. This photo was taken in Amersfoort, my hometown.
The feedback:
When I saw this picture in Lightroom, I immediately noticed a few things:
- I like the space to his left, also called negative space. Negative space is used for balancing a picture. It is often pleasing to the eyes if the negative space is in the direction of the motion, or where the person is looking. In this case he is looking to the left.
- I think the highlights in the sky are way to bright and obvious and it grabs my attention away from the subject (my smoking colleague).
- I think his face is way underexposed. I want to up the shadows to show the texture in his skin more.
- The crop is quite nice. It's a close-up shot and I think it enhances the story of him enjoying his smoke.
- In my opinion the colors are not important in this picture. It's distracting, so I think I might change the picture to black and white.
After noticing these things, I tried to edit it to my preference using Lightroom. This is the result that pleased me the most:
What did I edit?
- I converted the picture to black and white.
- I added a lot of contrast.
- I dragged the highlights all the way down to zero.
- I upped the shadows a lot to show the texture of my subject.
- I slightly adjusted the crop. I removed a bit of the space on his right, to make the negative space on his left look even bigger.
- I added detail in his fingers and face, to show the wrinkles. This enhances the story of him being a smoker and it being bad for your skin.
- I added a lens correction for my specific lens (to correct distortion) and I removed chromatic aberration (fringing of color around edges of things in your picture). These two corrections are standard for all my pictures.
My opinion:
I like this picture a lot. It tells a nice story about him being a smoker and rushing outside to smoke his beloved cigarette.
The black and white lets you focus more on texture and composition by taking away the colors. I think this enhances the photo enormously.
The shadows in the picture are more drawn to the front. I like this a lot.
There are two white spots above/left of the cigarette which aren't visible in the original. This isn't overediting, but it's the smoke coming from the cigarette. It distracts a little, but it was almost inevitable if I wanted to reduce the highlights.
I think the composition of this photo worked out really well. It was kind of a snapshot without thinking too much about perfect lines or something. The lines of his face came out to contrast nicely with the sky!
What would I do differently?
To make this a better photo without even editing, I may have shot it with a wider aperture (maybe f/2.8). This would have made the background even more blurry, which adds visual weight to the subject.
The wall behind is head is a little distracting, so if I standed a bit to the right, the photo may have come out better.
Conclusion:
Would you like to improve your (but also my) photography skills?
Please send the picture you want reviewed to [email protected] and maybe I will review it for you!
Please note that my opinion is not at all 'the truth' or 'the only (good) way'. It's simply meant to give you a different view on your own photos and alert you to opportunities you maybe didn't see.
I want to thank you for reading my introduction post and I hope to see your photos coming in very soon!
Kind regards,
Laurens
welkom / welcome on steemit , als je andere Nederlanders zoekt moet je eens kijken bij #nl of #teamnl , zelf ben ik niet zo uitbundig in het schrijven ik maak fotos en als ik daar nog een verhaal bij moet schrijven dan is mijn foto niet duidelijk genoeg :) althans dat is mijn insteek :)
It's definitely a good idea to give feedback from another perspective. keep up the good job and good luck!
Thank you very much @extremeromance!
Hi there Laurens! Thank you for your comment on my first photography post, and here I am to share the love!
You made a great introduction and I think you will do amazing work here on Steemit!
I rather enjoy photography myself, and the photos you saw were taken with my 3 year old smartphone. I would love some comments on what you thought about my photos?
I have 100% upvoted and followed you!
I hope to see you around more often!
Thanks a lot for your response!
Is it okay if I download one of the pictures you took and give some feedback through a new post on my feed?
I am really impressed with your and your phones ability to capture these colors! Did you enhance them by editing the picture with software?
Yes you absolutely can!
Thank you for the compliment! Yes, I generally edit them to increase the brightness, contrast and saturation.
I wrote a post on one of your pictures! I hope it gives you some insight. And even if it doesn´t, I found it very interesting to do this for the first time.
Cheers man!
Welcome to Steem. I'm sure there are a lot of people on this platform that would appreciate your critique and expertise. I am not into photography, but I will post some pictures I took while in glacier and your welcome to look at those!
Hey @diezeldiddy, thanks for your comment! I wasn't exactly sure if people on here would value my content, but I saw something that hadn't been done yet and just tried. Thanks again for your reply, I will have a look at your blog. You've got a new follower!
Thanks again for your nice comment under one of my pictures. I really enjoyed this post, especially the part concerning the photo you took. I really like how you described your thoughts about the photo and how they concerned your actual editing process.
Surely will follow, to also learn something more about photography :) So warm greetings from Germany!
Thank you @the5kyliner! Followed you too :)
Welcome :)
If you are here, then be patient, all great things will come slowly.
But it is Very good start that you are here.
Thanks again! I will try to develop this page into something very valuable
If you think so every day, then you will definitely get it.
thx for sharing
It wasn't so much your knowledge of photography that appealed to me although it is impressive. It is the following sentence that really got my attention.
"It's not only photography that I want to learn about. I also constantly focus on being a better man, both to myself and the world around me."
It's that kind of attitude that will bring you the most success.
Namaste
I really believe in this @doc.hodes! For me personally, continuous improvement in every area of my life is one of the most important things. It keeps me going and makes me happy.
Have a great day!
Namaste
Congratulations @photofeedback! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPA great way to enhance the photography section in steemit. Keep up the good work!
Will follow you for more.
Geeetings @ddot
Ahh thanks! I wanted to add value to other peoples lives by doing this and simultaneously add value to my own by learning! Hope this works out :)
Whats up?!
I will email you to keep in touch. followed
Cheers man! thanks a lot
Ah, welcome to Steemit... You'll find quite a few great photographers on here... Wishing you the best with your journey 👍🏻
Cheers! Appreciate your comment
Sweden waves Hi to Netherlands 💗💗 welcome to steemit, hop you will have fun :D
Hm i do prefer the B&W as it makes your coworker, pop out a bit more then wizz colour, more distinctive, in my humble opinion :)
Hm the coloured one, i have a hard time focusing, mostly as his face is half shadowed?? Never the less, FAB job on your intro :D 💗 keep it coming :D
Thank you very much @swedishdragon! I prefer the B&W one too, because the colored one is the unedited image. His face was way underexposed haha.
Cheers!
Happy to hear ;) 💖💖 Hm edited OR not :p
Welcome to Steemit! Nice introduction about yourself, and a wonderful photograph you shared! Hope you enjoy it here! 😊
Thank you @thekittygirl. All these kind messages are heartwarming!
Ik kom ook uit Nederland, maar heb in verschillende landen gewoond afgelopen 10 year.
Cool! Waar allemaal?
Voornaamelijk China. Ireland een paar jaar en UK een korte tijd. Voorheen ook in Suriname en Spanje gewoond. Momenteel wer in China.
Hi @photofeedback. Sorry for the delay. Wow this introduction blog is amazing. You're very skilled at photo editing and photography. I'm actually really interested to learn more. I've followed and upvoted this post. Might even send you a few photos myself. I think teaching people how to edit is a great topic to blog about. Do you do video editing as well? Keep up the good work!!!
I'm actually thinking upgrading my camera. Deciding between a sony A6300 or a panasonic lumix G7. Do you have any opinions on which camera i should get?
Hey @feedmylife! Thank you for your response and the follow! If you ever have some photos you want reviewed, please use the #photofeedback hashtag, I will check this hashtag very often and use the pictures posted. I love to edit pictures and to teach people about it, but for me this blog is also about composition and story behind the pictures. I am not into video editing (yet) actually. I think I will be in the future!
And about the camera: what I like to do is to watch videos on Youtube a lot. I look for reviews there and eventually go with the piece of gear that suits my needs the most. I'm very visually orientated, so watching videos works best for me. I start out by determining a maximum price I want to pay and then search for 'best X for Y euro'. I continue to narrow my search based on my needs and eventually end up with two models (like you with the A6300 and Lumix G7). At this stage I mostly choose the one that feels best. I think you already have a slight preference for one or the other, I would go with that choice :).
Cheers man!
Well done on this edit, it looks amazing!
Thanks @daveks :)
Interesting take on a blog post 👏🏻. The result is much better than the original.
Hey , how are you ?
welcome to steemit @photofeedback
following you now. :D
follow me back pls.