Helpful Critique Appreciated

[Andrea Grelewicz]

Hi All,

My name is Andrea Grelewicz, and I'm new to the forum but have been a fan of EP Net for a while.
Without going into a lot of detail about myself, "I put the cart before the horse," if you will, when it came to photography and I am still learning. In many ways the more I learn, the more I realize I just began "learning" photography in January of this year, although, I have been taking pictures for many years. I discovered a passion for it in my senior year of high school in a class and ended up dropping the class due to a crappy teacher, and honestly, I have been intimidated about asking for a critique on here but I can't learn without criticism and I figure if I'm going to be ripped apart it may as well be by people I respect and admire lol! SO here is my facebook link:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Whisperi ... 5106903184

There are some photos I have thought of deleting since I've learned more but I have a hard time deleting them. If they are posted before 2012 they are using a canon rebel xti and most are with my canon zoom lens EF 75-300mm 1:4-5.6. (A couple from this year are from that camera as well.) This year they are mainly from my Canon 7D (which is a learning process in itself) and a Canon L series EF 24-70mm 1:2.8.

Let me know what you think - be honest, but not too brutal please, lol, confidence is not something I am particularly full of especially among this caliber of photographers.

I guess that's it for now, thank you in advance!

Sincerely,
Andrea Grelewicz

[Andrea Boody]

Welcome Andrea! It's always best to post one or two pictures on the EPN website itself, as you'll get better and more detailed critiques, but, that being said, I think you've got a great eye for pictures. I absolutely adore your work with the cats! The only thing I would suggest in regards to the horses, is to watch your shadows ~ some of the pictures were taken with the sun to the side, and some of the detail was lost in the shadow side. I'd recommend finding one or two images and posting them below. Great job!

[Andrea Grelewicz]

Thank you!! That means a lot, and I will work on the shadows!

I wasn't sure which photo's to post, so I went back to one from Rolex in 2009 for you to critique. Hopefully it will upload correctly - I don't think I did this right though because it won't let me add more than the 1 ...

Sincerely,
Andrea Grelewicz

[Andrea Grelewicz]

[Andrea Grelewicz]

Okay, those are the 3 (hopefully all are visible and correctly sized),

Thanks again in advance, and I look forward to your critiques/advice!

Sincerely,
Andrea Grelewicz

[Andrea Boody]

It's fine to post like you're doing here ~ much easier to view them this way.

First image: I really like this one ~ shows the great extension the horse is getting, and both he and the rider have such a pleasant expression. The only thing I don't care for is how the rider is looking down, but you can't really change that as a photographer.

Second image: I'm sure the rider is just giving his horse a hug for a good round, but it looks like he's about to take a dive! :-) While it's a decent candid, it probably wouldn't be an image to sell, either to the rider or to a magazine. If he'd been turned just a little bit, so you could see what was happening, it would have been a much stronger image. It also feels a little awkward as a horizontal crop ~ you might try a vertical on this one.

Third image: I love the horses' expression in this shot. I would suggest cropping wider to show the jump as well, though ~ what makes those horses so incredibly amazing isn't their expression, but rather the size of what they're clearing. If you could do a wide horizontal, or a narrow vertical, I think it would be a stonger image.

You've got a great start! :-)