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November 20, 2009 |
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Wolfgang Kaehler has studied photography and photo engineering in his native Germany for six years. Since 1977 he has photographed around the world in over 100 countries for magazines and travel companies. He served as a photographer on an expedition cruise ship for four years and had the opportunity to explore and photograph some of the world's more remote regions. He has photographed in Antarctica on diverse trips, and his Antarctic collection is significantly one of the largest of any professional photographer's in the world. Recently, Kaehler offered his critiques for one of his students, Dan Cheng, to be featured on TakeGreatPictures.com to give insight and advice to other aspiring photographers. Below are a few of the pointers and tips that Wolfgang forwarded to us via email
Dan,
In general I like this photo. The only thing I would have tried is to move the statue in the background a little bit more to the right so it does not touch the top end of the cross but gives a little bit more space on the left. This is a great scene to set up a tripod and play with different apertures to see what the depth of field does and I believe blurring out the statue in the back a little more might have helped.
© Dan Cheng
This is a difficult photo. In general the scene is much too busy, the light is way too harsh and the depth of field is too shallow. To me it looks like a snapshot when passing by the scene. If your intention was to photograph the large duck with the sunglasses in the center you have to approach it differently. In a busy scene like this you have to separate your subject from other subjects. One way of doing it is to remove all other subjects or use a tripod with a long lens (200-500mm), keep the aperture wide open, such as f/4 and focus right on the face of the duck. This way the surrounding area will be blurred out. If you had any clouds in the sky it would have been good to wait until a cloud moved in front of the sun to act as a natural diffuser.
© Dan Cheng
This is one of the better images out of this series. The composition is good. The only thing I wish would be that the person with arms outstretched would stand out a little bit more. Also pulling back a little might have helped and given more space around the people.
© Dan Cheng
The photo of the Abby would have been nice if the light was right. Unfortunately it is flat and has no contrast. Another point I have to make is for images like this where you need lots of depth of field you need to use a tripod and close your aperture down to f/16 or even f/22. To get the maximum depth of field you would need to set the point of focus about 1/3 into the picture, and have of course the out auto focus turned off. I also find the yellow flowers interrupting the flow and would clone them out. Try it and see which image you like better. In general it would be a great scene for a calendar of brochure if photographed in early morning or late afternoon light depending on direction.
© Dan Cheng
I like this photo a lot. It is a good observation and capture of light. Again I would try to simplify the photo to get full attention to the main cross and the light. Simplifying is very often the best solution in photography. Here I would try to eliminate the candlestick on the left, give a little bit more space above the cross and move the cross out of the center to the left. I have a cropped version attached but ideally it would be best to do it when you photograph. Again a tripod would help.
© Dan Cheng
© Dan Cheng
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