Critique.

(Click on images for bigger view)

I'd thought of editing these pictures before posting them, just little tweaks here and there, some auto-tuning or cropping or straightening, but I thought it best to leave them in the settings I shot them with.

When I take pictures, before I even look through the viewfinder, I always see how the picture would turn out, and it's always beautiful in my mind. As soon as I shoot, though, I'd be disappointed that it looked so ordinary. This was one of those shots:

"Ribbon"

13 June 2007

My father gave me a crash course on angles and composition shortly afterwards, and he dumbed it down significantly for me. This is how I interpreted his advice: "the rule of triangles". One should be able to draw an imaginary triangle in the picture. Sometimes it works for me. Other times, it doesn't.

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"Shazu"

16 June 2007

model: Shaza

Babies and little kids are so much fun to take pictures of, mainly because they remain adorable in ANY setting. Shaza is the daughter of my friend Nadeema, and this is a rare smile (she has many kinds!!).

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"Lanao"

18 June 2007

artwork by: Edris Tamano (my baba!)

Also very easy to photograph are works of art. Yes, I guess that's cheating, but you know. Anything for a nice picture. Haha. This is a small part of one of my father's paintings. The design is the Maranao "Ukir", which he specializes in. Lanao is the land of Maranaos (it's not the title of the painting itself).

This picture is special to me because it's the first one that my photographer friends critiqued for me. It was also the first time I heard about "depth of field".

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Critiquing someone else's work is always very tricky. But as long as people suggest things to make a piece better, rather than focusing on negative things, criticisim is really one of the photographer's best friends.