Water Smorgasborg by Joseph Calev

The response though was certainly not what I expected.  A different poster basically said “yeah, that’s not bad for two months with this equipment.  Now take a look at my awesome shots! You should try taking something like this!”.

To be honest, I did not appreciate this at all.  Yes, his shots were clearly better than mine.  However he provided no constructive criticism on my own shots.  I was just a beginner hoping to shine a bit and he threw a giant gobo on top of me.

This brings back an earlier story where I was on the other side.  A photographer posted several recent shots and asked for criticism.  I wasn’t crazy about either shot and posted constructive criticism.  I offered opinions on cropping, post processing, and angles.  I did not post any of my own shots.

Another photographer also responded and included several of his own shots in the discussion.  He offered much of the same feedback that I did.  Shortly after this, the individual left the forum never to return.

I believe it is worth having a discussion about photographer etiquette.  In general I find photographers are decent in terms of etiquette when actually shooting.  When I am photographing a patch of flowers, another photographer has never sat right next to me.  Similarly, I have not yet had an issue with another photographer interrupting wildlife I was photographing.  I do often have issues with non-photographers, who thrust their point and shoots on top of me when I am photographing macros, stand in front of me when I am photographing landscapes, and scare away wildlife I am photographing.

However I am discussing photographers here.  When it comes time to online discussions though, it seems we photographers are far less knowledgeable.  Therefore I would like to present my list of dos and don’ts.  Feel free to add your own.

Never post your own photo to a thread someone started to show off his/her own photos unless it is requested.

Photographers post their photos for different reasons.  They may want to show off or they may want criticism.  The general rule is never post your own photo on the same thread.  It simply is not polite.  You are taking the opportunity from another photographer and disregarding their work.

There are exceptions of course.  Sometimes a photographer will say “show me your best x shots”.  Other times the photographer may have a question on technique.  He may show an example photo where a problem occurred and ask for remedies.  In these situations it is perfectly acceptable to post your own shots.

If you comment on someone’s photo, add a “like” if the feature exists on the site.

This is a small courtesy.  Even if you’re not crazy about the shot, if you take the time to comment then click the ‘like’ button if the site has it.  This provides a good feeling for the other photographer.  If you want to provide constructive criticism, do it in the comments and still like the photo anyways.  Few photographers want to hear “this sucks”.  Many do want constructive criticism, but would like positive comments mixed with the negative.

The way I look at it, if the photo caused me to write a comment, then it must have been a decent photo for me to notice it in the first place.

Understand what the photographer is aiming for before commenting

Different photographers have different goals.  The goals of a stock photographer and a fine art photographer are quite different.  Make sure you understand these goals before commenting.  An awesome photo for stock photography will likely suck for fine art and vice versa.  If you strongly criticize a photo using the wrong goals, your comments will not be useful to the original poster.

Be careful about posting your own photos as example shots

Say someone has a question about lighting.  You response with a photo showing the discussed lighting technique.  This is perfectly OK.  Where the line becomes grayer is when someone mentions he/she is having a difficult time taking a type of photo and you reply saying “look at these awesome photos I took using this technique.  If you were nearly as awesome as I you would do the same”.

You are trumpeting your own horn here rather than providing any constructive proof.  Try to be more modest when posting.  It is OK to post awesome (in your eyes) example shots, but simply mention them as an example of the technique.  If the shots are truly awesome, others will call them out as such.

Try to understand what the photographer is looking for in critique

I am admittedly quite difficult in my critique.  If I do not like a shot I will plainly say so.  I will also give very specific reasons why I do not like it.  Some people greatly appreciate this feedback.  Others do not like it at all.

I openly do not like FlickR.  The reason I do not is due to what I call “the FlickR syndrome”.  This syndrome is very easy to catch if you are active on FlickR, as it is extremely easy to receive a ton of very positive feedback on an otherwise awful shot.  This leads some photographers to believe that every shot that leaves their hard drive is blessed and all other photographers will be blinded by the sheer awesomeness of their photos.

These photographers then post their photo someone where someone like I sees it and they simply cannot believe that something can be wrong with one of their photos.  I must clearly be an idiot for not recognizing the genius of this photo that hundreds of mindless FlickRites have proven.

The lesson of this is to try to understand what the photographer wants.  Sometimes it is OK to specifically ask what type of feedback the photographer desires.  Other times this is obvious from the original message.  If the photographer states that he took some shots he is very proud of, maybe it’s best not to comment.  If on the other hand the photographer states “give me your worst”, then absolutely do so.

If someone follows you or friends you, consider following them back

You are not above any other photographer out there and they should not be thought of as your flock.  When someone friends you they are truly interested in your work.  It does not mean they think you are better than they – just that your work interests them.  Do the right thing and take a look at their work.  Many times I have been greatly surprised that immensely talented photographers – way above me in talent – have chosen to follow me.  I use that as an opportunity to follow them as well so that I may learn more from their photography.

Be careful when commenting on photos about people

We have all seen a lot of photos of ugly people.  We have also seen photos of nice looking people in truly awful poses.  I remember one photo a photographer posted to a forum that he was quite proud of.  It was of a rather pretty girl stooped down in a way that looked like she was about to go to the bathroom.  In another I saw a very young girl posed in a way that in my opinion was completely inappropriate for the age.

You have to remember before commenting on these photos that the subject may be the daughter, spouse, or close relative of the photographer.  Also, the subject himself/herself may read the post.  If you want to provide constructive criticism, provide it on what the photographer did – not the model.  Be careful when stating what you don’t like about a shot though as many models are quite self conscious.  Remember, most of these people are not professional models at all but are simply someone who volunteered for the shoot.  If you say something about them that makes them uncomfortable, they may never volunteer for that photographer again.

Always assume your photo sucks when posting it

Few people like posts that say “see my awesome shots”.  As I said before, post your shots with humility.  Let others call out the quality of your shots.

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This shot has received the warmest reception of the bunch from my wife and some of her relatives.  What I think helps the shot is the reflection in the drop.  It kind of looks like a palm tree and thus has an interesting balance of ‘cold vs. warm’.  I also like the lower background of this shot – in particular the play of green vs. brown on the bottom.  Also helping the shot is the slight diagonal of the icicle.

Things that I do not like about this shot are.

1. There are several blown highlights.  I don’t think any of these are so severe that I could not get rid of them in Photoshop though.
2. The icicle itself is OOF and only the drop has some focus.  However, it too is slightly OOF.
3. The green at the top right needs to be toned down a bit.
4. The top of the icicle, which is OOF, is a bit distracting.
5. Ultimately I don’t think this is a very powerful shot.  It is one that when going through pictures may receive a comment, but that’s about all.

This shot corrects some of the problems of the earlier shot.  The focus on the icicle is much better and there is only one annoying part of the background in the upper right corner that can easily be removed in Photoshop.  There are some blown out areas but they are also easily fixable.

Ultimately though I think this shot is even less interesting than the first one.  It has a reflection in it, but the reflection isn’t that interesting.  It doesn’t really seem to tell a story, though I don’t think it’s a bad shot.

Initially, I almost pressed the delete key when I got to this shot.  After all, though I managed to get the drop in the shot it is clearly OOF.  What made me keep it are the interesting patterns in the background, the decent lighting, and the fact that the icicle above is in focus.

I’m still not sure what to make of this shot.  It shows an effect of a drop in motion with a reflection of its background, but does the motion inferred add to or subtract from the photo?

Right now I’m still undecided whether this is an ‘accidental great shot’ or a ‘near miss’.  I would appreciate opinions on this one.

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In the ultimate comment to my shots though, was the fact that several agents commented about the pictures and the property sold after being on the market for less than a week.  While the Seattle market isn’t nearly as depressed as elsewhere in the country, that is still pretty impressive given the current state of things.

I enjoy taking panorama shots whenever I photograph a property and the above shot isn’t too bad in my opinion.  Still, the shot is significantly darker on the right than on the left and the sky outside is blown out a bit.  I think here using the strobist approach would have helped, as I could have set the flash used on the right side a bit stronger than that on the left.

Currently when I make my panoramas I use a macro rail to help balance on the nodal point of the lens.  I then make sure the tripod is absolutely stable and use all manual settings – focus, white balance, and exposure.  I currently use Microsoft Digital Image Suite 2006 to piece together the panorama, though I have heard there are better programs out there to do this.  Eventually I may get the Really Right Stuff pano kit – though it’s a bit pricy.

One of my favorite shots actually is of the outside.

The property had a decent sized yard in the back, but I wanted to emphasize it by putting the lens close to the ground.  I think I achieved that here and the lighting on the house came out pretty decent.  My only regret is not cropping out the unit to the right.

Bathrooms in condos and small houses I find very challenging.  The space is small and I need to make sure both myself and the tripod/camera are not caught by the mirror.  This often requires a bit of trickery in the tripod placement and angles.  The following shot shows how tricky it can be.

Here I was relatively happy with the lighting and exposure, but if you look closely you can see the mirror caught one side of my tripod.  My wife said it wasn’t very noticeable but I was still a bit embarrassed.  The lighting in the shot I think is OK, though it is a bit harsh towards the top.  Again I think that using speedlights here would have helped – though I would have had to make sure nothing bounces off the mirror.

The above shot is another technique I sometimes use in small bathrooms.  Here I hid behind the shower curtain and took the shot from above the curtain rod.  I succeeded in holding the camera still enough for the shot and not being caught in the mirror, but the shot is badly overexposed at the top right.  The angle is often a bit weird in my opinion.  Sometimes these shots work out well, but I don’t think it worked out very well in this case.

Here’s one example where the placement of the camera had a dramatic effect in the final shot.  Here is the first shot I took of the child’s room.

Here the room looks rather busy – mainly due to the toys and television in the corner.  I cleared a spot on the shelf and took the following shot from the opposite corner.

This is the exact same room, but it looks much better from this angle.  It even looks a bit larger.  The lighting is better than some of the other shots, though it is a bit blown in the top.

This was the first use of one of my new toys – the Angle Viewfinder C.  I received this as a gift for my birthday several months ago and initially I had coveted it for macro photography.  However, when combined with the MP-E 65 the viewfinder is simply too dark and it is too difficult to track subjects.  Therefore it remained unused in my bag.  I decided to give it a try for real estate photography and I now cannot imagine how I took photos before.  After using it, I simply think it is a required accessory when doing interior photography.  Very often I needed to fit my camera in tight places and this allowed me to still frame the shot without multiple attempts.

The following shot shows where the 16-35 can sometimes cause issues.

Although this shot was used in the actual listing, there are several obvious problems with it.  The primary issue is the distortion – as evident from the table seemingly “sliding” down the room.  This is the consequence when using ultra wide angle lenses on a full frame body.  I doubt any wide angle would improve the situation here.  Probably the best bet would be to use the TS-E 24, though I then lose some width.  The other major problem is the shot is significantly darker on the left side than one the right.  The strobist technique could probably have helped here.  The final smaller issue is that the light and window in the kitchen are both a bit blown.  To resolve all of these issues I most likely would have had to take the shot with a TS-E 24 and use three off camera flashes.

The following shot is the one I liked the most of the interior, though it was not used for the listing.

Of all the shots, I think the lighting here comes closest to my goal.  The carpet on the left is a bit brighter than that on the right – which seems a bit unnatural given the window is on the right.  However, the window itself is not blown – though the sky is a bit.  The window in the kitchen looks fine, though the shot is a bit darker in the upper left corner than it should be.  I think two speedlights would have improved the shot – but still it isn’t too bad the way it is.

The final shot I will discuss today was used in the listing.

This shot suffers from many of the same problems, though I don’t think it is too bad compared to most of the real estate shots you see today.  The top and bottom of the image are a bit too dark.  This isn’t due to the lens, but is due to the fact that the living room was darker than the other rooms (see the panorama at the top).  The lights in both the kitchen and the dining room are a bit blown, as is the sky outside.  I have a feeling to get this shot right I would have needed two speedlights in the living room – one on the couch and the other on the right side, then one in the kitchen and one in the dining room.  Given only three speedlights, I could have probably escaped with not putting one in the dining room.

Still, despite these issues I think I am improving my real estate photography and the house did sell quickly.

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