Hi everyone,

I've been looking around for a while without becoming a member until now. I've learned a lot from the critiques offered to the members and hope you are not shy in criticizing my pictures. I do this for fun but I would like to get better.

These were taken a couple of weeks ago during PowWow07, a Native American festival near Nashville. Let me know what you think.

[pschlute]

Very nice shots. The last three are very well focussed, with good choice of aperture to get the background nicely out of focus.

The first one is a difficult one to get right. Perhaps the most interesting subject of the four, but you have had to deal with difficult lighting conditions and distracting backround which you were not able to blur.

Do you use a post processing tool like Photoshop? You could try increasing exposure selectively on the front of the subject.

The distracting background is more difficult to deal with. In situations like this my first reaction is to snap a picture quickly so as not to lose the moment. Then try to take some more shots with a bit more thought about background;focus;exposure etc. It is quite likely that in this case you wern't able to re-frame the shot or deal with the background....after all you cannot really ask the dancer to move ! In this case I would suggest going for a tighter crop, and maybe bluring the backround with a Photoshop tool.

[daacon]

Nice series - I agree the focus and colors are spot on. I love the attire and I think you captured it well.

[TaoMaas]

You've chosen some good subjects for your pictures. All you really need to do is watch your backgrounds more closely. As Pschlute suggested, take a quick shot to make sure you capture the moment, then move around to try and get a cleaner background. In the first shot, taking a step or two to your left, lowering your camera position, and zooming in a touch may have allowed you to frame the dancer against the trees and grass roof that's showing in the upper right of that picture. The darker background would have helped the dancer stand out more. In the second and fourth pictures, there are white objects in the backgrounds that are taking the focus off your main subject. On picture #4, try placing your finger over the white object that's growing out of the subject's neck and notice how much better the subject stands out. Btw, you've done a good job of blowing the backgrounds out of focus. You just need to watch for hot spots that will distract from your subject.

[elLuiggi]

Thanks everyone for your comments. The subject on the first image is one of my favourites. I was really bummed when I saw all that was in the background. I tried to crop out most of it but I didn't want to cut out the flares on her dress.

Do you use a post processing tool like Photoshop? You could try increasing exposure selectively on the front of the subject.

I work mostly on Linux so most of the pp is done with DigiKam and the GIMP. I must admit that I'm just beginning to learn how to use the GIMP efficiently, I just need some extra time. I need to finish writing a thesis and taking photos is not helping me... but what can I do?

On picture #4, try placing your finger over the white object that's growing out of the subject's neck and notice how much better the subject stands out.

Without you mentioning this I would have never seen it. The good thing is that this might be easy to fix with GIMP.

[Ignacio]

Beautiful photos Luiggi. I particularly like the fellow with the red face. The way you dropped the far side of his face into shadow is very elegant and creates an iconic effect that is more powerful than the last one in profile which seems flat by comparison. Just my 2 cents. Cheers, Ignacio

[elLuiggi]

Thanks Ignacio. I wish I could claim any artistic feature of the picture. The reality is that none of the subjects were still and I was just shooting away hoping for the best...

cheers,
Eduardo

[xs400]

That's a great series. I really like #4.