I think I suck at photography lol.

[Nashy]

I didn't do any post processing. That's how it came off the camera.

[pixelpixel]

Go and buy understanding exposure by Bryan Peterson. That might help.

[sean l]

I'd say your photo isn't as bad as you think it is...

I agree that the composition could be a little better (try cropping that photo down to remove most of the table, just get the plate and its contents in there. Don't worry about cropping part of the edges of your subject).

I've noticed the problem a lot of amateur photographers have is they try to get "everything" in the shot, sacrificing a more interesting composition because they feel that every single piece of their subject needs to be in the frame.

A good example of this is portraits. Unless there is a specific reason, you'll notice that most portraits cut off at the neck or shoulder. Why is that? If the subject is a person, shouldn't the whole person be in the shot? He/she is wearing a really neat sweater. Well it's because all we need is the head. With that, we get what the shot is about. No need for anything else really. Obviously you don't want to be too close because then you run the risk of the the shot being too intense.

A specific example from my experience is shooting with a fish-eye lens doing skateboarding photography. When I'm out shooting with my 7D, I get a lot of comments and questions about it. A lot of people want to give it a test run, and when they do, they are trying to fit literally everything in the shot, and it makes for pretty poor composition. I like to follow the rule of thirds in this case, and sometimes part of their hand gets cut off. Oh well.

Always remember to take my advice (as well as others!) as just suggestions, and not rules. It never hurts to gain more knowledge, but if try to emulate someone else, your photos will end up looking just like theirs, and that would mean you DO suck at photography.

Keep up the good work!

[Bubbabyte]

it's sharp (i guess you sharpened it?) but the composition and lighting is nothing special, I think you are trying to have too many things in the frame and these things dominate too much of the space in a non flattering way. Try choosing only 1 or 2 things to focus on.

The first one has some potential since you have unintentionally included some hair lighting due to overhead lighting (noon time?). The issue lies in the fact that you shot this in the shade while not properly exposed, therefore the face overall looks dark, you can either bump up the exposure or use fill flash or bounce a reflector. For the 2nd one it looks under exposed overall, try bumping up the exposure and you would see some more pop.

With regards to the cat picture on page 1, it clearly demonstrate what you lack, which is composition, lighting, selective focus and post processing. Selective focus is easiest to do if you just go and buy a 50 1.8 or 35 f2, cheap and practical. For lighting, try using window light to your advantage. For composition, start with rules of third and go from there with your own feel. Post processing is personal preference.

I Agree completely. The 50mm F1.8 is all i use, it's cheap and aside from build quality it's very nice. But the main problem i see with your photos is composition. For example your food picture, there is no depth to it, it's just a plate with food. Try taking a picture of it from almost eye level or something. I'm not a professional by any means but exciting photos in my opinion are the ones that you don't get a chance to see with your own eyes. While this may not be super exciting with a plate of food, just to give you an example of what i mean with that last comment is that you don't normally look at your food from eye level unless you are a midget :p So it's appealing because it's not something you normally see, you know?

For the pictures of your kids, this is my area of photography as 90% of my pictures are of my kids. While parks and play areas are fun for the kids, they are often very hard to get a really nice photograph unless you are doing f1.8-2.8 or even lower if you have the right equipment because often times there is so much other stuff like in your photos that is just distracting from the subject, so unless you can have a shallow depth so it blurs out most of the background, it just looks like people standing in front of a bunch of park equipment. Believe me i've been down this road many times, my wife wants to take the kids to the playground and wants me to take pictures and every time it's 95% crap and 5% usable pictures because of the distractions.

As far as post processing goes, you need alot of work but that comes with time, everyone has these moments with their first quality camera that doubts themselves because they don't look as good as others etc etc.. Get yourself a copy of lightroom or even photoshop and use cameraraw and just play around until you find things you like. It's not an overnight thing, it takes alot of practice and patience.

@moonman Nice to see you again :) I haven't been on the photo section in neowin for a while.

@Marius F: Trying to be nice as possible with this one but please for the love of god, stop doing HDR or read up on how to do it properly. There is nothing appealing about a radioactive cancer car, sorry. :)

@DigitalManifestations: That cat pic is beautiful, excellent job.

[moloko]

Your photos are underexposed. Just change your settings to make them brighter. Open up your lens and let more light in. Yes you could change all this in an image editor but it is better to get it in camera. If you are using only a kit lens then get a flash to bump up your light. Learn to love and use the light.