Photojournalism Self-Critique

Best Picture:

I would consider most of the photos I've taken so far to be at more or less the same level of quality, with the obvious exception of the ones that are more overtly bad (see below). I also haven't done much work with posing subjects for photos, especially with the assignment this particular one came from. In fact, for the assignment in question, to photograph a meeting of the Albany LBCC's Poetry Club, I mainly preferred to stick to the background and let the group go about their business. I figured this approach would make for more organic posing for pictures, and I think this particular photo is a good example of that.





Worst Picture:
I actually have 2 picks for my worst picture, representing 2 different ways a photo can be bad:

 Most of the photos I've taken that turned out bad were either ones with sub-standard composition from when I was still figuring out the settings of my camera, ones with a few bad details like a person blinking or moving their hand, or both. Point is, most of them were either salvageable in photoshop or were ones I took a similar but better photo I could use instead. But this? I don't know how or if one could make this usable,  nor do I even know how the heck it happened...

This photo on the other hand I wanted to use as an example of a photo that's "almost good," or rather one that could have been good if a little more effort had been put into taking it. I was actually about to use this one for a close-up shot in another blog post assignment, until I noticed the pillow covering the subject's ear. There wasn't any way to crop it out without taking off half his head, and ALL the other pictures I took of him from that angle had the same problem. A problem that could have been avoided entirely if I'd just MOVED A FEW INCHES TO THE RIGHT!





Skill Assessment:
I would say my two biggest areas of weakness are that I desperately need to learn how to use my camera properly, and that I need to get better at interacting with subjects while doing photo shoots. Fortunately these are both things I should be able to get better at over time, with practice.