Here's the OP's site: http://johnkrausphotos.com/
Even if he's hard on his gear, his images are great and he's only 18. Impressive work for a teenager.
Even if he's hard on his gear, his images are great and he's only 18. Impressive work for a teenager.
Kraus has an AW&ST cover photo.[1] Among other commercial photocredits. Impressive work for a... experienced launch photographer.
Sometimes "weight class" is essential context. "It's a nice story... for a 6-year old". "That's a good lap time... for a 60-year old." But sometimes, not so much.
And sometimes, yuck. It's been a few years now since I last heard "she's a good programmer... for a woman." Yay. :/
[1] https://twitter.com/johnkrausphotos/status/96356696031433932... http://aviationweek.com/aviation-week-space-technology/2018-...
But see also Lartigue, who made some of the most wonderful photographs I have ever seen before he was 10 years old — https://www.lartigue.org/en/jacques-henri-lartigue/biography... — and Aaron Swartz — http://www.aaronsw.com/
I think when a person finds what they love to do at an early age, through supportive rather than forceful education, they bloom.
Recommended reading: Think on These Things by Jiddu Krishnamurti
Long ago as a kid, I had a conversation something like "I play the piano. Are you good? I've played for 4 years. But how good are you?" And I didn't know how to answer.
Years can contain a lot of practice, or not. With diverse concepts of "a lot" (eg some dancers). With rapid progress, or not. Achieving some form of excellence, or not. Excellence as compared to... who, or what? By what standard and emphasis?
I'm still fuzzy on just why "Good, for a foo" bothers me. Maybe because it sometimes unpacks as something like "Better than is to be expected from someone like you"? Which can certainly be a reasonable and statistically supported observation. But those hidden extra parameters seem troublesome ones. Someone's filter for what aspects of "you" matter. Someone's expectation over those aspects. And the focus seems shifted from the work, to the person.
I once separately encountered some teachers from the same school, who seemed to have a story in common. That their students were failing to learn physics, because "they are at that age - hormones". This, despite the regrettably little physics which is generally taught. That they were teaching physics really badly, seemed off their radar as an alternate or supplemental hypothesis. If they had then said "oh, but Joe, his physics is excellent for an Nth-grader"... there would have been so much wrongness embedded in that short phrase.
If your image is well-lit, in focus and doesn't have motion blur, you are probably just missing post-processing. Most pictures will look rather dull until they are touched-up to make them 'pop' - you can have a look at the before and after images from this Google AI research project[1] that processes landscape photos to make them more pleasing to the eye.
Playing around with brightness, contrast, saturation and color curves can greatly improve a photo.
1. https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/14/15973712/google-ai-resear...
Do you have tutorials that go into detail about how one can improve? I've spent the last decade using Lightroom but largely going by what feels right rather than being more technical and deliberate.
Most of the skills are transferable to other editors just by learning the different menu options.
A good starting point for unsharp mask:
1st pass: Amount 10; Radius 30; Threshold: 0 2nd pass: Amount 100; Radius 0.3; Threshold: 0
Adjust amount based on your judgement. Don't over-sharpen. Sharpening should be the last step after resizing. Obviously always sharpen with the image at 100% zoom. Don't let your DSLR sharpen the image. Shoot in RAW, but resist sharpening at your RAW tweaking stage - just do exposure tweaks at that point, then bring into Photoshop for sharpening and resizing.
Also play with polarizing filters on your lens; ND filters so you can open up aperture to exploit the sweet spot of your lens; reduce your exposure compensation in daylight (my DSLR is always set two stops under); use a lens hood; avoid too much cropping, instead get the framing and focal length right when shooting.
And like sangnoir said learn how to post-process. If you're taking pictures in RAW format you'll be amazed at how much you can transform a boring picture.