HOME | DD | Gallery | Favourites | RSS
| MasterPpv
MasterPpv
♂️
[9354615]
[2009-01-12 22:32:04 +0000 UTC]
"Smash Bros. Addicted"
(United States)
# Statistics
Favourites: 270; Deviations: 26; Watchers: 20
Watching: 97; Pageviews: 9486; Comments Made: 2919; Friends: 97
# Interests
Favorite visual artist: NoneFavorite movies: None... possibly Inception
Favorite bands / musical artists: None
Favorite games: Super Smash Bros. Melee
Favorite gaming platform: Nintendo Wii
Tools of the Trade: Nikon D3000
Other Interests: Video games, friends, fun =]
# About me
Proud member of and fc07.deviantart.com/fs50/f/200…Current Residence: Illinois
Favourite genre of music: None
Operating System: Windows XP
MP3 player of choice: iPod
Skin of choice: Human...?
# Comments
Comments: 348
Thanks man! Glad to see you're putting it to interesting use!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
How am I doing with my photography?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Not bad, all things considered. You've started to try various different things, which is good. One thing you should definitely work on now is experimenting a bit more with various angles and different lighting situations. The best pictures in your gallery right now are the ones taken around sundown in your "Waterscapes" folder. They have decent composition and are exposed well, and the colors have been captured very nicely compared to most of the rest of your gallery. Also, less flash would really make the "Domesticated Animals" folder much better overall. Right now it's filled with photos that look more like snapshots than actual artwork.
Also, read up on how to work your camera through the manual or something. In many outdoor shots taken in broad daylight you seem to be using a much higher ISO than needed. Since your camera is a point-and-shoot, this is even more of a problem that usual, since a point-and-shoot camera's high-ISO performance is generally inferior to that of a D-SLR, so you're getting noticeable ISO grain even at ISO 800, and in broad daylight. Find your photo, "Whatcha Doin?" to get an idea of what I'm talking about. With that much sunlight available to you, there shouldn't be a need to be all the way up at ISO 800, and the noise / ISO grain is extremely noticeable all over the horses' bodies.
I don't mean to scare you off or be harsh; I'm just trying to help you get better
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I understand bout the ISO problem and grain, but what I dont get, is when folks call my photos 'snapshots'. To me, I interpret that as not putting thought behind the photo, not trying your best. Like with my most recent photo with Chloe, the sea lion, I only had a slit second and didnt know where exactly she'd pop up. It hurt to hear someone call it a snapshot because I waited so long for that shot. :/
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Don't worry, I can see potential there. That sea lion photo is one that I can definitely tell took some preparation and timing.
I can't speak for everyone, but when I say that some of them look like "snapshots", I mean that they look as if you were only trying to catch the moment before it went away, and nothing more.
NOTE: THIS IS NOT A BAD THING. This means at least that you have gone past the usual notion that people have of trying to coordinate and set up their shots perfectly, and tying to force situations rather than capture them when they happen. In this, you have indeed advanced past most people who ask everyone in the room to gather around and smile at the camera. But you must go further. I can relate; my old photos were the same way. I'll provide an example of this further below, so hear me out - please.
For example, look at "Self Sufficient" in your gallery. The cat was doing a cute cat thing and I'm sure you wanted to capture it. But in your haste you must not forget your basics. Where is the focus of the picture? The camera is focused on the floor, behind the cat. The cat is completely out of focus. This would have been fine if your subject was the floor or something on it, but in this case the focus being off has drawn attention away from the intended subject and made the viewer's eye be drawn instead to the background instead, where there really isn't anything of interest. Also, even if the focus had been on the cat, the composition places the main draw of the photo on the edge of the frame. Now, I'm not saying that the cat's face should be dead center or anything, and in fact I'm sure you've read or heard of that putting your focus absolutely dead center isn't necessarily best (look up the Rule of Thirds if you've never heard of this before, but I'm sure you have). This is true. However, putting it on the very edge isn't good either. There is nothing in the composition that leads the viewer's eye to that area, and again, the focus being off doesn't help either. In this particular situation, it may have been better to move your camera to the side and shoot from a more eye-level angle. Shooting from the cat's eye level would mean that your the background would be the far wall (NOTE: not the one on the right that's really bright, but the one that isn't actually in the frame here). This would have a two-fold advantage. Firstly, since the far wall is further away than the floor, your camera would be more likely to focus on the cat. And due to the focus being a subject that is so close and having a background that is farther away, the depth of field would be very shallow and blur out the background nicely, meaning that even if there was something distracting on the wall, it would get blurred out.
I'm so sorry for this, it must feel like I'm just taking you apart. Again, I see the potential there. You just have to remember your basics at all times, and remember that we've all been at the level you're at now. You simply need to reach past it. You will get better. Trust me.
To give you some hope (I hope), let me give you an example from my own experience. Look at "Felis Catus" in my gallery. It's the epitome of "snapshot" photography. I didn't pay any attention to the lighting, how I was composing the shot, what was in my frame and what wasn't, etc. I'm embarrassed to even look at that picture now, but I leave it up in my gallery to remind myself where I started and how far I've come. While I got managed to focus on the cat's eye, there wasn't much else I did right. The background, especially, with the pattern of the sofa and how blown-out it is by the light coming into the room from a window, is very distracting. I thought it was decent at the time, but I look at it now and I realize that in trying to just capture the moment I didn't pay attention to what makes a good shot.
Now look at "Contemplating Cookies" in my gallery. I still could have composed it better, and it's still not perfect, but it's much better than before, for sure. I paid attention to my background and lighting this time around and went for a different angle to make sure that the sofa wouldn't be in the picture (both photos were taken in the same house, in the same room).
So don't worry. I'm going to be honest with you - you have a long way to go. So do I, as a matter of fact. But I can see the potential there. I can see improvement from your older photos. It shows that you've been thinking more and trying different things more often. Just don't give up, and I'll do my best to help you along the way.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Wow, even though I'd been inactive for over a year you took the time to wish me a happy birthday! Thank you very much indeed!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Hello there!
I am one of the Contributors/Admins on UnderratedDeviants and I know you're an admin too... So, lately(for more than a month(or even a few), actually), I've met my message box very often with about 70 submissions of UD and I try to check as much as I can, but I'm very busy with school and seeing that we have a bunch of other admins too, I hoped they would help too and we would all just keep it clean and fast going. I was really disappointed to always meet the same, sometimes even a bigger amount of submissions waiting(they hadn't been checked since my last visits) and as I realised, half of them were even expired. I try to sort it a little when I have time and I've received comments from some members of the group who are displeased with the slow submission process and the expired submissions that happen more and more often.
What I'm saying is, I'd really like to hear a reply, so I know that all the admins aren't really dead and I haven't been left alone there for an unknown amount of time. I hope you understand my worries here.
Thank you for the time.
Shania.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Hello there again!
You're the founder of UD, right? So I've been thinking about this for a pretty long time and I thought I'd just come clear about it. If UD is slowly dying (which kind of seems so), it should be revolutionized! If you have become unactive or just can't give the group that much time anymore, the group's administration/board should be passed up for more active and capable handling. I'm just a contributor, so I'm kind of afraid to do things in the group without the founders' permission, but the group really needs some freshing up and a new journal and stuff...
I'll be waiting for a response.
Thank you for sparing your time,
UD Contributor, Shania.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Wow, it's been years since I even logged on... But thank you for the interest in keeping my old group alive! I'm willing to listen; just shoot me an email at pritenvora@gmail.com since I don't know when / if I'll log onto DA again and I'll try to help out as much as I can. Sorry for kinda disappearing off the face of the Earth for so long!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Wow, I just logged on after being inactive for well over a year... But a super-late thanks for the happy birthday!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Haha, no worries
You're very welcome
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I still remember you by the way... How are you?
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
hellow!
i really want to have a premium membership and i was wondering if you could help donate some points 
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I wonder what over a year would be... "Long time" seems like an understatement, doesn't it? 
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
*hugs* <---- I've been here! I missed you!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
And I have not forgotten you, either 
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Thank you thank you thank you!!!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
What do you think of my Fishermen At Sunset picture? It took a couple of days of editing. XD I'm very happy with it! - save for the man on the left. If there's a way to make him like the dude on the left, I'd do it. T.T
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I've already 
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Is there anything I need to work on concerning that photo?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I'm waiting until I have some more time to critique it in full
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Alright! Caint wait! XD
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
No problem!
[link]
Good luck compiling the next feature; I'm sure it'll be full of awesome stuff, especially if you use some of the artists I linked you to
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
thank you for your help
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Maybe I've just overlooked it and though it was something else 
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
If it still doesn't come then let me know.
👍: 0 ⏩: 2
So, what are my duties as a co-founder?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Not too much... You can vote on submissions, and I think you can move deviations from one gallery folder to another (in case someone accidentally puts them in the wrong one). You should be able to write blogs, and such, and you have a space in our "About Us" page. You can look at the Admin Area and answer questions on both the group's front page and questions that people send a note to the group for. You can invite people to some other positions (I think to Contributors and Moderators) and basically you're just below the Founder in terms of what you're allowed to do.
About accepting submissions - You should go to the deviation's page first and decide whether it's really underrated or not - the quality of the work versus the number of views / comments / favorites it has. Also to be taken into account is the sometimes ridiculous number of other groups the work has been submitted to. This isn't a deciding factor - if the quality of the work justifies it, then it's fine. But crappy deviations that were submitted to 75 groups and have 300 favorites despite being utter garbage are definitely not going to be accepted.
Other than that, everything you can do, should do, and need to do is pretty much just common sense. Just use good sense and help keep the group alive
Good luck!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
| Next =>