Fall day

[Mel23]

I'm wondering if I'm good enought to start photography. Any advice is welcome.

[Iguanasan]

Hi, Mel23. Welcome to the forum. Anyone can start photography, you only have to be "good enough" to make yourself happy with the results. It's not about pleasing other people.

This looks like a nice shot of the sky but really there isn't a very strong subject in it so it's hard to critique such a minimalist shot. It looks a little compressed but that may just be the board software if your image is larger than 1024 pixels and/or over 250KB.

[Bambi]

I'm wondering if I'm good enought to start photography. Any advice is welcome.

thank heavens I never had that thought! lol. I kind of like this. It might look really neat as a B&W.
Welcome :)

[Mel23]

I mean as more than a hobby.

[Yisehaq]

Just stick to this forum and the wonderful, helpful and friendly people in it and you will surprise yourself.

[Iguanasan]

I mean as more than a hobby.

So, are you asking us if you can make a living selling your work? If so, it's a little hard to tell from one or two images. Post a few more and let us get to know you. Take one or two of your best images and post it in the critique forum for an honest critique.

[Wicked Dark]

With any photo I want to know what drew the photographer to take it. With this I can't really tell, it's either the sky or the grass. Maybe the trees. Did you stay and work the location? I think isolating some of the grasses against that sky in a silhouette might have been effective.

[Mel23]

Ok, so the thing is I got a new SLR camera and took some pictures and since then have been told by a few people that I should take up photography, but I'm not sure if I'm 'good' enough at it. I'll post a few more and see what you think. Thanks.

With any photo I want to know what drew the photographer to take it
I love clouds and the sky. And I thought that this looked beautiful.
Even if I'm not 'good' enough at it, I'll always take pictures, especially of my daughter.

[Wicked Dark]

You'll get there. I think you need a faster shutter speed on the kid pics. She's blurry. And the grass, well, it's nice, but it's not there yet. With something so ubiquitous (I bet every regular here has a shot almost exactly like yours, I know I do) a person really has to work to make something special out of it. A photograph of something we've seen 1000 times has to be outstanding. Else we just go, oh yeah, another sunset/foliage shot/kid pic etc. Not every shot I take is calendar worthy, but some of them are good just because of the execution if not the subject. Practice, practice, practice. I've been doing this since 1985.

Don't let this put you off your game though. I'm in the middle of a blog post about how much you need to take pictures to get anywhere good at it. How as a photographer you have to burn a lot of film, or for you guys who never shot film, a lot of memory cards. You'll need to take thousands if not tens of thousands of pictures to get where you feel comfortable with your work and like a lot of it. That's the fun part though. If I come back with 5 out of 100 pictures I'm happy. When I started in the 80s I was lucky to get 5 out of 1000 that I don't think suck now. Photography expertise comes by doing.

[Mel23]

Thats good to know :) The pictures of my daughter are tricky though. Our house doesn't have very much light so to compensate I do the slower shutter speed. And I know what you mean about the grass. Its a shot you see everywhere. I'm at a stage now where I'm just going to have fun. Nothing has to come of it, except maybe beautiful pictures of my daughter and Gods Creation. Thanks though!

[Iguanasan]

...snip... I'm at a stage now where I'm just going to have fun. Nothing has to come of it, except maybe beautiful pictures of my daughter and Gods Creation. Thanks though!

That's the most important reason for doing anything. If you love it and keep doing it you will get better. If you do a little study and ask a few questions here and there you'll get better, faster. You've slowed the shutter to compensate for the low light. Another way to compensate is to turn on the flash. Then learn how to use flash settings and/or a diffuser to make the light softer and less harsh.... each step gets you further along the road.

Cheers!