Phill's Darkroom

[phillgt2002]

This is a place where I post my most recent photos. If you have any questions or any criticism, feel free to comment.

Flickr

Cameras I use:

Film
Nikon F2
Nikon N80
Minolta SRT 101
(Given to a friend)

Digital
Nikon D7000
Nikon D40

Lenses I use:

(I'll post what lenses I use sometime soon)
​

 

[phillgt2002]

My latest​

Digital
​

Film​

 

[nobuffalo]

I haven't really shared my stuff on this forum so I thought that I should give it a better go.

This criticism may not sound too constructive but you need a subject that draws the viewer in more. I feel it's a problem I also have. I like the large DOF in the first one but I think a wider lens would produce a better photograph, I want to see more of the tree. I want to see a kid swinging from one of the branches or maybe hiding from some friends. Maybe a line of ants or something crawling along the bark. The bark itself looks cool but there's too much distracting me from it, too much in the top right corner.

The lens flare in the second image is a bit distracting to me and once again I need a subject that draws me in. I like the colors but would like to see more detail in the trees on the left, if that means waiting a few hours until the sun is pointing on them then so be it, it would also get the grass out from the shadows.

I hope I'm not coming off too harsh and I don't want to give the impression I know what I'm doing...

My latest

These are much better!

 

[phillgt2002]

These are much better!

Yeah, living in Saint Louis isn't the best for a photographer. No coast, and just a bland and dull city. I try my hardest to do/find something the least bit of interesting.

 

[nobuffalo]

Yeah, living in Saint Louis isn't the best for a photographer. No coast, and just a bland and dull city. I try my hardest to do/find something the least bit of interesting.

I lived there for close to 4 years and I agree it's not the best city for photographers but ultimately I think it's how much effort you're willing to put into it. St Louis is an old city so there are plenty cool buildings and areas to photograph, you just gotta find them. I first got my camera when I lived in Houston and I blamed the area for my photographs but really it was just me.

edit: Just off the top of my head if you head any direction for about 1.5hrs you should be clear of the city lights and be in a good area to take some nice night sky shots. You can take HWY 94 southwest and get into some beautiful country. Hills, wineries, a river that runs along parts of the road and semi twisty roads, there's beautiful pictures to be taken. Missouri has some nice scenery, it took me moving to Houston to notice. I grew up around the cities of Martinsburg and Wellsville, they're near Mexico. Look them up, I can't wait to go back and photograph some of the fields, fences and farm roads. Serious!

edit 2: Had a look at your flickr and I gotta say, you have a lot of great stuff in there. Ignore my first post, feeling kinda silly now.

 

[35mm]

Sweet, another F80 (N80) around here.

What about glass? What are you using?

 

[phillgt2002]

Sweet, another F80 (N80) around here.

What about glass? What are you using?

I have alot of lenses, I'll name a few.. Most of these are Manual F only one AF with me.

Nikon Nikkor 18-55mm 1:3.6 AF

Nikon Nikkor 135mm 1:2.8 MF

Nikon Reflex- Nikkor.C 1:8 500mm MF

Nikon Nikkor 35-135mm 1:3.5-4.5 AF

Nikon 70-210mm 1:4 MF

Nikon Nikkor 50mm 1.4 AI-S I gave that to a friend because I though it was $55 and now the price is $469.95. I kicked my self in the nuts with that.


I have a few more that I have to fish out of my lens grave.

 

[phillgt2002]

My latest Work(s)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/phillkillv2/8385972154/in/photostream
​

 

[photonrider]

Nice shots - leading me to believe that you must master what entrances you - bokeh.
Master that, then you can break the rules significantly enough to warrant notice.

Haven't looked at all your work - so basing my comments on what you are showing here.

 

[phillgt2002]

Nice shots - leading me to believe that you must master what entrances you - bokeh.
Master that, then you can break the rules significantly enough to warrant notice.

Haven't looked at all your work - so basing my comments on what you are showing here.

What do you mean?

 

[phillgt2002]

I haven't been uploading at all in general. I don't have much to take photos of.

Film

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[Sprite]

I like the shots. Find what is common in your part of the world and aim to take 10 photos of the same thing but make them separate images that tell a story. I'm going to embark on a project soon. It's a 1000 image project with the first 100 this year I hope. I will place more in my thread soon.

 

[phillgt2002]

Audio Technicas​

http://www.flickr.com/photos/phillkillv2/8905517363/

 

[phillgt2002]

Finally got a new DSLR

I'm excited about the photos (and videos) I will have coming out of this thing.

​

 

[Mike Rotch]

Nice car

Are you intending it to be that underexposed?

 

[phillgt2002]

Nice car

Are you intending it to be that underexposed?

Yeah, you may see some of the other cars from my collection pop up in here.

The photos being underexposed wasn't intentional. I don't know why I didn't show the shutterspeed more. After I turned them monochrome, I darkened them somewhat, though even in the original, they were still somewhat underexposed.

 

[phillgt2002]

Still getting used to this camera. Some photos turned out weird, but I guess these are the ones I'm proud of.

This was just from a stroll through SF over the weekend. I got some good shots and I have a few that I haven't uploaded yet. Some shots just look weird to me in terms of the editing process.. kind of like a HDR effect.

Also, I lost the rubber eyepiece so I went to this camera shop in the very touristy part of SF (Embarcandero).. I walk in and tell the guy that I'm looking for one, and he says that it'll be $29.99 for the rubber piece... I kinda laugh at him and he knows that I'm not going to take that, so he starts negotiating the price and that's when I knew he was just a joke. I walked out. ​

 

[phillgt2002]

I took some shots at the venue that my friend played at. This guy let me use some of his glass which I'm really flattered that he let me, though he did tell me that he was only letting me use it because I knew one of the main members. He had a D750.. I was overflowed with jealousy.

I'm still fairly disappointed with them, but this is my first time taking photos of a live band and my first time not having the lighting conditions that I didn't want. It was dark, wild and unpredictable. I think it was an experience that I needed, but next time, I think that I would feel a bit better if I were at a place that didn't have impromptu WWE going on in the background.​

This also opened my mind when it comes to what kind of glass I'm using. I think it's time that I invest in a proper lens instead of using prime constantly. ​

Tried my best, but there is a-lot of work to be done when it comes to live audiences.

 

[Azuremen]

This also opened my mind when it comes to what kind of glass I'm using. I think it's time that I invest in a proper lens instead of using prime constantly.​

What?

 

[nobuffalo]

@phillkillv2 - I like what you're doing but I still feel like you're underexposing a bit. I'm not referring to the photos of the live band, they all seem pretty good although the last one does look a bit dark compared to the others, you can see this in the white striped shirt of the girl singer. Other than that I'm really digging them and you did much better than I for your first show, I only photographed mine a week ago and also was not happy with the results. In post #17 the 3rd photo and the rest below it appear to be dark as well. Are you familiar with your histogram and using the curves or levels tools in photoshop while editing? Levels alone would probably do the job.

I used all primes at my first show and can definitely see the appeal of a zoom lens in the range of 24-70, but that's not to say a prime isn't a proper lens, they both have their place.

 

[phillgt2002]

What?

Oops, I meant 'proper AF lens' since I didn't really have a good experience with the ones I do have. All of my primes are manual too.

The guy I spoke to had some really nice AF lenses to use and I thought that it's time to add one or two to my collection. I'll probably settle with a zoom since I have so many primes. It's nice to have versatility.

 

[phillgt2002]

@phillkillv2 - I like what you're doing but I still feel like you're underexposing a bit. I'm not referring to the photos of the live band, they all seem pretty good although the last one does look a bit dark compared to the others, you can see this in the white striped shirt of the girl singer. Other than that I'm really digging them and you did much better than I for your first show, I only photographed mine a week ago and also was not happy with the results. In post #17 the 3rd photo and the rest below it appear to be dark as well. Are you familiar with your histogram and using the curves or levels tools in photoshop while editing? Levels alone would probably do the job.

I used all primes at my first show and can definitely see the appeal of a zoom lens in the range of 24-70, but that's not to say a prime isn't a proper lens, they both have their place.

Yeah, I understand that that one of all is exposed. All I used was curves and levels with these, though with the last one, I'm not sure what happened.

I didn't mean to knock primes, as I said to Azure, I felt like it was maybe a time for a new AF zoom lens due to the versatility. That was just me wording terribly. Meh, I did these edits during work. Surprised I didn't get yelled at.

 

[phillgt2002]

I just looked through someones online portfolio and I had one of those 'I can do better than that' moments. I was looking through Craigslist to see if anyone was in need of automotive photography and I came up with nothing. I then went to the 'creative services' part of the site and typed in 'automotive' and started looking around at the services people were offering. There were a few people on there doing strictly automotive photography, but it was all just substandard.

I sort of feel like many automotive photos are over-edited. There is no need to slap on layers and layers of un-authentic HDR to have a 'good' shot, which the people I found were doing exactly that.

After seeing that, I decided to post to the local Cars & Coffee Facebook page stating that I would take shots for people who need/want them for free.

Free is the keyword. When I checked Craigslist, I wasn't interested in charging people for photos, so I decided to look elsewhere and I think that the Facebook group is the best place to start. I really want to get into automotive photography, so I'm looking to gain experience, not someones cash for some potentially mediocre photos.

I sure do hope that people will respond to my post, if not, I'll probably just go to the next Cars & Coffee in the SF Bay to let people know what I'm doing.

 

[phillgt2002]

Woah, that's a response.

One guy with a '67 Chevy Nova wants me to take photos for him, another wants photos of his 3 series taken, and one wants images of his custom bike.

One in particular invited me to their club cruise to do photo and video for them in June, but I had to turn it down because I'm not even sure I'll have time for it.

It's going to be interesting, but I'm excited.

 

[phillgt2002]

It's been a good while since I've posted in this thread. I somewhat took a break from taking photos, but now that I have something to work towards, I'm revving up again. I mentioned taking photos for people, but I haven't really executed that plan properly. I went to Cars & Coffee and got shots for people and amassed a bunch of likes on their Facebook page, but I feel like that isn't enough.

I left that meet frustrated for two reasons.

1. There were too many kids running around unattended. (Not all that big of a deal, but kind of annoying.)

2. My best composed shots came out blurry and just generally a mess. I think I may have to get contacts, because my glasses are getting in the way of the shots.

Just a random shot.

I had to drop my brother off at the airport and I had his car. It was around 5am and the sun had just started to rise in San Francisco, so I just had to get some shots at Twin Peaks.

I love those two shots. I didn't really edit them all too much.

This shot in particular is weird. I don't know what I did while I was editing, but it looks like there is something wrong with the area near the sun.

Well, those are a few shots I have together. I'm somewhat okay with them, but there is always room to improve.

The next meet that I'm attending is the Evo2 meet by Evolution. It's probably the biggest meet in the West? I'm not sure, but that's what I've found out. There will be tons of cars out, but I'm going to try and get some one on one time with the owners.

👍 It's nice to know that I've found something that I truly love doing.

I can't wait for the Evo2 meet this Saturday.

 

[nobuffalo]

Those took some time to load and maybe half didn't work at all, it could be my internet but if not you should try posting them in a different way.

I don't know if you left the door open intentionally for the Mini shot but I do like that it's open, I feel like it tells a bit more of a story. I prefer the second shot of the Mini over the first. 👍

 

[phillgt2002]

Those took some time to load and maybe half didn't work at all, it could be my internet but if not you should try posting them in a different way.

I don't know if you left the door open intentionally for the Mini shot but I do like that it's open, I feel like it tells a bit more of a story. I prefer the second shot of the Mini over the first. 👍

I figured out the problem. The images linked were very large and ate up bandwidth. I sized them down.

I left the door open intentionally. I did that because it would have looked uninteresting with the door closed.

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[phillgt2002]

About to start an Instagram project.

Naming is done, and I've drafted a few logos. I'll post information about it in the next few days (or weeks).

I'm just now learning that Instagram is a foolproof way to share your images with the general public. I've gotten so many questions along the lines of " What's your E-mail.", or obviously "What's your Instagram?"

Feels weird to tell people that I don't have one. Well, now I will, but it won't be your standard selfie Instagram.