To ask what you think of these photos?

[WannabePhotographer]

My username says it all, I love photography and would love to be one one day. Please give them a second to
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Lovely picture 📸

I get a Wes Anderson vibe from them.

Those are good @ForeverDelayedEpiphany

He actually doesn’t like photographing people so it isn’t like that at all. I questioned the quality of the camera because even a phone is capable of being in focus and these photos are so badly out of focus hence the potato comment. Now knowing the camera it is pretty shocking. Also not sure why anyone shots on auto, usually a sign they don’t know how the camera works.

I like the updated photos a lot more, especially the one with the reflection off the river.

Geez! Harsh!!

Join a camera club, you will get lots of help & information. I belong to one & have had lots of information on how to good photographs

I think the slightly out of focus look was stylistic. I actually like that.

That is very kind, thank you 😊 xx

Love these!

OP don’t give up. I got really into photography over a decade ago. I knew nothing about it at all so I took a photography class. We didn’t display photos in the class but we took half a day to learn about the camera and how it works and WHY it works the way it does. One of the main things we learned was not to shoot on automatic. We learned how to adjust the camera setttings based on the environment, lighting etc. it opened up a whole new world for me.

Then every day I would spend at least an hour taking a picture of the same object using the different setting to see what kind of picture it would produce. Then I would shine light on the object in different positions and learned which setting worked best in each lighting. And again it was like bingo - so many thing just fell into place for me. After that I never shot on automatic again unless it was just random spur of the moment situations.

Im still not great and I haven’t picked up my camera in many years but I really enjoyed that learning stage. And I took some pretty decent pics that I’m proud of and I think that’s all that matters really.

These are good

I wonder if you'd find this helpful to watch? it's a Ted talk about grit and how persevering is key to doing well in life.

I like your photos fwiw, the second set lots, the first I like the houses and I like the bus stop! Everyone has different taste anyhow.

I agree that the photo of the houses is a nice composition and shows promise. The thing about any skill it life is that you have to be bad at it before you can get good at it. You can’t walk into anything. You literally need to take hundreds of pictures like these and over time you will find your eye and what subject matter you gel with.

Go to the library and read books about photography/composition/light/colour. Others have given good suggestions: join your local camera club or take a course.

If you are worried about putting more money into and not getting good, then there are hundreds of decent YouTube how to channels about photography in all aspects.

Yes, you might need to sell your camera but that might be because you find you need a different type for the sorts of pics you want to take.

Start with lenses. Fixed lenses are usually better. I don’t think what you are using at the moment is any good for bid landscapes but worked well with the medium street scene.

Someone up thread mentioned the rule of thirds, that will really help you.

The ‘Read this is you want to take great photographs’ series is also useful for starting out.

You could have put Martin Parr’s photos up and people would still have said you lack talent… Come on, it’s Mumsnet!

I always remember I met up with my best friend from childhood as an adult and she has a job in illustration and I said “oh yes I remember you were always amazing at drawing as a kid. I wish I could draw” and she said “you used to say that when we were kids but you just sat next to me and never drew”.

And she’s right. There I was not ever putting any effort in at all and acting as if she’d magically got good at drawing even when I watched her draw constantly as a child and I knew she’d studied for years after too.

I am now decently good at chess and ironically it annoys me when people tell me I am lucky I have a logical brain or get irritated when they cannot beat me even though they only just know the rules.

Can you imagine the hours of playing, reading, studying, tactics practice, learning openings? I was absolutely not a natural chess genius. I’d say compared to the average person who specifically has an interest in chess I was a bit worse. I’m not ever going to be a grandmaster but I am better than pretty much anyone I meet outside of those who are very into the hobby.

Natural talent does exist in some ways but it’s only really relevant to the very top level - the best in the world. For everyone else who is good and who makes money out of things, they just practised. A lot.

It’s the same for everything. So many of us talk like people woke up one day and won the skill lottery. Like they stepped up to a piano and did a little tune. Completely ignoring the years and years of practicing and getting things wrong and keeping on going every single day. Every single day is a lot. It’s not like my uncle taught me three blind mice on holiday and I found I had a knack for it. It’s imagining every time you’ve had dinner since you were a kid. They’ve practised as often as that. That is so much.

I dreaded opening this thread as Mumsnet isn’t often the place to be earnest or proud of something you do but actually a lot of posts have been quite nice or neutral.

I don’t know anything about photography so I cannot help. I’m baffled though that you’d think they must be so bad you’d be embarrassed to learn with other amateurs. They’re really just perfectly normal photographs. Why would you know as much as people who have learned all the theory?

I really like your composition and framing of the pictures, OP.

Wow, tough crowd.

It's not like there's anything wrong with the photographs but if you are hoping to make money from photography then you really need to look into it very deeply. Who do you think pays for photographs? There are fashion photographers and news photographers who are out in war zones. Are you prepared to do those jobs? I bet if you were to do a head count of everyone on Mumsnet who had bought a landscape photograph you would be in single figures. Who do you think you would be selling photos to? This isn't a critique of your photos which are lovely, I'm just wondering who you think your customer would be. Of course there are wedding photographers but it's a very crowded marketplace and they will often get a better photo from a friend at the wedding.

Don't give up on something that you love. I love photography too and spend ages faffing with different angles etc. To be honest I find a decent Samsung phone camera to be as good as any medium priced digital camera. I absolutely no pro at all. I get really annoyed when my husband comes along and snaps a better photo than me!

Keep going. Do a few online courses (even just YouTube) and enjoy it. I get my favorites printed off / put them on to canvas and put them on my walls.

Well that's not true. I was a shit programmer when I started... two decades later I'm.still getting paid so I must have got less shit.

I've yet to meet anyone born with a neutral talent to just code Unix so I'm guessing we all started shit and got better. Apart from people who invented it.

I sew for a hobby. I'm not amazing and never will be but when I finish something I'm delighted with it. It's fun. It will never be a career.

I like your second upload (B&W) a lot. I think they work really well. Also love the colourful street photo from the first upload.

My DH is a very keen amateur photographer, he joined a local photography society, entered competition and put his photos out there for feedback on how to make them better. He takes hundreds of photographs on both film and digitally and out of those hundreds less than 1% are actually put forward for competition.

A lot of the art of photography is in the post processing. The good photographs that you see are very rarely just snapped. They are brightened, cropped, straightened, coloured etc etc. you need to learn how to do this to make your photos the best you can.

I have helped to judge photos and the first ones you posted lack clarity and focus. They do look like holiday snaps and whilst they would not win any prizes, you like them.

Maybe you should take your camera off auto and learn what all the different settings do. This is where your local photography society can help you.

The other thing you could do is find some thing that you love doing. Most photographers have a"thing" be it wildlife, portraits, landscape, sculpture, fashion. Find what floats your boat and practice practice practice.

Nobody starts out being good at anything, it takes hours and hours of practice and work. If your going to be precious about criticism, photography is really not for you.

Hey OP, I suggest a trip to Norway.

You’d get some nice pictures of trolls there.

😂

I think the bus stop picture is the most important piece, containing as it does the most compelling yet fleeting metaphor.
At first glance a mundane scene of urban transit, it unfurls layers of profound metaphor, inviting contemplation on the nature of time and existence. The structure, poised in the liminal space between destinations, embodies the paradox of human waiting—caught in the dissonance between the present and an uncertain future. Here, time is both fleeting and interminable. The act of waiting—seemingly passive—becomes a metaphor for the constant flux of life itself. Like the bus, the promise of a future moment remains perpetually just out of reach, never fully realized, yet always anticipated.
The bus, a symbol of transient movement, encapsulates the inevitability of change, its arrival marking an end to this suspended moment. Yet, the empty scene—the stillness of the human form—reminds us of the waiting that persists even as we rush toward change. This intersection of stasis and motion, of hope and uncertainty, is an allegory for the human condition: we are always anticipating, but never fully in control. The transient nature of the bus stop itself, a temporary structure waiting for the inevitable passage of time, mirrors the ephemeral nature of existence.
In this moment, the bus stop ceases to be a mere physical space and becomes an arena for existential reflection. The ticking of time, evidenced by the rising and setting of the sun, the inevitable arrival of the bus, and the silent contemplation of the subject, suggests that life is not a series of movements toward definite ends but a continuous oscillation between what is and what could be. Thus, the bus stop becomes a microcosm of life's perpetual journey—a station we never truly arrive at, for we are always en route.