LA StarShooter wrote:
"As an internationally-recognized industry professional and amateur photographer, I've worked with many of the world's most beautiful and exotic models from Sports Illustrated, Maxim, FHM, Seventeen, Penthouse, Playboy, and Hustler, from places like the Kharkiv, Kharkivs'ka, Ukraine; Staten Island, New York; Indianapolis, Indiana, and Atlanta, Georgia, as well as all throughout Florida. I am often one of a traveling model's preferred photographers when traveling to Ohio."

If you have a style, it is boring, snapshotish, and it would be terrible to be ". . .internationally-recognized. . ." for that.  The photos show no mastery of composition and angle, tonality, lighting. The one that Thomas linked to it is a lone standout and looks like a fluke. Why ask for critique if you can't grow?

X2
It might hurts, but I thought the exact samething. Looking at your portfolio, I see an amateur with one or two great shot.
It seems like your description is a fake it until you make it, but to make it, you'll have to try different things, because now, it's not working yet.

Wild Side wrote:
After looking at the album, please note it is organized by most recent. Do you see any major improvements from the first few photos to the recent ones? Are there any periods where I was lacking in skill or technique?

From start to finish, your work shows a fairly consistent lack of control of light and most of your work is of snapshot quality.

Your profile write-up is terribly overblown... even moreso considering the quality of your portfolio. The fact that you took a trip to Ukraine and shot some girls there doesn't make you "internationally recognized." And name-dropping bad. Listing all those grand media names doesn't make your work any more impressive. It just raises expectations higher... expectations you don't meet.

Wild Side wrote:
Thanks. I appreciate the feedback.

But will you heed any of it?

Wild Side wrote:
I took the time to upload some of the popular photos from Facebook to my Unassigned Album to serve as my main portfolio for now. Please have a look and critique away and DO NOT try to detract a negative reviewer from me (unless they're going out of hand and critiquing out of the Unassigned Album): https://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/3008258/0

After looking at the album, please note it is organized by most recent. Do you see any major improvements from the first few photos to the recent ones? Are there any periods where I was lacking in skill or technique?

Critique away.

Just looking at your Unnassigned Album, the first is the newest to the last is the oldest ( typing this out to confirm the critique is within the boundaries your asking for)

you seem to have plateau with your current strategy where your stuck in a conundrum. Simply put your not improving, where you get a lucky shot then just falls off. I notice you don't really use Flash, I think it's time for light modifiers. I'm a bokeh nut when it comes to photos and I try to go with the lowest f-stop and never crank it up lol, even if your have to up the shutter speed or get a filter to cut down on the light. try a 50mm 1.4 , speed lights, umbrella and practice with that on models you should see a dramatic improvement then start to move up from there or just around the house. I notice your cropping in which takes away from resolution (makes it looks fuzzy and poor resolution).

Orca Bay Images wrote:

But will you heed any of it?

I already have...

1) I stopped using Flash so the models wouldn't look flushed.
2) I try to pay more attention to rule of thirds, although I noticed I cut off the goth girl's hand. That is an unedited photo and when she is done with college finals I suspect she'll request that to be edited.
3) I made my backgrounds as blurry as my 18-55 (and now) 55-200mm zoom lens allows, although I am usually at 5.6 and sometimes lower.
4) For the goth girl and the new fitness girl (same girl) I used a tripod. The problem is during the goth shoot the wind was very heavy and I think that's why those photos were blurry.
5) For the new fitness and fight shoot I also used Sports mode because it produced clearer photos and will allow me to study them when I come back from hiatus.
6) For most of my newer stuff I also used focus, though like I said during the windy day it appeared to throw it off track. The model loves those photos so I'm not discouraged over them - just know how to avoid the issue in the future.
7) I bought a better camera and I use Photoshop now.
8) I only paid 1 model and paid 1 for gas and another one in outfits, out of 12 so far. It's been my best year financially.

Most of those changes implemented were brought to my attention last year around this time thanks to MM members like yourself. I do take my time to improve since I use the camera for models right now. If I get to go to Arizona with my brother I will be photographing landscapes like crazy the best my camera and lens can.

Again I do this as a hobby and I am still pretty young. I only started with a DSLR for about 6 months and turned away paid offers, been published in a magazine, and am officially affiliated with two international modeling organizations, all within these 6 months. Plus I am trying to get my film funding and that's more important to me than a couple models here and there especially when at the young age of 32 I have many years to actually improve and can take this more serious when the time comes. Until then I do what I do and it's worked well for me, going on 4 years in model photography and 5 years in entertainment.