@yRaz OK, I never insulted your art_full stop
What is obvious is that we have entirely different directions-choices-interests, in subject matter. "Urban landscape" is cool. It's as valid as any other genre of subject matter.
I couldn't get your night shot to display at "full res". Maybe I didn't try hard enough. It topped out around 2,000 pixels (I'm behind a a vertical 1080p monitor). As I said earlier, our cameras are, in some ways "twins", which puts full resolution @ 6000 x 4000.
Standard kit lenses are decent. Yes, they're slow, and in the case of Nikon, they have garbage plastic lens mounts. I use my (2) 18 to 55s as body caps, along with a 50 mm f1.8 "screwdriver"
I'd rather be thought of as a good to great amateur, hobbyist if you will, than a "pro" wedding photographer. I hate the entire concept of weddings. They're just money wasting artificial ceremonial excuses to make her feel important, which carry over, more often than not, into ugly divorces.
In fact, half the a**holes that fancy themselves as "pro wedding shooters", are delusional and incompetent. My (now estranged 56 YO), "kid", had to have a "pro", (no doubt by her demand),. Which is just as well, since I don't remember the "obligatory" shot sequence. I did get him to admit that my shot of them arriving at the church and getting out of the car was the best. Well, I hightailed it after the ceremony. After which, their "pro", managed to shot almost the entire reception with the back wall in sharp focus, but none of the people. I pointed it out, he didn't seem to want to hear it.
Later (?), I made a trip back to Community to borrow the color printer. I was in the darkroom with a young student who had apparently talked a friend into letting her shoot their wedding. She was banging out her prints at an astounding rate. I was left insecure and humbled, with only one or two completed. As it turned out, color correction wasn't her strongest suit, and the entire mess was about .50 too cyan.(Basically, no recognizable skin tones) If, (in the impossible scenario), that it was my wedding, I would have strangled her. Many? some? people approach "professional photography", seemingly ignoring their actual abilities. Photographing people opening Christmas presents boors me to tears. So do most people in general, but that's a topic for another time.
Moving on to post processing, you have to realize that what you see, isn't, and never will be, what your camera sees. I'm far from a Photoshop "expert". I've used the watered down "Photoshop Elements" for two decades. In the case of your downtown snow scene, I imagine seeing what I would have seen, had I been there. The composition is fine. However, I think I would have seen a bit more C-sat, contrast, and sharpness, particularly front and center around the street bus route sign, and a touch of post is the only way to recover it.
Modern life, progress, old age, and a somewhat impatient prostate, have taken a lot of fun out of the subjects I enjoy most in photography. No more, "holding it", for a hundred mile motorcycle ride to Wildwood NJ to shoot the people and the amusements.
Willow Grove NAS is now, I think, an apartment complex. The main runway ran right in front of the grandstand. There was nothing as awe inspiring as watching the "Blue Angels" blast off, all 10 engines in zone 4 afterburner, from a couple of hundred feet away. The shows at McGuire AFB have been cancelled, pandemic, budget, blah, blah. Even the AC airshow didn't happen this year. Old age is what it is. you retreat further into your home, accomplish much less, and take much longer to accomplish even that.
I like action, ice skating shows were a big draw. (Yes, I'm straight, I took my pee pees when the men's singles did their thing). The ticket prices are now sky high, and you can't get in with a decent camera, it would get confiscated at the door. I devised a plan though, by way of the bar, Body under my shirt, 80 to 200 down my pants, film in my pockets, lens hood around my wrist. Going into the bar first, bypassed the doormen. Ringling Bros. were the absolute worst. you couldn't get in with a camera, but they'd sell you a 10 shot useless throwaway for 10 bucks or so.
Moving back to vignetting, you make a fuzzy oval selection, center frame, "invert selection", make a new layer, and work up the brightness to match the layer below it. Yeah, it's a PitA, but so is paying $2800 for a new G-Master II 70 to 200. And.....you can recover a stop or so without it becoming too readily apparent.
In any case, I've turned on my flicker lamps, have probably said too much, should start on my Saturday night load, fire up some music from the distant past, and off load my capture cards, (I've become somewhat negligent about that), I'll wait til later to fire up the Lava lamps.
(They're hard to come by these days, don't wanna wear them out.)
Happy Saturday night, and Cheers...!
