Thoughts, notes, quotes, and approaches that have helped your photography.

I

itf

itchy trigger finger
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Reading a few other threads recently got me thinking it would be interesting to hear others thoughts, ideas, and approaches about what has helped their photography. For instance, while I rarely make a note about the technical side of my exposures has been, I do sometimes make notes about my state of mind that day, the way I approached the subject, even the way I moved.

Also, often when I'm reading, watching, or listening to something, I'll notice something that could well be applied to photography (often because it applies to life in general).

Then theres the notes and quotes of other photographers that can help.

So, regardless of genre or anything, do you have any thoughts, notes, quotes, or approaches that have been useful or interesting?

A few to get things started (I'll have to try and find/remember more):

Allen Ginsberg: "First thought, best thought."

Don't search; keep a wide view (from my notebook).

Photography is in the framing (the gist of some Winogrand thing I read).
 
I look a lot, and I watch.

Such as at exhibitions (not photo stuff), in the street, advertising, movies, lifestyle magazines.

I take a camera everywhere with me, and after the looking and watching I sometimes see.

Click.
 
Colin Glanfield (advertising photographer): "The day you stop learning, you're dead."

* * * * *

The last line from the following conversation with Terence Donovan (famous for his use of the f-word):

TD: "Let's face it, cameras are so f***ing cheap, you can buy a new f***ing camera for each f***ing job."

RH: "Maybe you can, but we're not all Terence Donovan."

TD: "Not my problem, sunshine."

* * * * *

Cheers,

R.
 
"My first rule was that if a negative didn't work rather than fixing it in the darkroom I would take another exposure. I'd never crop and the only dodging I'd do was to even out a print."

Harry Callahan
 
Sparrow said:
“I do whatever it says on the box” a lecturer in back in 1970’ish
Click to expand...

When using my Welti and Minolta 16 in Vietnam, I used to follow the data sheets closely, based on the advice of the old sarge in my evidence photo clase. Surprising how well it worked. When I got the Yashica TL Super, I got introduced to TTL match needle. It worked too.

Andrew Sowerby said:
I realized a while ago that I very rarely regret taking a picture, but I often regret not taking a picture.
Click to expand...

Now that is simple but profound.
 
I learned from a book about mid tone exposure and using light reflected on my tanned skin as 1/2 stop underexposed. When in doubt I meter for my hand to give me slight overexposure. Easier to do than to explain :)
 
Gaspar said:
I learned from a book about mid tone exposure and using light reflected on my tanned skin as 1/2 stop underexposed. When in doubt I meter for my hand to give me slight overexposure. Easier to do than to explain :)
Click to expand...
Good for tranny, not for neg. With slides, exposure is keyed to the highlight: anything more than about 3 stops lighter than your hand will 'blow'. With negs, where exposure is keyed to the shadows, the only way to SURE of giving adequate exposure (and no more) for shadow detail is to meter the shadows directly.

Most of the time it won't matter, but of course, the darkest shadow in the scene you are metering might be anything from the same as your hand (open dunes) to 5 stops or more down (cave mouth...)

Cheers,

R.
 
"Walk and look, walk and look, walk and look"

Can't remember who had this simple but great description of how they work. But I liked it.

Cheers,
Gary
 
A few HCB quotes that had a big effect on me.

As far as I am concerned, taking photographs is a means of understanding, which cannot be separated from other means of visual expression. It is a way of shouting, of freeing oneself, not of proving or asserting one’s own originality. It is a way of life.

“ I was determined to trap life, to preserve life in the act of living. Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence in the confines of a single photograph of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes.”
 
itf,

That beat credo is something I think applies well to shooting.
Especially small camera work.

Cheers,
Gary
 
"You can't photograph if you're not in love"

I interpret that as being in love with the world, not a more specific way. I find if I walk into a city or a town and I love the people, their food, their clothes, the way they speak I walk away with superb photos.
The moment I feel a little down and want to be somewhere else I can't get good imagery from it. Even if I take a step outside my position and realize that maybe I love it because it reminds me of somewhere else, or if I suck it up and look for things that interest me, things to love, I start taking good photos again.

I don't know who said it either - I saw it somewhere once and I can't remember where.
 
My personal turning point in photography came when I realised that I should only take pictures of things that I truly find interesting.

Before that, I would take pictures of things I didn't care about, with the hope that the final photograph itself would be interesting. (Of course, they never were.)
 
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