getting better?

I agree. Years ago I was a fledgling photographer and found myself of a rather violent demonstration, ending up alongside a veteran European photographer using a Leica and working for Black Star or Reuters (can't remember). He said, "If I get one good one per roll, I'm making a living."
 
Bob Michaels said:
Joe: could it possibly be that you are subconsciously only doing the comfortable photos because you don't want many losers? I think you have to act like you are in a home run contest. You have to think that a base hit, a double or even a triple is the same as a strike out, only home runs count. And no one is tracking your batting average. No one cares how many bad photos you made, even the good ones. Only the ones with potential to be great count.

Take chances. Convince yourself there is nothing wrong with shooting all day and editing everything out. No one cares about your 3th best photo of the day or your 50th best of the year, you shouldn't either. Be thrilled with the day where you busted your *ss all day and got one photo you really like.
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I agree with Bob completely... I think sometimes it's great to go out and make tons of pictures, with no expectation of anything being worthwhile. And I think that what Bob is doing with the cuba/florida project is another great thing to do, as for many people the focus of a project really helps them to hone in on exactly what they want. I went to Tibet last year and took some of my best pictures, and I can't wait to go back, maybe in '12 or '13, with more knowledge and better ideas, to challenge myself to make better ones.

To answer Joe's question, I do feel I have been improving, actually, with shooting digital since late '07, mostly just with practice.
 
Bob Michaels said:
Joe: could it possibly be that you are subconsciously only doing the comfortable photos because you don't want many losers? I think you have to act like you are in a home run contest. You have to think that a base hit, a double or even a triple is the same as a strike out, only home runs count. And no one is tracking your batting average. No one cares how many bad photos you made, even the good ones. Only the ones with potential to be great count.

Take chances. Convince yourself there is nothing wrong with shooting all day and editing everything out. No one cares about your 3th best photo of the day or your 50th best of the year, you shouldn't either. Be thrilled with the day where you busted your *ss all day and got one photo you really like.
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honest, i'm not that deep...

part of my frustration is that i rarely find myself in certain situations to shoot...i am a worsening loner and while i'd like to shoot more informal, friendly portrait type shots i am rarely with people (not counting work)...etc.
 
improving your photography through forced randomness or chance

improving your photography through forced randomness or chance

I am a believer that left to our own devices, we will do similar things over and over again because they are comfortable. Sometimes we need something to force ourselves out of out comfort zone.

Doug McCulloh did a series / book based on dividing metro Los Angeles into 5,151 grids, each 1/4 mile square. For six years he selected a 1/4 mile square grid at random and photographed it. Sometimes it was a residential area, sometimes industrial, sometimes a ghetto, sometimes in the middle of an interstate. His book, "Chance Encounters" published by the California Museum of Photography is a good testimonial what one can do when forced to accept randomness as a part of their photography.

Going one step further, Doug curated an exhibit done by blind photographers, the ultimate of chance. This was the subject of a thread here at RFF where most were closed minded and could not accept that someone who was blind could make interesting photos. I find the exhibit really creative.
 
Bob Michaels said:
I am a believer that left to our own devices, we will do similar things over and over again because they are comfortable. Sometimes we need something to force ourselves out of out comfort zone.
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I believe that you are exactly right. I would add that then we find whatever it was we were anxious about was really no big deal.
 
raid said:
Oh well... you said it. I used to uses ropes to explore lesser known canyons (at the time), and I used to use a compass and custom newsletters to learn about the best known locations for dawn and sunrise shots ... etc.

Now, I take photos of my children.I enjoy that part a lot too. The challenge is to get better at children photography.
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Raid,

I used to get Outdoor Photographer and loved their list showing the sunrise/sunset times at different lattitudes. Now I can't find it.

Any idea where I can get that same easy-to-read chart so I won't have to get rid of my compass?:p
 
Do I think I'm better at photography?

Do I think I'm better at photography?

In a word no.

For more than 45yrs most of what I've taken would be considered snapshots.So no, any improvement will be a long drawn out process in the few short years I have left

I like some of the prospective I've seen here and on other sites.

With the advent of the internet the scope of whats happening is exploding all around me.

For me ,others ideas have sparked an interest in trying new to me pictures and if I'm lucky some will be worth the wait.
 
Probably not getting better on any objective measurable scale. But I am finding and getting more comfortable with my "style". And i do not really care that much if other people like my pics or not (fortunately i do to have to make a living with photography ;-)).
In addition I have way to much gear and different systems, but over the last two years sets have emerged that I kind of learned to get nice results with (portrait, travel, carry about, kids, cityscape, landscape).

Buying cameras and lenses and trying a lot of different things pays off (sometimes ;-)).

Ciao

Joerg
 
to my amazement, the less serious i take the process, of actual picture taking, the 'better' (whatever that means) i get.

i learnt the rules, shot the rules and edited according to the rules.

about 4 years ago i became far more interested in the actual people then the act of photographing them. that single act sent my work in a whole new direction.

not making any rules myself. just sharing what worked for me.
 
emraphoto said:
...about 4 years ago i became far more interested in the actual people then the act of photographing them...
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So why don't you write about them instead of shooting?

Hey, just kidding!!! :p I totally agree with you: only when we feel, we can produce images that express... Going out feeling too uninvolved emotionally speaking (because of attitude or because of lack of real stories), can produce a few occasional images, but when we shoot things that move us, the strength in those images is a different thing... It's people what matters, and what we should care about, not gear or technical aspects of photography: those should be resolved before... I guess that's what many artists in different fields mean when they say "it must come from inside, and if it comes from outside, it doesn't work..."

Cheers,

Juan
 
The cool thing for me about photography is that it is a blend of art and science, of rationalization and intuition. To improve the creative aspect, one must be so comfortable with the technical aspect that it does not interfere with the creative. So, practise, practise, practise, in order to get to the point where you no longer have to think about the technical, in order to be freed from it.
 
Yes, it's a blend and a blend of blends at lots of levels... We must use what's outside to show what's inside... Quite unique in plastic arts... Sorry, I'm one of those feeling photography can be art sometimes...

Cheers,

Juan
 
except for my start up with the x100, i have not had to think much about the technical aspect of using a camera...

i don't think i have anything to say...i see life more as a series of vignettes and i tend to shoot that way...in single images. even though i have been shooting the local farmers' market for years i have not developed a story about it...just a series of one time images...
 
Hi Joe,

I meant the stories are there, not that one's got to develop stories in any way as a photographer... About what photographers have to say, there are two parts: reality, and what the photographer does to communicate it visually... Those show what we feel (who we are as individuals) and what we do (who we are as photographers and our style if there's any) Then, the viewer is who makes the story... We're a clean bridge, or should be...

Cheers,

Juan
 
Not getting better or worse but had to change my style. Away from snaps of people at night in coolish Sapporo with open-minded people to mostly weekend & daytime snaps of stressed-out salary-men and office-ladies in the parks of Tokyo ... :eek:
 
Sometimes I look back and feel like I've gotten a lot better. Other times I look back and think that some of my first pictures were pretty ok and that I'm not really surpassing them now. Yet other times I look back on stuff that I felt really happy with and thought that I was really starting to figure things out and I now wonder why I didn't write it off as crap then and there.

I know that even if people were constantly telling me that I was doing something good I still wouldn't listen. Part of my personality takes it in and appreciates it, the other part says that just because they like it doesn't necessarily mean that it's good and that I should keep trying until I like it.

I try to take a lot of pictures. I try to think about why they did or didn't "work." I do the same thing with other people's pictures. I constantly re-evaluate both and see what's changed or what's new. I find something to like in things I don't like and try to figure out what the photographer was thinking. I try to apply strategies when I shoot sometimes but other times just photograph to see what chance can teach me. I keep photos around for a while that I think are bad or just not great to see if they grow on me.

I guess really I just try to think about stuff and come up with ideas about how to photograph, but remind myself that I don't know **** and shouldn't think that I do. I've only been photographing for a year-ish now so I guess it's easy to have that attitude. It might be harder if I keep doing this.
 
No, as far as my ability to take a good picture goes, I have not improved, at least in the last 30 years or so. I learned the basics early on - I developed my first film in the 1960s. I bought nice cameras in the 1970s and went into the photography business in 1976. Over the next 20 years I developed a style that has stayed with me ever since. The pictures I take today resemble those I took then as far as subject, composition, focus, and exposure go (with perhaps a bit of the aforementioned energy - and enthusiasm - of youth in the earlier stuff.)

What I HAVE improved at is putting thought into how I present groups and series of those pictures. In fact I have been studying how to put a series together for the past seven years. Everything I shoot these days is based on putting it together with other images or installations. Project shooting has nearly eclipsed opportunistic shooting for me.
 
Last six months, not really. I've let myself get too tied up in work, etc to spend the time taking pictures I need to improve.

The six months before that I was shooting much more. Refining how I develop/expose, getting more comfortable with estimating, taking fewer shots of peoples backs, etc.

Work will likely dominate time for hobbies for a long time. I'm not sure if I'll make another jump like I did the previous 2 years.
 
Chris101 said:
What I HAVE improved at is putting thought into how I present groups and series of those pictures. In fact I have been studying how to put a series together for the past seven years.
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Bingo!
I used to shoot without an aim in mind, just capturing scenes and moments.
Therefore the "interesting" level of my pictures are severely dictated by the scenes or subjects available to me.

That would be fine if I can afford to do world travel more, or if I live in some ancient city or nearby majestic natural structures (like the Rockies). But I don't.

So as of late my aim is to produce a series of cohesive and themed shots. The key difference is the mindset that *anything* can be made a theme. It's far more challenging to create but when you got it right, it's more rewarding than that "once-in-a-lifetime" lucky shot.

And, you can do this no matter where you live.
 
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