If you could turn time back what would you change about your photography?

I would have shot more cliches.

Photography has been a great career, and is personally fulfilling to this day. But, looking back over the last five decades, I'm not sure that photographs have enduring value. I do not now think we were intended to remember the past with such clarity. In digital's favor, photos are now ephemeral. No more are they objects or artifacts, only smoke.
 
As a current 100% b/w film shooter I would have in hindsight:

Not succumb to GAS and just stick to one system each for 135 and 6x6. Not take the detour into digital which wasted 10 years. Not shoot color at all. Not bother with scanners and inkjets. Instead I should have honed my skills in the darkroom in film processing and printing.
 
Phil_F_NM said:
If I could turn back time...

Phil Forrest
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That was bound to happen... :D :D :D


I'd probably have started earlier to give some thought about the relation between reality and photographs. "The object and the photo are not the same"-kinda stuff. I find I want to add photographic vision to the content of the photo, not merely depict found reality in an image.

In the past few years I've grown more aware of the surreal aspects of photography and actively look for opportunities to incorporate those aspects in my pictures.

I find it's a long way to get to a place where I can experience a sense of accomplishment when it comes to that, I'm just a too figurative and reality-conscious person to easily escape the picture=object trap...:eek:
 
I'd have had more faith in myself in my early 20s and worked a lot harder at photography, going to more exhibitions, having more exhibitions myself, going to the Rencontres at Arles every year. Probably teaching it too, at least by my early 30s. As it was, I thought, "Oh, nobody makes a living at photography" and I treated it as a hobby for far too long.

Even when I started to earn a living from writing about it, I did not make enough effort to make a name for myself as a photographer. Admittedly there are very few people who are well known as photographers and as writers on the subject, but I like to think I could have been one of them. It's probably too late to find out now.

Cheers,

R.
 
brbo said:
I just started. I'm working hard to make all the mistakes as quickly as possible.
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Mistakes are what we learn from so use them wisely.

The thing I'm trying to overcome is every image must be perfect. I've made my living as a commercial photographer and clients expect perfection in every shot. After many years working tword perfection it's hard to look at ones own work and not be excessively critical.

Several years ago I was pulling negatives to print for a show that I was doing for a museum. I pulled one neg that I'd printed for over thirty years. It was well exposed and quite sharp. The subject had the intensity I liked as well. This time though I started looking at some other negs of the same subject in the series that I had not printed for technical reasons. This time I forced myself to select one I had never printed but was clearly a more dramatic image. The neg was a touch less sharp than my usual image. Anyway I printed it and the visual impact was much greater.

Because of my commercial background and drive for perfection I'm afraid I've not always printed the most impactful images. I'm forcing myself to select images based on that impact not the technical aspects. I'm also trying to free myself of that curse when I shoot my own work. Thinking back I've missed some great images while getting focus and exposure perfect. I find I have to remind myself it's about content not technical perfection.

If I could turn time back I would try to retain that spontaneous free spirited style I had in the 60's and 70's and worry less about technical aspects.
 
My father in laws mother died a few months back. After her funeral everyone sat back and looked at the old photos of her. My father in law started to cry and said that he'd never realised why people liked to take pictures until that moment - when pictures are all you have. He'd always hated having his photo taken but that afternoon he asked me to take his photo.

I'd take and print more mundane everyday photos of friends and family - the other stuff we do is just the cream.
 
This is a ridiculous, even dangerous question.
As soon as you start changing things afterwards, a lot of things will change with it and your life will never be the same. Just be happy living your life the way you do and learn from your mistakes. The OP should be wiser at his age.
Am I being too philosophical? :)
Frank
 
Merlijn53 said:
This is a ridiculous, even dangerous question.
As soon as you start changing things afterwards, a lot of things will change with it and your life will never be the same. Just be happy living your life the way you do and learn from your mistakes. The OP should be wiser at his age.
Am I being too philosophical? :)
Frank
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Dear Frank,

You are of course absolutely right: the question is predicated on the totally erroneous assumption that you could change one thing without changing everything else. At best it is the advice that a beginner might care to think about. There were thousands or millions of turning points where I might never have met Frances (the most important factor in my life); bought my current house; be sitting here after a brunch of fresh figs and air-dried ham; written books about photography...

A former girlfriend and I sometimes discuss this. We went out together when I was maybe 16; I met her a couple of weeks before her 15th birthday, and I think we were together until she was 16. I can't remember. There were several times in our lives in our 'teens and twenties, and even at 30+, when we might have got together again and even married. We still love one another enough to discuss such matters and to be reasonably confident that it would have worked very well. But we're even more confident that we're both better off with our current spouses. She's like a very beloved sister now that we're both in our 60s.

Cheers,

R.
 
narsuitus said:
I would have purchased Apple stock instead of Kodak stock.
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And I would not have sold the 1000 shares I owned when the stock went below $19. :)

Seriously I am sure if I went "back" I would just make a totally different set of mistakes, I have been pretty happy on the trip so far.

My motto remains "if you have a nice bicycle, and a good bed, what more do you really need?" This has worked for me since I was 10.

A nice camera, and great girlfriend are of course the perks...
 
Merlijn53 said:
This is a ridiculous, even dangerous question.
As soon as you start changing things afterwards, a lot of things will change with it and your life will never be the same. Just be happy living your life the way you do and learn from your mistakes. The OP should be wiser at his age.
Am I being too philosophical? :)
Frank
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Watch the age thing I'm turning 67 next week ;-)

Don't take the question too serious because we all know we can't go back in time. It just a what if and yes we'd probably make other mistakes. Really though I wasn't even thinking about mistakes. I was considering what other options I'd take.

In 1971 my mentor, Jack Corn who was chief photographer for the Tennessean, wanted me to interview with the St Louis Post Dispatch. I refused and decided to apprentice under a master commercial photographer. I've always wondered what would have happened and how my life and photography would have changed. I know how some of it would have changed but there's always that question of what would have happened if I took the other fork in the road. Of course I'll never know.

I could also have worked in the field of my education, microbiology and organic chemistry but I elected to go with the job I had through school, photography. Fortunately I've never regretted my decision.
 
Ko.Fe. said:
Learn BW in 1992, not in 2012.
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This, down to the specific years (Ko, are we the same age?)
I even had the opportunity - had a girlfriend in 92 that shot, deved and printed her own b&w.

Plus:

Abandon color film sooner - I've never going to do anything with those negs.

Not waste time with holga, diana, expired film, or large format.

Shoot more of everything around me.
 
x-ray said:
Mistakes are what we learn from so use them wisely.

...
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Exactly!

Mistakes are one type of prior knowledge. Prior knowledge applied to information can forge wisdom.

PS I went to college in Maryville. In 1968 spent a few weeks at Oak Ridge Associated Universities studying radiochemistry. We students were housed on-site in re-puprposed WWII era barracks. The barracks were built as quickly as possible and when someone sneezed in their room at one end, you could hear them all the way at the other end. I had a couple of college friends whose mothers worked in the Y-12 plant turning dials to manually adjust/optimize the Calutron machines. They had no idea whosoever what those machines were doing.
 
willie_901 said:
Exactly!

Mistakes are one type of prior knowledge. Prior knowledge applied to information can forge wisdom.

PS I went to college in Maryville. In 1968 spent a few weeks at Oak Ridge Associated Universities studying radiochemistry. We students were housed on-site in re-puprposed WWII era barracks. The barracks were built as quickly as possible and when someone sneezed in their room at one end, you could hear them all the way at the other end. I had a couple of college friends whose mothers worked in the Y-12 plant turning dials to manually adjust/optimize the Calutron machines. They had no idea whosoever what those machines were doing.
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Maryville College is an excellent school. I went to UT from 67-71.
ORAU is one of my clients.
 
At 70, I'm the consensus voter. I'd have bought a Leica first and stayed with it, photographed people exclusively, and kept the 200 shares of Apple I bought at $22.
Now, back to the future!
 
"Don't take the question too serious because we all know we can't go back in time. It just a what if and yes we'd probably make other mistakes. Really though I wasn't even thinking about mistakes. I was considering what other options I'd take. "

Don't worry, although I think that what I said is true, I'm aware of the fact that it's fun to talk about things like this and it is just my contribution to that.
Frank
 
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