Luddite Frank
Well-known
" I wait for the pictures but when I see them, I really dislike them. "
What don't you like about them, composition - or technical stuff like exposure, focus, DOF ?
Or, if you have to send-out for processing, maybe you're getting crappy processing & printing ?
I 've had bouts of lousy processing locally, that really frustrated me... made me think my Exakta and Leica III were junk...
If "Composition" is your nemesis ( it seems to be my arch-enemy! ), that is an "internal problem"; if it is bad processing, try shooting B&W and processing it at home...
Most of my motivation to take pictures comes from a fascination with gear, and using the antique and odd-ball cameras I've accumulated.
Now that I'm in my 40's, I also have a desire to create photos that "other people want to look at"...
One of my recent inspirations ( equipment-inspired ) is to take my 1890's Premo wood and brass cameras, and take photos with them ( on slow ortho film ), soup it myself, and contact print (using the wooden printing frames) on old-fashioned "printing-out" paper, perhaps even toning them... trying to go through the whole process as it would have been experenced by the ambitious amateur a hundred years ago...
For whatever reasons, I'm strongly attracted to "fiddly", archane machinery and processes...
Also, I look at lots of century-old photographs, taken with fairly crude equipment, and say to myself "surely I can do as well"...
Sometimes, switching gear can break our "muscle-memory"... and help us get out of a rut...
What don't you like about them, composition - or technical stuff like exposure, focus, DOF ?
Or, if you have to send-out for processing, maybe you're getting crappy processing & printing ?
I 've had bouts of lousy processing locally, that really frustrated me... made me think my Exakta and Leica III were junk...
If "Composition" is your nemesis ( it seems to be my arch-enemy! ), that is an "internal problem"; if it is bad processing, try shooting B&W and processing it at home...
Most of my motivation to take pictures comes from a fascination with gear, and using the antique and odd-ball cameras I've accumulated.
Now that I'm in my 40's, I also have a desire to create photos that "other people want to look at"...
One of my recent inspirations ( equipment-inspired ) is to take my 1890's Premo wood and brass cameras, and take photos with them ( on slow ortho film ), soup it myself, and contact print (using the wooden printing frames) on old-fashioned "printing-out" paper, perhaps even toning them... trying to go through the whole process as it would have been experenced by the ambitious amateur a hundred years ago...
For whatever reasons, I'm strongly attracted to "fiddly", archane machinery and processes...
Also, I look at lots of century-old photographs, taken with fairly crude equipment, and say to myself "surely I can do as well"...
Sometimes, switching gear can break our "muscle-memory"... and help us get out of a rut...
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Spyro
Well-known
Warning: possibly irrelevant post 
Mike Johnston once wrote a blog post and said that everyone getting into photography must, at some stage, fill in the dotted line: I do photography because.........................................
Some philosophers believe that happiness is the pursuit of a dream, such is human nature.
Mike Johnston once wrote a blog post and said that everyone getting into photography must, at some stage, fill in the dotted line: I do photography because.........................................
Some philosophers believe that happiness is the pursuit of a dream, such is human nature.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Warning: possibly irrelevant post
Mike Johnston once wrote a blog post and said that everyone getting into photography must, at some stage, fill in the dotted line: I do photography because..........................................
...I can't see an alternative.
Cheers,
R.
Gregoryniss
Well-known
carrying my camera every single day every where i went and trying to make mundane things interesting somehow helped me get better at realizing why i'm taking pictures of something; what makes something/someone/a scene interesting? or worthy of being captured
raytoei@gmail.com
Veteran
I like all the advice given here.
I uses maths: I shoot more and increase the number of keepers. From the keepers I try to think why I created that look and then I try to reproduce it again and again.
From my recent roll (I shoot about 3 to 5 rolls a week), I managed to get one single keeper:
A wedding prayer.
raytoei
I uses maths: I shoot more and increase the number of keepers. From the keepers I try to think why I created that look and then I try to reproduce it again and again.
From my recent roll (I shoot about 3 to 5 rolls a week), I managed to get one single keeper:
A wedding prayer.
raytoei
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user237428934
User deletion pending
What a beautiful keeper!