whats really improved your photography ?

xcapekey said:
i take that back..buy a leica...

that way, you never have existential gear doubt....

there's no hemming or hawing about "if only i had a..." ...you know that your photos aren't up to snuff not because of any failing of your equipment...

🙂
Click to expand...

Hemming about gear doubt ? I recently read something like that: "...to have my mind free..." ,
IMHO buying top gear does not help at all, as all the many many proudly presented terrible Leica photos prove which you can find at all web galleries.
This is exactly the wrong approach IMO , even counterproductive for the learning curve.
Because there seem to be some who watch their poor photos and no matter how poor they look they come to the conclusion that it could not be done better because it was done with the best camera at all .

Gear and learning curve , no, there is no relation. A badly taken photo of aunt Millie in the shade shot with a Instamatic and again shot with a Leica will not differ very much if the same half blind newbie is behind the finder and makes the same mistakes with both cameras.

If you manage to beat 95% of all the Leica amateurs with artistic expression and superior craft using a FED or a Bessa or whatelse then first IMO you are competent enuff to decide if you NEED a Leica to get still better. A question for masters only, hat's my opinion.

Tho still far away from that point ( behind my horizon) I am on my way ! 😉

Burning film, watching my results carefully and with eyes wide open and comparing them to those photographers which I admire, that's what brought progress for me.

What I find difficult is to keep this process running for years. I have to find locations to do so, if I can't find (or invent) locations I cannot shoot. There must be a TASK to get me running. 🙄

Best regards,
Bertram
 
... on locations

I find that you can (should be able to) take all the shots you either want or need within a 10 Km radius of your home. If not you have to train the eye in order to do so ...

About 80% of all my photos, and there are quite a lot, are taken within this appr. 10 Km radius
 
Not sure if I've really improved, even though I like to think I have. For me, flashes of "bravery" have often paid off - composing something in an unusual way or closer than normal. Sometimes, I find myself composing something really banal, and if I'm thinking properly, will tell myself to move in or point the lens downwards or something like that... and that's when things get interesting (attached is an example, shot with Super Ikonta BX 533/16 on Tri-X). So, if I had to say one thing has improved my photography of late, its to take that short moment it takes to think outside the box before pressing the shutter! Now, if I could only remember to do that more often....
 
Pherdinand said:
I can see that my photos became shallow and repetitive; I have no patience to try out new ideas, after the first (unsuccessfull) try I give it up.
Well, that's kinda different answer from all the rest i read here, but hey, it's my answer!
Click to expand...

Pherdinand,
The longer the learning process lasts the more often one sticks in this mud.
I know what you are talking about..

Some of my thoughts when I tried to solve my problem:
Photography is not a game you play from time to entertain yourself and the camera is not a toy.
As a toy you use it btw during the learning time, you invent tasks and try to solve problems and you are happy to be successful with it, But the issue itself is not that important, it is just another task.

But photography is a dialogue by nature between you and your environment, socially, personally, politically, sexualyl or whatever it is.. Say "life" instead of environment and it gets clearer.

So after you had a lot of fun with learning (as in real life) it all gets suddenly serious.

To stay alive as a photog You have to concentrate on any issue X which concerns you, something you feel a passion for , something that touches your soul enuff to drive your production process for a while. A "vision" one could say tho I always found this to be a really big word, easy to abuse.

Find something like that. If you have not patience this proves it does not really interest you.

All easily said, I know, but I think that's the way we have to go.

Best,
Bertram
Still searching... 😕
 
Jarvis said:
... on locations

I find that you can (should be able to) take all the shots you either want or need within a 10 Km radius of your home. If not you have to train the eye in order to do so ...

About 80% of all my photos, and there are quite a lot, are taken within this appr. 10 Km radius
Click to expand...

Though I do agree with you I also have to disagree. 🙂

Yes, one doesn not need exotic places to find interesting subjects and opportunities; one's backyard or attick could even be enough. BUT... I found that to prevent one's photography becoming stale one needs at times a change of environment.

For me that was shooting in Mongolia (where I've been 7-8 times now and spent the best part of a year) and southern India (where I've been 3 times and spent the best part of 3-4 months) in the past 5 years. Before Mongolian and India I also went to the Caribbean and Thailand.

Not only have these places given me a well-deserved holiday but also much needed changes of environment, inspired new ideas and opened up new views but also pointed me in a direction of shooting (documentary) that I otherwise might never have followed to the extent I'm now trying to.

I realise that this is my own personal experience and most likely not the experience everyone else will get from such travels, but to say that one only needs to stay within a 10-20-50 mile radius is IMO limiting oneself. Travelling opens one's eyes and mind, and thus can be mightily beneficial to one's photographic vision and philosophy.
 
Hey ofcourse, shooting in new locations is always challenging and fun especially places of the beaten tourist track like Mongolia ... I would be the last person on earth to deny that, but what I meant was that you've got to be able to find the subjects in your own viccinety, you need to adapt an eye for the detail, see the beautiful amongst the ugly ... and all of it is everywhere ....
 
my photog got better when I learned to relax and not fret about every detail. I don't try to make it perfect, rather to capture the moment with its perfections and imperfections. I don't strive to get it tack sharp right-on all the time. Of course, I'd imagine in a product shoot it better be tack sharp.
I micro-compose for the obvious mistakes, such as a tree "coming out of the subjects head", and let it rip. I shoot from different angles to "step out of the box." Maybe the biggest help was when I went with the Leica, although I shoot F5 sometimes with 105mm. But I really like the positive Leica type focusing. I aim, match the images (focus), and click. Its done. The improvement in the focusing allowed me to ponder other issues, therein came my improvement.
 
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Buying an RF camera with a leaf-shutter lens (such as the canonet). This enabled me to hand hold at 1/15th, or at 1/8th if I have not been drinking.... 🙂 ...not that I drink anyway.....

Chris
canonetc
 
This may sound strange, but to improve your photography, you have to take risks and make mistakes. If you only produce inside your competency envelope you will never expand that envelope and never grow as a photographer. It is only by trying new things (many of which will be failures) will you develope your photographic vision. On a roll of film you should see several failures, several frames where you have to say: "What the heck was I trying to do here?" If you only do what you're already good at you are not taking risks by trying new things and growing.
 
Shooting on slide film, using rolleiflex tlrs and leica Ms, getting rid of canon EOS, using a spotmeter, getting older, taking time to shoot, using a hood/shade writing critiques on photography, going back looking at 1940- and 50ties photography, getting feedback from others like onthis fine forum --- are all improving my photography

Digital cameras - autofocus cameras - cameras with small dark viewfinders - colour negative film and zooms --- all make my photography worse.
 
Ok OK OK... I will break my original down to one... Forcing myself to remember the rule of thirds. But I would not have been reminded of the rule had I not joined here.

I don't use it all the time, but when it works it works very nicely.

Bob H
 
If for nothing else the rule of thirds can always make a bad motif look a little nicer, and a good motif look great 🙂
 
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It’s a difficult thing to pin down, in my opinion and almost everything everyone has said has been valid for me too. But, there was a bit of a "wow" for me. It happened when I went back to 35mm from shooting exclusively medium format for a year. I look at my 35mm prints from before and after this 120 episode and the difference is unbelievable. (Unfortunately I haven't got any form of scanner so cannot illustrate the point).

Everything about them is better, subject, composition, tech quality. The reason I think is the greater amount of effort I had to put in on the manual Bronica SQA followed through when I returned to 35mm. I stopped using the AE priority on my SLR, then stopped using it altogether and bought a RF, and its all seeming to gel together ever since.

(BTW its all been B&W printed traditionally).
 
Since my learning has been a process, I will go in what I think is the basic order of my learning:

Travelling to Vladivostok with a Canon S30 showed me that I loved taking pictures but was deeply disatisfied by the results of the 3mp point and shoot.

My father gave me his Canon FD setup, so I learned on a manual focus setup with a 24, 50 and 85 mm lenses. This taught me to think about depth of field, shutter speed, focus and so on. My pictures improved tremendously. A lot of what I learned came from the Canon T90 Performance Handbook and the old National Geographic Photography Handbook that he gave me with it. These taught me the basics.

From there, going from the AE and Program modes on the T90 to the manual match needle metering on the F1 helped. A year later, I got a Leica because I wanted a less conspicuous, quieter, lighter camera.

The next big advance was in learning to process and print my own film. This really gave me the freedom to experiment without worrying about anyone looking at my images and saying "WTF was he thinking here", which I know processors do, as I am friends with several.

I started carrying a camera with me everywhere, if only so that I would always look at the world with both my own eyes and with the eye of the camera in mind. I look at someone standing on the corner -- what would exposure be? How would you frame the shot, with what lens and camera? What aperture? What film?

From there, learning how to choose the right film for the right situation helped. ISO 100 is great, but if you can only shoot at 1.4 and 1/4th in low light, your photos are going to be bad. There are times when a ISO 800 or 1250 film will give much better results, even if they don't have the same snap or detail.

Learning how to use a 4x5 view camera helped me learn to take plenty of time thinking about composition and framing. It also taught me to pay attention to perspective, plane of focus and relationships between objects, even in medium format and 35mm.

Finally, taking adult ed photoshop and darkroom classes so that I can improve my post processing.

Anyway, these are a few of the things that have really helped me. Of course, above all is placing yourself at the scene with a camera. Actually photographing will always help you most. The rest are just supplements.
 
The rule of thirds as mentioned before by fedzilla and Ruben .... originates from Leonardo Da V.'s time (Pi) and is practiced, and has been by most photographers.
I belong to a fotoclub and when presenting a picture, however good it is, if the rule of thirds doesn't apply it's bombshelled into the cellar. this has caused me to not use the rule of thirds anymore and try and creat interesting pictures around it. It works for landscapes I must admit, but in other fields it can become pretty boring ....
 
Maybe a new thread on "the Rule of Thirds" is appropriate. I can see a tangent discussion happening here (not a big problem, just not fair to this thread).

I can't say that I always apply the rule of thirds. Nor can I say that it is always applied in all good art or design. I can say that when you can make it work, it adds a nice dynamic to the resulting piece. I often point out to young designers that I work with, that Nature both loves and abhors symmetry. Learn to recognize when it works and when it doesn't. I regard the "Rule of Thirds" the same way.

I also often tell myself that only nature creates perfection.

Bob H
 
Fedzilla_Bob said:
I also often tell myself that only nature creates perfection.
Click to expand...

Wow, what a coincidence! I tell that to myself every time I look in the mirror...thank you nature!
 
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