Over my Pay Grade: Things I Couldn’t/Wouldn’t Do Photographically…

raydm6

raydm6

Yay! Cameras! 🙈🙉🙊┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘ [◉"]
Local time
11:56 PM
Joined
Oct 20, 2006
Messages
3,208
Saw this the other day and couldn’t do this if I tried.

Any photographic scenarios you could not or would not do?

 
Last edited:
Sports or wildlife; I don't have the right equipment for those types of work. I'm actually pretty good at sports photography, but I'm not going to go buy the long, fast lenses I'd need. Wildlife I don't have the patience for.

Wedding photography: I did a lot of this when I was in college. I don't like crowds of people, and have gotten more socially awkward and uncomfortable around people as I've gotten older.
 
There is a part of me that wonders if I shouldn't have gone into the army for still photography back in 1982 instead of as a tank crewman but I wonder how many assignments would have had me going "ugh" like this. Still the skills would have been good to learn.
 
As long as I felt that the situation was interesting (in a photographic sense )... not really.
For example ,I`ve been a birder most of my life but found that I had no interest in photographing them .
So something in addition to the subject matter seems to have to appeal to me.
Having said that I`ll have a pop at anything once and then consider.
 
I don’t think I could do wildlife also (ok maybe birds and small animals) but definitely not wild game.

No to weddings too - but I have much respect for those that do it.

No to crime/forensic photography (is this still done)?

Anything with heights or danger; out of the question.
 
There are many technical styles of photography that are beyond my experience/pay grade. The first thing that popped into my head when reading the thread title, was Lois Greenfield's dance photography. I understand conceptually what is being done, but her pictures capture fluid motion so beautifully. . . I'd need a whole studio and $100K in equipment just to think about it, and even then I wouldn't have her skill:

Lois Greenfield Photography | New York Dance, Commercial, Fine Art Photographer | Fine Art Prints | Photo Exhibits | Photo Workshops | NYC

Lois Greenfield Photography. Graceful and dynamic photographs of dancers in motion. Fine Art and Commercial Photographer. Dance photography workshop, Dance Photography Workshops, Photography Workshop, Photography Workshops, Photography Seminar, Photography Seminars, Photo seminar, Photo seminars. St
www.loisgreenfield.com www.loisgreenfield.com

Ditto to microphotgraphy, on the skill front, or astrophotography. I'd much rather photograph the astronomer.
 
I've never shied away from trying any form of photography, but trying and doing well are quite different things. EG: I love doing portraits, but my friend Linda is a FAR better portrait photographer than I am—she relates to her subjects openly and instantly, I do not. I do street, graphic abstracts, travel, reportage stuff in ways that I find satisfying. I've done some sports (motor racing primarily) that work well because I love motor racing, but other sports (ball sports) I have no relationship with and thus rarely find I've hit the mark. Wildlife ... well, I'm more of an urban boy than a nature walker, so wildlife if you mean the big pink ugly monkeys is right in there (street... LOL!). Birds on the wing I like to admire and let others photograph, although I've taken one or two that I like ... and so forth. :)

G


Great White Egret In Flight #2 - San Jose 2011
Olympus E-1 + Nikkor-H 85mm f/1.8
ISO 200 @ f/4 @ 1/4000 s
 
I recall watching those mountain-climbing and rock climbing videos years ago. It was always amazing that those people could do that sort of thing. Then I realized someone had to be there shooting the videos! And I was even more amazed.

No. I'm a wuss. I'm too old, too fat, too lazy and too chicken to do a lot of the stuff photographers/videographers do these days.

Weddings? Oh, hell no! Having the responsibility and having to deal with the people would send me up that deadly mountain instead.
 
Dogman said:
I recall watching those mountain-climbing and rock climbing videos years ago. It was always amazing that those people could do that sort of thing. Then I realized someone had to be there shooting the videos! And I was even more amazed.
Click to expand...
This was amazing but I would never attempt to shoot it. Stunning camera work.


www.indiewire.com

At 3,000 Feet, Shooting ‘Free Solo’ Was More Like ‘Mission: Impossible’ Than a Documentary

An inside look at how the crew behind the heart-stopping documentary shot the incredible footage of Alex Honnold's death-defying climb.
www.indiewire.com www.indiewire.com
 
I have a fear of heights. Many years ago, I had an assignment to shoot a local soaring club (gliders). While I was there, one of the flight instructors, who was my guide around the place, told me that the only way to really experience what soaring was all about, was to let him take me up in a two-seat glider for a spin. I thought he was insane, but after a couple of drinks, I gathered my courage and off we went. It was the most exhilarating and terrifying 20 minutes of my life. I got the shots I needed but I would never do it again.
 
Wildlife and most sports need equipment I don’t have and don’t really want to be honest.

Weddings - done it but too much pressure and, nowadays, expectation. Very hard and expensive to reshoot a wedding.

I’ve recently told my niece that I’m happy to take some pictures and do her an album when she gets married but she needs to get a proper paid photographer to make sure they get the shots they want. That means I can carry a Leica and a few rolls of film, rather than a pair of digital bodies and a load of stress (I only own one zoom lens and that’s wide angle).

Other technical stuff I’ve likely played with or would, if it interested me. Certainly I’ve done a bit of macro and a bit of Astro. I’m very much not big on carefully constructed and lit sets though.

I’m currently umming and aging about focus stacking - I like the simplicity of one shot photographs. The moment!

Mike
 
Retro-Grouch said:
Nobody's mentioned pet photography. I love animals, but know how difficult it can be to deal with an animal who doesn't know you. Never mind the pets' owners! I wouldn't ever consider it.
And weddings? I'd rather set my hair on fire.
Click to expand...
I had a studio across the street from a pet shop at one time. I did a portrait of the owner with her numerous pets. I know there was a very large parrot of some sort, plus a big dog, I think a cat. I'll have to find the picture sometime to see what else.

For some reason beyond my comprehension now I shot the picture on an old 8x10 studio camera with a 120 roll film back on it. Maybe with a flash synced Packard shutter. Not a bad picture.

But, just say "No" to weddings. Too much drama. Too many drunks.
 
Mark C said:
I had a studio across the street from a pet shop at one time. I did a portrait of the owner with her numerous pets. I know there was a very large parrot of some sort, plus a big dog, I think a cat. I'll have to find the picture sometime to see what else.

For some reason beyond my comprehension now I shot the picture on an old 8x10 studio camera with a 120 roll film back on it. Maybe with a flash synced Packard shutter. Not a bad picture.

But, just say "No" to weddings. Too much drama. Too many drunks.
Click to expand...
I've been to some weddings that even Robert Capa would have been afraid to shoot. After all, he was only a combat photographer.
 
That's true about the drunks at weddings. Seems like the photographer or DJ always have the job of bringing them to heel. I've done some weddings, but never got any satisfaction from it.

I did do pet photography for a number of years and enjoyed it. Animals when well posed look awesome. People spend more on their pets photos than they do on their kids.
 
I was honored when my daughter asked me to photograph her wedding, but looking back on it, I wish she'd asked me to pay for a pro instead. I missed a lot of what was going on by trying to get the shot.

Cars I have no problem with, especially if they're static like at a show. Racing cars I'm a lot out of practice on now but with the cameras I have now I think it'd be a blast. It's just been a while since I've been to a race.

Grandkids I'm trying to get better at, but I like just being with them and not taking photos of them all the time.
 
Naked ladies I've always shied away from, mostly as the ladies I've known who were ready, willing and able to pose naked(ly) for me were of a type who had other notions in mind and were readily ready to act on them, often to my detriment.

I have also stayed well away from photographing naked gentlemen, for the same reasons.

Ps (other people's that is), yuk. I once did a portrait session for a friend's Maine Coon, and got royally scratched by the subject. Ditto for another friend's dog, that one bit me. Realizing I did not really have any affinity for animal photography (don't tell our five rescue cats this!), I quickly and wisely I reckon dropped out of that genre of commercial photography.

Weddings I would rather have blunt knitting needles shoved into my tongue, than to ever have to photograph another. I did many of those in the '60s when I was a high school (and later a boarding school) student. Times were gentler then, with fewer drunk relatives having to be restrained from assaulting me for daring to step in front of them to take photos at the reception. Not to overlook the terrorist MILs with control freak tendencies. I am long retired from that Dante's Inferno genre of money-making photography. Some endeavors cost too much in blood.

I once (jokingly) said I would do divorce parties rather than weddings. Three invitations to do same promptly came. I accepted them all, but did them gratis, and got gloriously drunk on great lashings of top shelf booze at all three. Amazingly, the photos came out fine. I now drink very little and when I do only good wine, so for my sanity and the sake of my liver I have 'retired' from the divorce party scene.

When all is said and done, I seem to have retired from just about everything I did before I fell into my dotage. But then such is life.

Old buildings (I'm a retired architect), bush landscapes in Australia, beautiful ferns in the Dandenong Ranges of Victoria (not New Jersey, rather the state in Australia), cats and the endless ephemera I see on my daily walks in Indonesia, now suit my laid back lifestyle.

It says a lot about me that I own Nikon 85mm, 180mm and 300mm lenses but I've used the first one (bought in 2013) maybe four times, the third (2023) once, and the middle one (2014) not at all. I will now take all three out for a good session, tho' I'm a wide angle man all the way and I intend to stay 'wide' for as long as I can lift a camera.

(A later thought) OP wrote "Over my pay grade" - does this mean there are those out there who actually make money from photography? Well, I reckon. Who wudda thunk it?!? I never did, but the camera shops I frequent(ed) did and still do. For me the way seems to be to sell gear, not use it.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top