let's talk about improvement...

[maddoc]

If you want to change your photographs, you need to change cameras. Changing cameras means that your photographs will change. A really good camera has something I suppose you might describe as its own distinctive aura. – Nobuyoshi Araki

I like that concept.

[jonmanjiro]

Originally Posted by maddoc

If you want to change your photographs, you need to change cameras. Changing cameras means that your photographs will change. A really good camera has something I suppose you might describe as its own distinctive aura. – Nobuyoshi Araki

I like that concept.

The best justification for GAS I've heard/read to date

[maddoc]

Originally Posted by jonmanjiro

The best justification for GAS I've heard/read to date

Obviously it worked out for Araki-san !

[jonmanjiro]

Originally Posted by maddoc

Obviously it worked out for Araki-san !

I think all the nude women he photographs helped more (he is quite famous for being an エロオヤジ after all)

[jonmanjiro]

This:

Originally Posted by ferider

I have to figure out first why I photograph and what I want to photograph.

Then how to improve showing what I want to show.

Followed by this:

Originally Posted by SimonSawSunlight

shoot more, think more - not just about how you take photos, but also about what you photograph, the places you photograph in.

I think that's the key for improvement for me anyway

[maddoc]

Originally Posted by jonmanjiro

I think all the nude women he photographs helped more

Well ... I think thousands of other photographer tried the same thing but not that successful ...

EDIT: I was thinking about if the following is true or not:


You are either born to be a photographer or not. The art of photography is not something you can learn in the classroom or by watching someone do it.

[jonmanjiro]

Originally Posted by maddoc

Well ... I think thousands of other photographer tried the same thing but not that successful ...

haha, indeed that is true. but thousands of other photographers also changed their cameras but were not that successful

[lynnb]

Thanks Randy for the example - I've posted a detailed response here http://www.rangefinderforum.com/phot...p?photo=168766
which shows how quick responses are not always the best! In short, I recognise it wasn't exposure at all that I was responding to - it was relative brightness and contrast across the image. You've prompted me to critically evaluate an image and that's A Very Good Thing. Posting on mental autopilot is not just bad for my photography, it sends wrong messages!

I spend quite a lot of time looking at images and asking myself why I like then and why they work.

I really like the idea of posting an image and discussing all the considerations behind it - what you were thinking, what made you want to photograph the subject, what aesthetic and technical decisions you make to get the final image, whether it was preconceived or a grab shot.. and so on.

Which images to post and discuss that way? Maybe by invitation in the gallery - see a photo you like and post a comment against it asking if the member would like to put it in a dedicated thread like Joe suggested.

[Austerby]

I've always found it very instructive to be able to see the sequence of shots surrounding a particular image - the contact strip that shows earlier and later attempts of the same subject. As well as working out why a shot works its good to understand why one doesn't.

[zauhar]

Originally Posted by SciAggie

I was not there, so I don't know the details of the circumstances you were facing. I find myself wondering if you would have been better off shooting from the opposite side of the street? Then you would have been shooting into the shadow of the building at your back, Could that have eliminated the high contrast background?

This is certainly the type of considerations I face regularly - I find a flaw in an image that often I did not recognize at the time of the exposure. I have to chalk it up to experience for the next time.

Gary, that is a good point - I did not check out the view from the other side, it may have been better (and less bright light).

Not to make excuses, but I was having trouble keeping up with the crowd - maybe I can figure out a way to shoot from my bike.

Randy

[Sparrow]

It's a good idea Joe, but anything that's posted along these lines simply gets subsumed by all the new posts landing on top.

A couple of years back I posted an extended and illustrated essay on Art History, Composition and Colour Theory, it was well received at the time, mostly, but was gone from the home-page in a few hours and the forum-page in a few days ... it's hardly worth putting the effort in to write it that being the case.

[paulfish4570]

we've got that forum asking for criticism of a shot, but it is seldom used. and when it is, there are few comments.
i'd like to offer a couple of tips anyhow:
1) if composition is your weakness, cut out a cardboard 3:2 window that is, say, 20-30 percent smaller than a full-size 35mm photo on your monito. click up one of your shots, and use this window to crop your shot, moving the frame to various areas to see if there is a more dramatic photo with the faux frame in one corner or to one side or the other, or to see what the photo would looked like if you had been closer. cut out a square empty frame, too, and move it around, looking for a photo within a photo.
2) visit a major museum if at all possible and look at paintings, from the renaissance to the abstract expressionist masters. look at how light was used, how composition was used, how perspective was used. after my own whirlwind tour of the met and moma a couple of years ago, i am now amazed at how the way i see was affected by holbein, mondrian, picasso, rothko and klee. i had grown up reading my dad's art books, and after seeing so many of these artists' and others' work on printed pages. seeing them "live" was revelatory, and seminal because i took up photography again shortly thereafter ...
3) when you bracket, bracket from different perspectives as well as exposures.

[zauhar]

Originally Posted by lynnb

Thanks Randy for the example - I've posted a detailed response here http://www.rangefinderforum.com/phot...p?photo=168766
which shows how quick responses are not always the best! In short, I recognise it wasn't exposure at all that I was responding to - it was relative brightness and contrast across the image.

Lynn, wanted to thank you here for the very detailed comments you made in the gallery - makes me glad I am part of RFF.

Randy

[lynnb]

thanks Randy - I am very glad to be part of this community too.

[shadowfox]

1. Don't Dream, Practice

Stop pitying yourself for the lack of time, beautiful subjects, wonderful sceneries, 'happenings'. Anything in the world can become your subject including those readily accessible to you. A subject looks mundane only when the photographer didn't want to spend the time or the effort to make it look otherwise.

2. Aim higher

If you decided that you want to use your cat as a subject, don't be satisfied with just taking snapshots of your cat. Do your homework, look for cat photos that engages you. Don't copy, synthesize, create your own version.

Obviously, substitute 'cat' with anything you like to use as a subject.

3. Don't bore you viewers

Before you post multiple pages of your 'work', stop and think, what are you trying to convey?
This simple question is what distinguishes posts like those of Chris Crawford's and some threads about using one of the most expensive camera in the world by showing *lots* of shots that cannot be distinguished from those shot using a P&S.

Again, not because the poster is not a good photographer, just need a little friendly nudge to kick him/her into higher gear.

[sanmich]

I think that's a very good idea.
Maybe a subforum?

[Roger Hicks]

Decide what you want to photograph -- don't 'drift' and 'just do a bit of everything'. By all means do multiple things, but at least have some idea of what they are.

Decide how you want to photograph things -- Study the work of photographers you admire, and try to work out how they took the pictures they did. Some have even published books with the stories behind individual pictures. Read them.

Cheers,

R.

[Roger Hicks]

Originally Posted by shadowfox

1. Don't Dream, Practice

Stop pitying yourself for the lack of time, beautiful subjects, wonderful sceneries, 'happenings'. Anything in the world can become your subject including those readily accessible to you. A subject looks mundane only when the photographer didn't want to spend the time or the effort to make it look otherwise.

2. Aim higher

If you decided that you want to use your cat as a subject, don't be satisfied with just taking snapshots of your cat. Do your homework, look for cat photos that engages you. Don't copy, synthesize, create your own version.

Obviously, substitute 'cat' with anything you like to use as a subject.

3. Don't bore you viewers

Before you post multiple pages of your 'work', stop and think, what are you trying to convey?
This simple question is what distinguishes posts like those of Chris Crawford's and some threads about using one of the most expensive camera in the world by showing *lots* of shots that cannot be distinguished from those shot using a P&S.

Again, not because the poster is not a good photographer, just need a little friendly nudge to kick him/her into higher gear.

This makes the assumption that you can psych yourself into photographing subjects you find boring. Maybe you can -- but why would you bother? Caring about the subject is normally an integral part of taking good pictures.

Cheers,

R.

[ferider]

Originally Posted by shadowfox

1. Don't Dream, Practice

Stop pitying yourself for the lack of time, beautiful subjects, wonderful sceneries, 'happenings'. Anything in the world can become your subject including those readily accessible to you. A subject looks mundane only when the photographer didn't want to spend the time or the effort to make it look otherwise.

2. Aim higher

If you decided that you want to use your cat as a subject, don't be satisfied with just taking snapshots of your cat. Do your homework, look for cat photos that engages you. Don't copy, synthesize, create your own version.

Obviously, substitute 'cat' with anything you like to use as a subject.

3. Don't bore you viewers

Before you post multiple pages of your 'work', stop and think, what are you trying to convey?
This simple question is what distinguishes posts like those of Chris Crawford's and some threads about using one of the most expensive camera in the world by showing *lots* of shots that cannot be distinguished from those shot using a P&S.

Again, not because the poster is not a good photographer, just need a little friendly nudge to kick him/her into higher gear.

What you said. But step 0 should be

0. what are you trying to convey?

[nextreme]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

It's a good idea Joe, but anything that's posted along these lines simply gets subsumed by all the new posts landing on top.

A couple of years back I posted an extended and illustrated essay on Art History, Composition and Colour Theory, it was well received at the time, mostly, but was gone from the home-page in a few hours and the forum-page in a few days ... it's hardly worth putting the effort in to write it that being the case.

Do you still have the essay ? Would love to read it !

Cheers
Steven

[shadowfox]

Originally Posted by Roger Hicks

This makes the assumption that you can psych yourself into photographing subjects you find boring. Maybe you can -- but why would you bother? Caring about the subject is normally an integral part of taking good pictures.

Cheers,

R.

Interesting assumption, Roger.
Although I suggested nothing of that sort.

I think we can grow to care about certain subjects that are accessible to us, that we ignored in the past because we haven't looked hard enough.

Which is far better than making excuses because one does not have access to the immediately photogenic subjects or scenes.

[shadowfox]

Originally Posted by ferider

What you said. But step 0 should be

0. what are you trying to convey?

Roland, in my experience, I may not realize what I want to convey in the beginning. But I always know what I have on my hands (sometimes nothing ) when I am editing or post-processing.

[jayhopkins2001]

Originally Posted by nextreme

Do you still have the essay ? Would love to read it !

Cheers
Steven

I would love to see the essay too.
Jay

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Originally Posted by zauhar

Can I kick this off with a real elementary example?

Lynn (lynnb) left a comment about one of my gallery photos - he said it was overexposed:



I exposed for the shadows, and the sun was really strong that day - I was not sure how to best handle it. Exposure was (I think) f4 @ 1/250 (Tri-X)

Would could I do to improve that? Stop the lens down more? Change development strategy? (I developed in Rodinal according to the chart.)

UPDATE: I've had additional criticism that I was too far away. Who says that the RFF forum is all sweetness and light!? ("Good capture!") That remark stings - I am well aware that I do not get close enough, and using the 21mm lens at the march only made that worse.


Randy

Randy,

In high contrast light like that, you can reduce contrast by shortening the developing time. The developing times manufacturers recommend are for normal brightness ranges, basically what you get in light that is soft, like in overcast conditions. When the sun casts dark shadows, the range of brightness in the scene is too much for the film to handle when developed to normal contrast.

Try reducing the developing time 30% from normal. You will need to increase exposure one stop when you do this because the film's effective speed drops about a stop from such shortening of the developing time. So, determine correct shadow exposure, increase it a stop, then shoot and drop the developing time 30%.






These are two examples of this. Film was 120 size Tmax 100, developed in Rodinal for 30% less than normal with one stop more exposure than normal.

[Roger Hicks]

Originally Posted by shadowfox

Interesting assumption, Roger.
Although I suggested nothing of that sort.

I think we can grow to care about certain subjects that are accessible to us, that we ignored in the past because we haven't looked hard enough.

Which is far better than making excuses because one does not have access to the immediately photogenic subjects or scenes.

Dear Will,

Once again, I have simply misunderstood you, and once again, I apologize. It may be down to the fact that today was the monthly Old Folks' Dinner, a (very) liquid lunch at the club d'amitié.

I am sure that you are right that one can grow to care about some of the things that one had never noticed, but I am equally sure that there are other subjects where it would never happen, at least for me. I don't drink coffee and I don't keep cats, for example...

In this context there are, I strongly suspect, two different kinds of photographers. Some find endless fascination in revisiting substantially the same thing. Others need the stimulus of novelty. I live in a very beautiful part of the world, surrounded with history, beautiful buildings, rivers. From my study, I can (just) see a thousand-year-old castle. I can borrow the keys to it whenever I want. But.... after nine years here, I've photographed all this enough. It no longer interests me on a daily or even monthly basis.

Less than an hour's drive away is another centuries-old fortress, much more photogenic, and owned by a friend. Well, an acquaintance: a friend-of-a-friend, whom I know well enough to be on first name terms. There are quite a few pictures of it in the Zeiss 18mm review at http://www.rogerandfrances.com/subsc...8%20zeiss.html. But I don't go there more than once a year. Been there; done that.

This may be viewed as a character flaw, but I don't really believe much in those: anything that doesn't hurt anyone else, doesn't qualify as a character flaw in my book. I don't complain that I have too few things to photograph: I just don't bother to photograph the things that don't interest me (or no longer interest me). I can however sympathize very easily with those who do not find visual stimulation in their surroundings.

Cheers,

R.