developing taste

elven

Do you find that the images you are impressed by these days are awfully different from the ones that made you go 'wow!' when you started? Do you cringe when you see some of the sloppy photoshop work you did last year, and thought it looked great at the time?

Are there influences that you can tell have changed your taste in photography over time, like maybe someone you respect has a different style that you didn't appreciate before but all of a sudden you start to like it, or you just got sick of seeing something done to death and want to be excited by something new?

Do we develop our taste in terms of becoming tired of gimmicky visual 'hooks' and start looking for something more complex and subtle?

Is that an inevitable development in our photographic life?

Does it ever go the other way - from Edward Burtynsky to HDR Creme?

Is there an element of snobbery in there - is it like when you start to drink wine/coffee/eat mushrooms and actually think it's awful but force yourself to enjoy it because you want to?

My intention is to provoke a thoughtful discussion on something other than 400D vs 40D, PS vs LR or IS vs VR...

...any takers?

City-Exile

Yes,
yes,
yes,
yes,
yes,
no,
no...

elven

You take thoughtful discussion to a whole new level Peadar, I thank you

311

I haven't taken my camera out for a long time ,I've promised myself that I will enjoy it when I do.

It's hard to trust your own judgement on things like photography ,if you haven't got a natural flare for it.:(

Ricky91t

Hahaha funny you ask this
I was going to ask something along the sme lines:D
I used to print my photos off my compact and i put them into an album around 2 years ago.Recently i got 50 prints made just to put them in the album.When i opened it i saw the photos and the first thing i thought was is"i actually liked these at one stage":D.I dont know what i liked about them they were like camera phone photos and my style has changed from p&s kinda shots.I also used to shoot alot of plants and im really not interested in them anymorE..

sorry about not really answering it well im quiet tired

TelePaul

One thing that makes me laugh every time is when I have a bunch of crap shots on my camera and my dad looks through them and says things like 'wow, great shot!'. It depends on who you're trying to please I guess. I think we're all our own worst enemies when it comes to criticism.

nilhg

elven wrote: »

Do you find that the images you are impressed by these days are awfully different from the ones that made you go 'wow!' when you started? Do you cringe when you see some of the sloppy photoshop work you did last year, and thought it looked great at the time?

Are there influences that you can tell have changed your taste in photography over time, like maybe someone you respect has a different style that you didn't appreciate before but all of a sudden you start to like it, or you just got sick of seeing something done to death and want to be excited by something new?

Do we develop our taste in terms of becoming tired of gimmicky visual 'hooks' and start looking for something more complex and subtle?

Is that an inevitable development in our photographic life?

Does it ever go the other way - from Edward Burtynsky to HDR Creme?

Is there an element of snobbery in there - is it like when you start to drink wine/coffee/eat mushrooms and actually think it's awful but force yourself to enjoy it because you want to?

My intention is to provoke a thoughtful discussion on something other than 400D vs 40D, PS vs LR or IS vs VR...

...any takers?

Something to think about while I'm lying on the beach, I'll post my reply on the next wet day.;)

Seriously though, I think if anybody makes a serious effort to develop any skill, especially one with an artistic and technical side then its only natural that your appreciation of the efforts of others will deepen, even if its only because you know how difficult it would be to replicate it.

G'day......

ThOnda

Well, personal development, changes in mood and mostly - getting some distance between the picture and the event captured in the image.
I know, it is hard, however having some delay between capturing the picture and it's development helps me to reduce the "next year's surprise".
And yes, I do produce crap, in the pictures and by processing them.
And I love ..shrooms

Borderfox

I would say the things that inspired me when I started still inspire me now, I can look back at older pictures of mine and pick holes in them and speculate how much better I would have done it now but I can see how much I have learned in this time and how I have put it into practice and I can appreciate how I produced good shots (IMO) when I started. It is such a subjective art that one persons perfect shot is anothers piece of crap.

Paulw

I certainly feel that my photography has changed a lot. In many ways, I have found a passion. I've also gained a lot more confidence. I think comes about having to compete with full-time paid professionals at sports events. Ok, I don't get my stuff published, and I have no deadline, but when I see their work in the papers, etc, I know that many of my images are as good and sometimes better. Sports photography is about being in the right place, at the right time, with the right equipment.

My processing of images has become simplified. I do even less to images than I used to do, and they seem (to me anyway) to be coming out cleaner and better. Yes, there are still bits that I need to learn and perfect. Photography and image processing is a never ending learning curve.

I have already made some plans for this year, and have loads of ideas in my head as to where I want to go.

I've also spent a lot of money in the year. While the camera doesn't make the photographer, the wrong equipment mean you can miss the shot. This is more the case with sport or fast moving events. To me, it's all money well spent.

But enough of my rambles.

Fajitas!

On the subject of sports photography, it's something I don't really have much of an interest in, purely from the standard sports photography point of view - That which you would see in papers, etc.

Do you feel there's scope for a different style in sports photography?

An example would be when the Olympics was shot with a TS lens - I really enjoyed that, but my taste wouldn't extend to the majority of what I see...

Paulw

I guess with everything, it's down to personal taste. There are many times of photography that just don't do it for me.

With sport, I actually think it even comes down to the actual sport itself. Some I would like to try to photograph, and some I just wouldn't.

For print/papers, basically it's what the papers want - action and context. But there are also instances and moments in a game that are different. Send 10 photographers to a game, and you'll get different images. Even two photographers capturing the same moment will get a different view and different angle. Is that down to creative nature or just luck? I don't know.

To me, it's fast, it's fun and it's really point in time.

sineadw

Hmmm.. When I look back on the stuff I was doing this time last year I see a totally different style alright. Then again, I was shooting film and with a totally manual camera (getting all bleary-eyed and nostalgic here - got to finish that pro-pan roll!) so I was a lot more restricted in what I could do. I was only really getting to grips with the whole thing TBH. I do like to think my taste has refined a little since then though. I remember thinking anything with a shallow depth of field was wow - amazing! lol. Or those slow-speed water shots. I don't mean they're bad, but its just a technique that can be used as a tool - you still have to have the flair to create a striking image. I think its as someone else said - appreciation starts to come when you realise how difficult or otherwise it would be to emulate, amongst other things..

Then there's the whole 'this picture is cool because everyone says it is' thing. The whole HCB, Adams thing. I've been trying to avoid forming opinions either way on work I know is supposedly a masterpiece of film. But then again you learn from the masters. Shoulders of giants and all that. I don't know if I have a favourite, but I remember being blown away by one particular Fergus Bourke shot - the one of the little girl collecting coal. For me its like that- I notice shots and then I might notice another in a different place and then I finally make the connection (duh) that its the same artist. Like I was saying to you Julie about Louis Le Brocquy and Francis Bacon's stuff. Its not a conscious thing for me. I couldn't even tell you what I like about them.

I've been very drawn to photojournalism recently. Not in my own work (there's another thread right there.. mental note...) but in what I appreciate when I'm looking through other people's stuff. I've also noticed a lack of it on Flickr, compared to the tons of stock stuff you see there (that I'm as guilty as the rest of them of producing...). War photography (and no, its not just because War Stories was on last night ), the sharecropper stuff - what was the name of that guy who was sacked because his images weren't idealistic enough for them? - journalistic portraiture, portraiture that really tells a story... I remember watching a programme years ago about Pol Pot and his work camps. There was a museum with wall after wall of portraits of people who had been held there. They were very very striking and moving - I can still see one particular one in my minds eye. Stuff like that. God I just read over that and i sounds very morbid - no really I like pictures of ponies and buttercups

I dunno - I think its something that will always change and develop?

Calina

elven wrote: »

Do you find that the images you are impressed by these days are awfully different from the ones that made you go 'wow!' when you started? Do you cringe when you see some of the sloppy photoshop work you did last year, and thought it looked great at the time?

Are there influences that you can tell have changed your taste in photography over time, like maybe someone you respect has a different style that you didn't appreciate before but all of a sudden you start to like it, or you just got sick of seeing something done to death and want to be excited by something new?

Do we develop our taste in terms of becoming tired of gimmicky visual 'hooks' and start looking for something more complex and subtle?

Is that an inevitable development in our photographic life?

Does it ever go the other way - from Edward Burtynsky to HDR Creme?

Is there an element of snobbery in there - is it like when you start to drink wine/coffee/eat mushrooms and actually think it's awful but force yourself to enjoy it because you want to?

My intention is to provoke a thoughtful discussion on something other than 400D vs 40D, PS vs LR or IS vs VR...

...any takers?

One of my key tenets of faith where anything is concerned is that if you ever reach the point where you think you've reached the zenith of what you can achieve, it's downhill from thereon.

A lot depends on what you get out of photography. I mean I would venture to say my photography has developed massively over the last 18 months and I review things from time to time just to get an idea of what direction I've been going. What worries me is that sometimes - and there was a thread about this during the week - you wind up with received notions about what people should or should not be doing. IE, you should angle for a 40D or you should use PS.
This is damaging.

Other things that would occur to me is that how your photography flows reflects how your life view flows. I suspect that yes, it could flow backward if you turned in on yourself.

The other thing I would consider is how much of this is linked to a need for validation? I never look at things I've done in the past without recognising their position as a step on the way to where I am now.

Most of the photographers who influence me are landscape and nature guys. No sports photographers.

I can't help feeling there's a message there.

RoryW

reading this thread makes me think of photography being a bit like your wardrobe and haircuts over the years

dress sense and haircuts and what is considered fashionable or what you like will have changed over time

elven

Nilhg: its only natural that your appreciation of the efforts of others will deepen, even if its only because you know how difficult it would be to replicate it.

Maybe that’s a key to this whole thing. As Sinead says, at first you’re wowed by the techniques like the shallow depth of field and the long exposuer water, but sometimes they are just tricks for the sake of showing you can do it. After a while, you see through that and realise it’s actually quite easy, and you maybe appreciate a technique that’s more difficult to achieve. But that’s admiring the technical mastery. I can appreciate some landscape photographers who trek up mountains, camp out for three weeks then use a combination of grad filters and a large format camera to capture a fleeting glimpse of magic light perfectly but it doesn’t necessarily wow me. But I could see an image of a concrete step and I’m blown away! What about actual aesthetic appeal, or depth, that isn’t simply down to using a tool in a certain way? Does that account for some of our appreciation? Is that the basis for art, maybe? Is that the thing that makes use sometimes unable to say why we like something?

Borderfox: It is such a subjective art that one persons perfect shot is anothers piece of crap.

I don’t know if there’s any art that isn’t subjective, so that’s definitely going to be an element. But this wasn’t so much about comparing what you like to what someone else likes, more to do with how what you like now compares to what you used to like...

Sineadw: journalistic portraiture, portraiture that really tells a story... I remember watching a programme years ago about Pol Pot and his work camps. There was a museum with wall after wall of portraits of people who had been held there. They were very very striking and moving - I can still see one particular one in my minds eye. Stuff like that.

I think that also relates to us maybe looking for meaning rather than something that’s just nice to look at. But there’s a whole other thread in that, I won’t dare start thinking about it just now!

Calina: The other thing I would consider is how much of this is linked to a need for validation? I never look at things I've done in the past without recognising their position as a step on the way to where I am now.

Do you mean validation in the sense that you look back with the hope of seeing how far you’ve come? I think there’s an element of both, and although I’m never going to stop and think “Yes, that’s it, I’ve reached the summit of my ability and I’m going to do nothing else because that is definitely the best I can produce”, because as Thonda mentioned it’s also linked to how we change as well as grow – our taste is highly unlikely not to change in some way over time, whether it develops or not is a different matter.

Most of the photographers who influence me are landscape and nature guys. No sports photographers.
I can't help feeling there's a message there.

Ah, Sinead has got us started with a new thread for that one

Paulw

elven wrote: »

Do you mean validation in the sense that you look back with the hope of seeing how far you’ve come? I think there’s an element of both, and although I’m never going to stop and think “Yes, that’s it, I’ve reached the summit of my ability and I’m going to do nothing else because that is definitely the best I can produce”, because as Thonda mentioned it’s also linked to how we change as well as grow – our taste is highly unlikely not to change in some way over time, whether it develops or not is a different matter.

I think it would be a little sad to think you've reached your summit. There is so much to learn and do in photography. Every time I shoot, I learn something. Either about settings or about composition.

Learning is something that continues and continues, but the time when you recognise your summit is when you are well on your way down.

Quackles

Not sure if it is down to taste or increasing level of skill, to be honest, but I definitely find that pictures I thought were fantastic later make me shudder I went through my website about 3 months ago and removed almost half the pictures because I just didn't think they were good enough anymore. Pictures I was very proud of at the time, might I add. Looking at it now, just three months on, I'm seeing photos again which got past my critical eye the last time and considering removing them - there'll be nothing left at this stage! Also, I'm finding it a lot more difficult to produce a picture I'm proud of, so I suppose taste (fussyness??) must be increasing! It's been at least two months since I shot a photo I was genuinely proud of.

Hugh_C

elven wrote: »

...any takers?

I think that as we develop our skills in the technical side of photography, we have to think less and less about what it is we're doing, so in essence the camera becomes an extension of the creative id.

My pictures have changed hugely in the last four years, and in the last twelve months in particular. However the muse remains the same, which is a bad thing.

There are fads and fashions in flickr for sure and I'm enjoying experimenting with some of them (light painting for instance), but I guess I generally revert to type after a brief flirtation with them. What's interesting to me though is trying to combine some of the fads and fashions to make something new.

I draw the line at camera tossing though.

mikeanywhere

I would defo say that my taste has changed since I first joined this site a little while back and I can also very clearly say that my style of photography has changed dramatically in the 16 months I started it. I know some members on here also helped with that inspiration which has helped me become what I am (no answers needed thank you ) so it isnt all bad from where I am sitting.

My biggest gripe was not doing this sooner but then the saying about hingsight springs to mind.

I now and then do look (& laugh) at some of the stuff I have done in the past and I am sure I will continue to do so in the future. No harm in having a chuckle!!