taste versus experience

sineadw

So following on from Julie's thread, and with a bit of thought from myself, with great effort...

I'm just realising that the work I'm attracted to personally has nothing to do with the style of work I take. I mostly work in the live music field, with a tendency to nod at sub-genre stuff like bikes, instruments, fetish stuff.. Even when I'm indulging myself it would be macro work. Yet as I mentioned earlier I find myself most drawn to photo-journalism, for personal stuff...

anyone? Is your own work the field you most want to work in?

Hugh_C

Nope - funnily enough I wrote on Elven's blog about this a few days ago whereupon I was moaning about pretty much only shooing moody landscapes or my kids whereas I'd love to broaden the horizons a bit and do more general portraiture and art photography, whatever that is ...

But I earn my living doing something else and don't have the time or opportunity to chase those aspirations just at the moment.

GristlyEnd

Strange coincidence this thread as I've been mulling over this for the past couple of days in my head.

My experience at the moment has been sports but to be honest it's not where I want to be. Architectural, macro and landscape are what really appeals to me but I'm being really lazy about it these days.

Sports just doesn't give me the same enjoyment as the other stuff I have done so I think it's time to call quits on that.

City-Exile

I live & breath sport!
If I wasn't in a position to cover sport, my gear would be gathering dust.
I by gear with sport in mind.
I buy papers, to look at sports photography.
I get such a buzz from stopping the action. Just a single moment in flurry of activity.
There's so much going on in my head during a game, that I feel drained afterwards.

I appreciate other styles & subjects, but sport is what I'm about.

Paulw

I'd prefer to be doing wildlife photography. Landscape isn't really my thing, and I've been doing a lot of sport lately, which I am totally enjoying. Street and urban photography just isn't for me.

But, as the weather changes, I like to get out and try different things. Just booked a holiday to the US, where the majority of the photography will be landscape, with some wildlife I hope.

ThOnda

Well, I don't think that I could put those two subjects together.
Experience and learning new things could affect me for some time to like some way of processing or capturing things. However my personal taste is being influenced by non-photographic experiences. At least not mine.
All information I get makes me think and evaluate my attitude to photography and that forms my taste. And it is mainly by visual arts/media.
My photographic and processing experience only leads to easier or new ways to get closer to me previsualised idea. And that idea could be close to my taste.
By the way, my taste are nudes, so I don't have to continue evaluate this topic any more

Paddy@CIRL

I'm the same as City Exile and class myself as being very lucky to be in a position where I can shoot what I love shooting on a regular basis. I love motorsports and I shoot it all day long loving every second of it, hail, rain or snow. Starting to get into the statics a bit more recently so looking forward to seeing how I progress with that !

elven

I’ve been trying to put together a link between what we are interested in when we don’t have a camera in our hands to what we shoot, and then also what we like to look at pictures of. So far, I’ve found no conclusive evidence...

Maybe it’s because it’s less the subject of pictures that I’m drawn to than the style. It could be a twig floating in a puddle, but if it provokes a feeling of some sort then I’ll appreciate it far more than a dramatic landscape by Ansel Adams. I suppose I try to shoot with that in mind but that devil on my shoulder that says “It’s a frickin twig in a puddle!” gets more attention when I’m taking pictures rather than admiring someone else’s.

I also have a weakness for the type of ‘lifestyle’ photography you see in house/garden type magazines (or Jamie Oliver books!) and I’d definitely like to do a bit of that. For some reason though, mine never look as good, and I can’t identify why. Very frustrating.

Borderfox

I started of taking pictures of Horses but now I do a bit of everything and I find it gives me a better understanding of other subjects and I carry a lot of enthusiam for any job/hobby I am taking pictures at.