Taking my photography to the next level...

kelly1

Hello all, might be a bit silly asking this question, but I'd appreciate advice on how to take my photography to the "next level". I seem to be stuck creatively.

Any tips? I think composition could be a weak point for me. I probably also need to travel more! And I want to avoid the crutch of excessive PP.

What do I need to do to improve? Tips would be great. Thanks!

oshead

Did you watch the Zack Arias workshop on Creative live over the weekend. That'd be a great start.

swingking

I only got to see about 20 mins of this. Is it online somewhere?

ditpaintball

swingking wrote: »

I only got to see about 20 mins of this. Is it online somewhere?

You can buy it so you can download it so you can watch it anytime. Well worth it, along with other courses that they have there.

kelly1

oshead wrote: »

Did you watch the Zack Arias workshop on Creative live over the weekend. That'd be a great start.

No, unfortunately I missed that!

magicbastarder

who is this zack arias chap?

i know i sound like a stuck record, but limit your options. do something which makes it harder to take photos.

Fajitas!

kelly1 wrote: »

And I want to avoid the crutch of excessive PP.

Slow down. Try shooting film if you're not already. Research photographers and photography you like. Read about it. Get out there and try things.

Set higher and higher standards in the photography you're looking at, and where you are/want to be in comparison.

kelly1

Fajitas! wrote: »

Slow down.

Presumably to improve composition?

Fajitas! wrote: »

Try shooting film if you're not already.

Why? Because you have to be more selective?

Fajitas! wrote: »

Research photographers and photography you like. Read about it. Get out there and try things.

Set higher and higher standards in the photography you're looking at, and where you are/want to be in comparison.

Thanks

Fajitas!

kelly1 wrote: »

Presumably to improve composition?

To think more

It's easy press the shutter, but slowing down and thinking before you do makes a huge difference.

Why? Because you have to be more selective?

Yes, as well as the above.

Also, you mentioned you want to avoid excessive post processing. I find film to be a great escape from post processing, which I guess is just a personal thing, but I'm not alone in it. (Yes, it's more than possible to 'shop images shot on film, but it's not always as compulsory).

magicbastarder

staying with digital - find the smallest card you can which is compatible with your camera. leave the house with just that.
if your camera allows you to specify grayscale jpg, shoot just that.

Promac

And don't forget to only take pictures while bending over and looking through your legs after poking yourself in both eyes and holding your breath.

magicbastarder

that only works well with the pre-65 rolleiflexes.

kelly1

Great tip Promac!! :rolleyes:

CabanSail

Shooting some film is a good idea. You can use a fairly simple manual camera. It has a few effects in that you will slow down as each time you press the shutter it's actually cost you some money. The bigger thing is that you have to previsualise the shots a bit more as you don't have an LCD to refer to.

TelePaul

I would say get up early and stay up late. For a long time, I found myself ambling about in mid-afternoon, camera in hand, wondering where all the incredible light was. I was aspiring for great landscape shots, and its only recently that I've come to appreciate that being in the right place at the right time pays real dividends.

Promac

TelePaul wrote: »

I would say get up early and stay up late. For a long time, I found myself ambling about in mid-afternoon, camera in hand, wondering where all the incredible light was. I was aspiring for great landscape shots, and its only recently that I've come to appreciate that being in the right place at the right time pays real dividends.

This is good advice. If you read that article about Peter Cox in the other thread he says he spends a lot of time doing just that. Dawn and Dusk are the best times for photography and dull, everyday scenes literally light up and become interesting.

magicbastarder

what sort of shots do you *want* to take, kelly? or what sort of shots do you find yourself drawn to?

Fajitas!

Promac wrote: »

Dawn and Dusk are the best times for photography and dull, everyday scenes literally light up and become interesting.

Depends on what type of photography. Depends on what you want. Personally, I prefer my photography between 1100 to 1700 and 2330 to 0400.

what sort of shots do you *want* to take, kelly? or what sort of shots do you find yourself drawn to?

Figuring this much out is the key to getting better photographs.

DaireQuinlan

Fajitas! wrote: »

Depends on what type of photography. Depends on what you want. Personally, I prefer my photography between 1100 to 1700 and 2330 to 0400.

I'm a fan of nice overcast afternoons myself.

kelly1

magicbastarder wrote: »

what sort of shots do you *want* to take, kelly? or what sort of shots do you find yourself drawn to?

A good question and I was waiting for someone to ask! I'm drawn to beauty basically. I like good portraits and landscapes especially with an "arty" feel. I like photography that evoke emotion in the viewer.

Thanks to those who suggested going down the film route but I don't think it's for me. As suggested, I'd rather slow down and spend more time on composition and surveying the scene.

Borderfox

I found that restricting myself to say one particular focal length eg 50mm and shooting with that for the day helped me to think more about the scene in front of me rather than the gear in the bag also trying to keep pp down to a minimum too helped.

magicbastarder

yep - go out with one prime lens (i'd lean towards 24 or 35mm if you're using a cropped DSLR) and use just that.

magicbastarder

Fajitas! wrote: »

Personally, I prefer my photography between 1100 to 1700 and 2330 to 0400.

union rules?
'sorry luv, can't take yer photo. still on me breakfast break, see?'

magicbastarder

kelly1 wrote: »

I'm drawn to beauty basically.

try to find beauty where you would not expect it so.

eas

kelly1 wrote: »

I seem to be stuck creatively.

why not learn the traits and characteristics of creative people and apply them to your photography?

Although these are targeted towards the office & studio, they are a great introduction to some basic methods you can can apply to any area to help develop creativity.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Better-Creative-Work-Prentice-Business/dp/0273725181/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304505598&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.co.uk/WhatIf-Start-Creative-Revolution-Work/dp/1841120685/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304505654&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/100-Habits-Successful-Freelance-Designers/dp/1592535127/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304505861&sr=1-3

SetOverSet

If you haven't already done so, I'd recommend reading On Being a Photographer by David Hurn and Bill Jay. It's more practical advice and how to think about photography, selecting what to shoot, etc., rather than a technical manual; well worth a read IMO.

kelly1

SetOverSet wrote: »

If you haven't already done so, I'd recommend reading On Being a Photographer by David Hurn and Bill Jay. It's more practical advice and how to think about photography, selecting what to shoot, etc., rather than a technical manual; well worth a read IMO.

Thanks SOS, must get a copy of that. The Amazon prices are silly but I see it's
here for $12.95.

Has anyone read either of these?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Creative-Composition-Digital-Photography-Techniques/dp/0470527145/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304506566&sr=1-8

or

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Learning-See-Creatively-Bryan-Peterson/dp/0817441816/ref=pd_sim_b_7

magicbastarder

do you have any photos of yours which are along the lines of what you want to be able to repeat?

FlipperThePriest

magicbastarder wrote: »

try to find beauty where you would not expect it so.

You reminded me of a bit of good advice I've been told before: Try to find a shot that people very rarely see, the surprise factor holds a valuable contribution - be it unusual composition or just an unusual angle or juxtaposition, same guy always said he spends a few minutes walking around the subject looking from each possible angle (obviously this depends on the nature of your subject) before he goes near the shutter.

kelly1

magicbastarder wrote: »

do you have any photos of yours which are along the lines of what you want to be able to repeat?

Nothing really comes to mind. I think the best shots I've taken are portraits and I definitely want to improve in that area.

dazftw

I will echo what Al said about photoshop and film.. You only really need to fix the colour/exposure/sharpness in photoshop. Using film does a lot of it for you. You just choose the film you like.

If I had the money id pick up a large format camera in a heartbeat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ffmy_dv-oHs

Ghost Train

Maybe trying to recreate or copy a style of photos you like. You could try self portraits, never an excuse for no model.

magicbastarder

dazftw wrote: »

If I had the money id pick up a large format camera in a heartbeat.

you could probably pick one up for as little as €500...

'little' used advisedly, of course.

DaireQuinlan

magicbastarder wrote: »

you could probably pick one up for as little as €500...

'little' used advisedly, of course.

Film tends to get exponentially more pricey though as you go up formats. In general it's proportional to the area of the film you're buying. As an extreme example, I was looking at a 20x24 inch camera this morning, 25 sheets of 20x24 HP5 costs £695

OTOH, that's the same area wise as about 320 rolls of 120, so in that respect it looks like a bargain.

achtungbarry

Hi Kelly1,

Hope you don't mind if I chip in a few suggestions myself as I know exactly where you are coming from. Here are a few things I've done recently to help me re-find that spark and bring me to "the next level" as you say. Maybe some of them can help you too.

Take a break and study other photographers.

I decided a while ago to move away from the whole HDR thing and try something different. I spent a long time experimenting and thinking and really just getting more and more frustrated and annoyed at being unable to find that feeling I was after in my shots. So I simply took a break, I put the camera and the photoshop away for about 2 months and spent my time studying other photographers, famous and less so. I looked at my favourite shots and asked myself why I liked them. I've found this to be be a great inspiration and has reignited my exitement about photography that I had lost a little. It's like when I am getting fed up with playing bad golf (a regular occurance), I have a look at some of the great shots on Youtube to inspire me to better things.

It's all about the light!

It seems so blindingly obvious but it really is all about the light. As I admired the work of other photographers I noticed that all of my favourite shots where taken at the right time with fantastic light and nearly always in the morning or evening at golden and blue hour. It seems so obvious but I had kind of forgotten how important the right lighting conditions are. I had often depended on fancy (or god-awful depending on your opinion) post processing to make the shots interesting. Many of my shots where taken in the middle of the day in cloudy conditions with flat light. When I looked back at my best shots, they were all taken in the morning or the evening with great light. It takes great effort to get shots at the right time with the most attractive light but it's worth it. I wrote a blog entry about a morning shoot I did at Carton House and how incredible the light was that morning. I got up at 6 o clock that morning and paid a fortune to a taxi driver but it really was worth it. So really make the effort to shoot at golden and blue hour, it really is worth it.

By the way check out David Noton's work at http://www.davidnoton.com/. The light in his shots is always exraordinary. I highly recommend his book: Waiting for the light where he explains how he often had to climb mountains and wait for hours several days in row for the right light to finally get THE shot.

Slow down, quality over quantity.

I much prefer to come back from an evening's shoot with 2 or 3 really cracking shots rather than a pile of mediocre ones. If I find a good location, I often stay for a while rather than running off firing off shots all over the place. Sometimes it's a case of waiting for the right light or maybe for the right person to walk past for a street photography shot.

Maybe some of the above ideas might help you like they helped me. I'm only really getting back to photography after my break now. I'm off to Amsterdam next week so hopefully my time off and new approach will help me produce the goods.

Best of luck Kelly1 and I hope you found something of use in my ramblings. Looking forward to see where you go next with your photography.

AnCatDubh

kelly1 wrote: »

I think the best shots I've taken are portraits and I definitely want to improve in that area.

are you a people person, does their soul/life circumstance/character/story interest you - are you intravert or extravert (no sitting on the fence - that said they all have their place btw)

When you answer the above (to yourself at least) it will give you an indication of where you might go in portraiture. Be honest and self critical - this is important.

kelly1

Barry, thanks very much for taking the time to write up your advice, appreciate it. You're absolutely right, it is about finding good light and it's easy to forget that you're pi**ing against the wind if you have poor light. Of course composition if a bit one too and I also need to work on that. Thanks again.

EDIT: BTW, that David Notton site is brilliant! Thanks for the link.

kelly1

AnCatDubh wrote: »

are you a people person, does their soul/life circumstance/character/story interest you - are you intravert or extravert (no sitting on the fence - that said they all have their place btw)

When you answer the above (to yourself at least) it will give you an indication of where you might go in portraiture. Be honest and self critical - this is important.

Hello, I don't particularly like classifications but I'd be fairly introverted and I love people. Everyone has a story to tell and I like to capture the essence of a person's character. Easier said than done!

Sleepy

"The Photographer's Eye" by Michael Freeman is well worth a read.

magicbastarder

the 'golden hour' argument is only applicable really to landscape shots. and a lof of those - while i'm more than guilty of indulging in them myself - can be chocolate-boxey.

kelly1

Sleepy wrote: »

"The Photographer's Eye" by Michael Freeman is well worth a read.

I actually have read that book and I think I'll have to read it again. I found it a bit too abstract/academic so it might click if I give it another read. Thanks.

Promac

magicbastarder wrote: »

the 'golden hour' argument is only applicable really to landscape shots. and a lof of those - while i'm more than guilty of indulging in them myself - can be chocolate-boxey.

Landscapes, architecture, outdoor portraits, street, wildlife, cars... The only kind of photography I can think of that wouldn't benefit from it in the same way is macro.