Tag: Photography

So many times we look for exotic locations or spectacular subjects when we can easily find beauty in ordinary things if we just look. We don’t just have to limit it to nature but we can include people and man-made objects. Beauty surrounds us every day we just often pass it by as ordinary and uninteresting. Spend time looking at the world around you rather than thinking you have to travel to far-off exotic locations or find supermodels.

I think back to some of the exercises I did from my photography school, such as 10 different photographs of one subject. This doesn’t sound like much until you start doing the exercise. The first few you can get done quickly but as you approach the last few you may find yourself really thinking about angles, composition, light, perspective. When I performed this exercise I often found the photographs I took towards the end were the most compelling.

Look for the beauty of the world around you and photograph it to share with the rest of the world.

We all love our camera gear and high-quality cameras and lenses. I see so many social media posts about photographers obsessing over gear when we should be obsessing over high-quality photographs. Gear can be important but we can get high-quality photographs with virtually any gear. I like fancy camera stuff just like many but I love great photographs more and could care less about what equipment was used to create the great images.

A few years ago I had a conversation with a beginning photographer about using a so-called kit lens. The new photographer was asking about getting a better lens because they were unable to get sharply focused photographs with their kit lens. I explained that it was possible to get good photographs with their lens and used a kit lens to show them examples. We even did the pixel-peeping on the resulting images. We talked that it was technique and knowledge of how to use their camera settings to ensure sharply focused photographs. I mentioned that while the so-called kit lenses may not be as fast or have as robust of a build as the professional-grade lenses modern consumer-grade (kit lenses) were very good with modern glass elements and coatings.

The advice I give photographers, especially new photographers, who are looking to get new equipment is to decide how your current camera or other equipment is limiting your creativity. Learn to use your camera equipment to the fullest and then push it further. You just may learn that it truly isn’t the gear that gets great photographs but rather the person operating the gear.

We often hear something like, “I like to take photographs that capture the scene as it exists in reality” and this is often from the so-called photographic purists. But exactly what is reality? Whose reality? There is a saying, “perception is reality”. While perception isn’t exactly reality, perception can become reality, but does it make any difference to us as artists? Yes and no.

First of all, let me clarify something, I believe I am an artist who uses a camera to create my works. I can also be a documentary photographer when the need arises. So when I am wearing my artist who uses a camera hat, which is most of the time by the way, how I perceive a scene of the photograph is most important. I want to record how I perceived a particular scene or subject. Let’s face it, a large percentage of actual reality is boring and uninteresting. To me, reality in my photographs is what I want to make of it not what someone else perceives as reality.

One of the masters of photography has three quotes that come to mind, “You don’t take a photograph, you make it”, “dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships”, and “when I’m ready to make a photograph, I think I quite obviously see in my mind’s eye something that is not literally there in the true meaning of the word. I’m interested in something which is built up from within, rather than just extracted from without.” So, when it’s time to create remember those three phrases.

Do you really need a photography website? I have one and over the years I have moved from service to service but do we really need one? If you have a site how much traffic does it get? Do you even know or care? The service I currently use is part of my Adobe Creative Cloud subscription except that I pay for a custom domain name. It’s been a long time since I have run analytics on my photography website so I also don’t know the answer to the questions I just asked about my own site.

For me, I may not need a photography website but rather I want one. It allows me the ability to quickly direct people who may ask about my photography. I’ve been approached by strangers on the street while I have been out with cameras and asked about my photography so I keep a personal business card with my website address. I also have acquired somewhat of a following albeit not large. I believe a website is important because it is the whole point of photography to show others the world around us and how we see it. If you don’t have a website you may consider getting one. Showcase your work you may find there are those out there who want to see what you do and you just may inspire someone.