David du Chemin on going DEEPER.

bilzmale

Hall of Famer
Location
Perth, Western Australia
Name
Bill Shinnick
David is one of the photographer/educator/bloggers that I follow, I subscribe to his emails, and the most recent one hit a nerve with me.

I have tried to go BROAD with my photography as far as equipment, software, techniques, genres and subject matter is concerned. I've enjoyed the experiences but feel I'm a 'Jack of all trades, master of none'. I'm a competent photographer but do not excel at any one thing.
In the SiO Barrie and I posted about the same time each day, me with a fresh approach every day and Barrie with a consistent style and an intent to master pp in Raw Therapee and Gimp.

Read David's most recent blog post and I'd love to hear members' thoughts and reactions.

LINK:
 
Wow! Deep breath... yep, it resonates with me, bigtime. I've always been all over the place like a mad woman's breakfast, photographing this and that and never sticking on one theme. Its probably a lack of focus that has tripped me up this year... no motivation and no focus. THis must change. I've bookmarked the site and will sign up for the emails.
 
Wow! Deep breath... yep, it resonates with me, bigtime. I've always been all over the place like a mad woman's breakfast, photographing this and that and never sticking on one theme. Its probably a lack of focus that has tripped me up this year... no motivation and no focus. THis must change. I've bookmarked the site and will sign up for the emails.
I listened to a webinar over the weekend, purportedly on the topic of how to make money from photography. It turned out that this could be done by spending money on a 6-week course...but before they dropped that (not unexpected) bombshell, the biggest tip provided was to learn your niche. And after that, work on developing your own style. It seems to be a similar message to David’s. I would love to follow this advice, but how I do that whilst also having an apparent addiction to just buying stuff and seeing whether I like it will be the challenge. Maybe I can do both, we’ll see...
 
An interesting article which I have also bookmarked. In terms of my using only RawTherapee and GIMP for my SiO challenge referred to by Bill above I have actually since gone down the road of using tone curves to map the tones in my monochrome images rather than exposure and contrast for example. I have revisited some of my SiO images with what I think are improvements to the tones producing an individual curve for each image. Yes more time consuming but also more satisfying. In my film days I concentrated mainly on monochrome landscapes with medium format cameras, so camera mounted on a tripod and much time framing the image with, I think, a greater overall satisfaction than with many of the digital images I now take. I presume that derived from the concentration required to obtain the best image possible without exposing a great many rolls of film whereas digital can lead one to fire away at will hoping to find the best image later on the computer. Time perhaps to slow down and study those subjects that allow for study before pressing the shutter.

Barrie
 
In my film days I concentrated mainly on monochrome landscapes with medium format cameras, so camera mounted on a tripod and much time framing the image with, I think, a greater overall satisfaction than with many of the digital images I now take. I presume that derived from the concentration required to obtain the best image possible without exposing a great many rolls of film whereas digital can lead one to fire away at will hoping to find the best image later on the computer. Time perhaps to slow down and study those subjects that allow for study before pressing the shutter.

In a nutshell, Barrie! (y)
 
I’ve spent years photographing people. Mainly candids. Sometimes under the guise of events, weddings, street, etc. But the focus has always been on moments, emotions, and facial expressions. Those were always top priority. I will take a photograph in crap light if one or more of those three parameters are met. In these later days of my venture into digital photography, I do try to catch things in better light, as that will make a better photograph. But I will still press the shutter button if the moment is good, with bad light. Especially shots of my family.

I still feel that I have a long way to go in perfecting my photos of people. There is always something new to learn. Also, I have added lit portraiture. The core principles are still the same though. The right interaction with the subject to get the right emotion is most important. Again, there is a long road ahead of me.

The hardest lesson I have, which is mentioned in the article, is the editing and culling process. It’s very hard for me to let go of photos. Duchemin is right in saying that learning to do this better will result in an amazing body of work.

Aside from the above, I have dabbled in beach sunrise/sunsets, urban exploring, cemetery exploring, and off road events. I’ve been fortunate in having been able to put several years into each. With the beach photos, I’ve shot them at the same beach nearly 17 years. Which I believe makes them better.
 
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