Do you see photos in everyday life?

I didn't invent this. You needn't look at my efforts.

Go to any bookstore or library and find photo books by single artists. If you avoid survey style books, the majority will be exactly what I am taking about.

Focused projects, often pretty short term, shot over a few months or years.
Those guys would have shot many 'stuff' in their life time ...


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First I didn't, then I did, now I don't again.

When I first started I took my camera everywhere, I would think I saw photos everywhere and then shoot them. These days, I only take my camera when I fully intend to take photos and not "just in case" and I can actually seem to turn my photographer mode on and off as I need/want to.

Sometimes I even think to myself - there is a photo here, but I'd rather see the thing than miss it whilst trying to capture the photo.
pretty much where I am. Unless it really stands out to me I have to be in photography mode. I stopped looking all the time basically.
 
Yeah I got kind of snotty there. I was thinking about some specific examples of people who see photos everywhere and do awful work. Then I applied this broad brush perhaps too liberally.

See my later remarks for a more even-handed exposition of basically the same things, though.

Alan, I don't put photos publicly online any more. Unless you'd care to stop by and look at prints, you're just going to have to evaluate my ideas based on my words. I don't make any claims about my work, only my process, and I don't see how seeing my photos would contribute to that discussion.

Here is the point:

If you see pictures in everyday life, and shoot them, you might get perfectly good pictures. But what concept or idea do they convey? What is your purpose in making this photos?

Usually the answer is 'I want to make nice pictures' which is fine but pretty unfocused. You're not exactly putting together a coherent portfolio, a body of work that fits together. You're just taking nice pictures. Maybe.

Most people with cameras just want to make nice pictures. Maybe, the ambitious ones, have a sort of documentary goal, perhaps they want a good set of family photos from the birth of the kids onwards. Or the want to document their neighborhood. Whatever.

That's great. More power to you.

Not my thing. I try to make coherent bodies of work, portfolios that carry an idea, that sort of thing. Self evidently you can't succeed at that by taking every photo that you see.

If you look at the work of people who do claim to see photos everywhere, you'll find, if you're lucky, a bunch of nice pictures. A photo of some flowers. These rocks. That pretty girl. This guy and his dog.

It's all over the place.

My work isn't. Whether it works as a coherent body of work or not is almost of no concern to me. I'm doing my best, it works for me. It's all I can do, I can do no more.

You are assuming that those who "see pictures everywhere" only want to snap a pic of a flower or rocks or that pretty girl--that they are simply documenting rather than conveying their own concepts or ideas. (And for the record, for anyone else--I'm NOT saying I have a problem with "documenting"--I've done my share of it too and while it's not the emphasis of what I do, I see nothing wrong with it. I am, in fact, extremely grateful to those who came before, like my grandfather, and documented their lives through pictures. I never knew the man, but I *DO* know him, because I've pored over the hundreds of photos he took and stories he wrote. Great value in documenting, if you ask me.)

Anyway, back to my point: I "see photos everywhere." But that means something different for me than it apparently means to you. I don't mean that I see a pretty flower and want to take a picture of it, but I see that flower and immediately, a concept of a final image comes to mind--it might be an unusual angle or lighting or close-up of that flower--or it might have nothing to do with THAT flower at all. It might be the color of the flower, and the way its stem was bending towards a particular light source gave me an inspiration for creating a concept photo with similar angles and lighting.

An example: I "saw" this picture one day while looking out my window at work. But the object before me was actually just a cheap little clear plastic pull on the end of my window-blind cord. It took me about two weeks of thinking about how I'd seen the light hit that pull and what I could do with that to come up with the concept for this abstract:
Office Abstract 6 by sm4him, on Flickr

So, yeah, I "see" photos everywhere. Sometimes, they are photos I can stop and take. Sometimes they are photos of a scene I can only pass by and appreciate. Sometimes they are seeds, not meant as the final image, but intended to sit and germinate until an idea springs forth.

I have always been that way, so to me it's just the way my brain works. When my sister and I were little, we did a lot of drawing. We had a friend who once asked how we seemed to so easily come up with ideas of things to draw. My sister's response: "I just look in my head, and there they are." I really didn't realize it wasn't that way for everyone until I was much, much older.
 
It happens to me sometimes, but not often enough. I'm afraid I spend way too much time in the car, looking down at my cell phone so that I can be blissfully unaware my my husbands driving. Out of the car I'm usually too busy chasing down runaway children to notice enough.
 
People still go to Bookstores? Whats a library?


Hahahaha only kidding, but seriously. lol
I totally believe that you're not kidding!


;)
 
I'll see something that looks like it will be a good subject; if I don't get back to it I might use the same idea in another way (I've done that with other crafts and projects not just photography).

If I'm out and about with my camera I'll see a potential picture but may or may not see the photo(s) I want in my viewfinder right away. So I'll move around, try a different vantage point, do some looking, maybe just turn and all of a sudden I see 'it' and take the photo (or more than one, depends on what it is). It's sort of like a lightbulb goes on in my head.
 
Yeah, I do see real-world scenes and envision possible photos, all the time. I often think about how I'd shoot them, like, "300mm tele at about f/4.5, high shutter speed, background fairly OOF," or "24mm from about six feet at f/5.6." Or, "70-200 zoom, about 155mm, f/5.6."

Over the last few years, I've also started to learn how the iPhone camera sees, which has really shifted my long-time telephoto preferences toward a shorter focal length, deeper depth of field type of envisioning. The iPhone has close to hyperfocal depth of field beyond three feet, so it allows photos that I've never been able to take before, simply because it is the only truly ultra-miniature format camera I've ever owned. And because I have it with me so often, if I see a pic opportunity with the iPhone, I can either let it slide, or take the shot with very little effort expended.
 
"Seeing pictures" doesn't always mean "taking pictures." I see pictures every day. Some of them are pictures I feel I 'have to' take; others are photos I'd like to take but can't, or already have. And some of them are pictures I'm not that interested in taking because they're not my style, but I still see the picture.
 
Guess I'm not too weird after all. When I ran this question up the flagpole I had no idea if anybody else "saw" pictures all the time. It's interesting that many, many people do see them and some go ahead and take the shot while others consider it an "IDEA" waiting for a solution and others evaluate the shot to see if it fits in their narrow current view. Really appreciate all the thoughtful responses.
 
Yes, quite often. I sometimes mark down locations in my phone for a later date.
 
"Seeing pictures" doesn't always mean "taking pictures." I see pictures every day. Some of them are pictures I feel I 'have to' take; others are photos I'd like to take but can't, or already have. And some of them are pictures I'm not that interested in taking because they're not my style, but I still see the picture.
It isn't always taking photos either. I left yesterday with my gear and every intention of taking photos for the day. Then I drove by a supermarket, remembered we needed a few things. Brought that home. Left again to go take photos, stopped by the hardware store. Picked up a new kitchen faucet, thought okay I will put this in real quick. Had to go back to the hardware store to get a couple couplings. Home again. Left again, oh yeah I need to stop at the bank... etc. etc.. etc....
Ended up carrying my gear yesterday, drove by a few photo ops never even stopped. Kept thinking I would go back never did. So much for spending the day taking photos....
 
As to my extremely varied collection of subject material, I will simply say that I enjoy the hobby of photography, no matter what the subject or "style".

My percentage of "quite nice" (IMO) to "passable snapshots" is still low, so if and when I accumulate 10 or so of the "quite nice" variety, then I will pronounce it "my portfolio".
 
I used to draw so I see everything thinking...how would I draw this. My brain breaks things down into simple shapes. This is probably why I like to shoot abstracts soooo much!

Yep, see photos in everything. ;)
 

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