A question for the experienced....

[icassell]

ccording to Bresson, your first 10000 are the worst.

Whew, I'm past my worst images then. I have about 15k images in my Lightroom catalog... so I'm 5k pictures into my 'next to worst' pictures.

Yeah, but Bresson had to hand-count his, cuz he didn't have lightroom!

 

[djacobox372]

For me the next step was venturing into medium and large format film.

I also have started to shy away from zoom lenses, the quality I can get from prime lenses is unmatched. Also, having less options helps me focus--this is something I learned from my film photography.

 

[IgsEMT]

After several months on here and looking back at my original posts for C&C and those of others since, I definitely see a pattern among the noobs. Looking back at my first photos, I have no clue what I was thinking when I was taking those pics, over exposed, shutter to slow, or just simply not interesting. With the input of many on here, what I photograph and how I photograph has definitely improved, but this all begs the question…what’s the next step?

For those of you that have been in photography for several years, especially seeing the conversion to DSLR, what motivates your photos? What do you seek out on the weekends? What advanced techniques are you trying to employ in your photos? As a noobie myself, I’ve played around with the panoramas, the HDRs, the week/strong DOFs, but looking at what I should focus on next, well, I guess Im in need of your experience. What is the practical next step?

Don’t get me wrong, Im under no impression I have mastered the basics, but as I progress and continue to practice, what opportunities or techniques should I pursue to increase my skills?
__________________

Lighting.
Regardless if you're doing food, macro, portraiture, weddings, etc, Master Lighting = master photography

 

[dxqcanada]

Twenty years ago, when I started, I shot everything.
This lasted a couple of years.
After a while I concentrated on those subjects that I thought I had the best images from.
The photography I have been doing in the past 6 years has been Wildlife and Natural Landscapes.

I have always tried to improve.
I will warn you that as you continue you will become more critical of the images. When I was shooting film ... I could go through 3 - 4 rolls of film and only have one or two that I thought were good.

With Digital ... I have become lazy ... as I do not have to waste film and processing. That is something I have against Digital ... I think less. I used to take the time to think about each frame.

Human subjects may seem less compared to a bear ... to you. Some people will find the human more interesting.

Keep shooting what you like ... keep trying to understand why you think a picture looks so good ... and then learn to do it yourself.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

Dxq, you want to go back to being careful and think more about the images you shoot?
Get a smaller memory card.