Are you influenced by technique - or opinion?

[mrca]

When I teach I always ask what is the first thing you should do before you take a photo. Old guys or range finder guys will say take off the lens cap. The answer is know why you are taking the shot. Other wise it's like sitting at a keyboard and hitting random keys. Once you know why, all your choices of camera position around the subject, height, distance, what is in or out, placement in the frame, lens, aperture, shutter speed, lighting, pose, props all should support the original reason for the shot. Shooting every shot the same way might nail a shot every once and in a while and explain why folks get so few "keepers." Unfortunately, in many competitions there are no titles that can give a clue as to what the reason of the shot was and those tend to be judged on technique only, not whether the technique enhanced and completed the concept of the shot. I want to know why the photographer took the shot, why he made all those choices, were there impediments to some other choices, what were the most important choices. For example, I wanted a camera above my subjects looking down and was using a 180 degree fisheye lens so I ended up Putting up a light stand, a boom, booming the camera and cabling behind a black scrim to a lap top to fire and pop a studio light off the ceiling from behind the scrim. Putting me on a ladder or a light on that side of the scrim wouldn't work with a 180 degree fisheye. That will teach you to try those techniques learned from others in some situations. Knowing camera, lens, aperture etc is just mechanics. That really doesn't tell you about the shot... unless it was one of those random hitting the keyboard keys shots. I think those are called snap shots.

 

[smoke665]

In all honesty when viewing or taking a picture, I can never recall saying. "Wow what lovely texture or tonal balance etc

See I think I'm becoming more like that kind of person you mention. I've reached a level of understanding on technical aspects, such that when I look at an image, in a few mins I can pretty much deduce the technical part, but there's a whole new world in PP out there that is beyond what a camera can capture, it comes from the imagination of the photographer.

I don't want to introduce the SOOC/PP war into the thread, to each their own no criticism from me, but while you look for the technical, of the original image, I look for how the photographer introduced his/her vision into the image. I look at what worked, what didn't. I think of the steps post that photographer had to go through to get the finished image. Like the technical aspects of the actual image capture, there are certain processes and techniques, that have similarities in post, even between software such that after awhile you start to recognize and are able to reorganize them in ways that create a new look, feel, vibe, that might be entirely different from the image you gleaned them from.