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Frusterated - what am I doing wrong?

If you've ever seen the movie 'Amadeus', it might be enlightening to you about the gap between adequate and good art.

Isn't that the movie about the white kid from Detroit that wanted to be a rapper? :lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao:
No, that movie was about M&Ms
or Em&ms
something like that ...


M&M's, I thought that was the one with the Russian Gazzillionare with the tiny Giraffe?
 
If you've ever seen the movie 'Amadeus', it might be enlightening to you about the gap between adequate and good art.

Isn't that the movie about the white kid from Detroit that wanted to be a rapper? :lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao:
No, that movie was about M&Ms
or Em&ms
something like that ...

So if your a white kid from Detroit and you want to become a rapper you need to change your name to Amadeus and eat M&Ms?

Huh. Learn something new everyday I guess.
 
Isn't that the movie about the white kid from Detroit that wanted to be a rapper? :lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao:
No, that movie was about M&Ms
or Em&ms
something like that ...


M&M's, I thought that was the one with the Russian Gazzillionare with the tiny Giraffe?

I thought that was about a Russian guy and his elephant.. Putin's Pachyderm, or something like that.
 
A couple of the posters have already mentioned that there is "no there there", or words to that effect. Try to get some human interest going. If you look at the "popular" photographs, you see lots of human interest, and they don't even have to be OF humans necessarily. Even the fox picture has some interest because of the way the eyes are staring back at the camera.

You are coming up against a realization that comes to most or all of us eventually and painfully.
Taking technically adequate pictures is a skill that virtually anyone can acquire with some amount of experience and a bit of innate ability to understand how the camera and light interacts.
Smart cameras provide a huge boost to virtually anyone thus the billions of OK pictures but the ability to get beyond technically adequate, to 'create' images that people remember takes work, insight, effort and some talent.

If you've ever seen the movie 'Amadeus', it might be enlightening to you about the gap between adequate and good art.

You have some skills; that shows.
I have no idea if you have any talent or creativity.

I've not seen that movie, and according to your post, I am in need of the ability to recognize the gap between adequate and good art.

So be it.
 
I saw a few of your photos among many that are good enough but rather run of the mill, a few that to me seem to have potential. There's one in B&W of a building interior (dome) that has some interesting pattern to it and would be a great subject for probably a number of different photos - seem like you saw something there that you thought would make a good photograph. It could maybe use some adjustment in contrast since it seemed more grayscale than B&W but has an interesting composition. There's also one of a green bug on an orangeish-red leaf that has some pattern to it in the antenna and the veins of the leaf. Some I agree seem in too tight but I think it works with that one because of the balance to the photo. There's also a B&W of barbed wire that again could be an interesting subject for a number of different photos - in this one I'd think about the aperture and depth of field and what you want in focus. I think you might want to start thinking about which of your photos you think are your best and not necessarily show so many. And if you're posting your photos on a website read the Terms & Conditions, because many seem to not be much more than a photo grab in that they want users to sell/license thru them and the terms are often not going to benefit you as a photographer (depending on the site it might make as much as 80-90% of a selling price/licensing fee, and some have terms that allow them to use, distribute, sublicense, etc. users' photos). It takes a lot of time and practice and learning to get good at photography, and ratings on a website aren't necessarily that meaningful (they often seem to be more popularity contests than actually choosing what's good).
 
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A couple of the posters have already mentioned that there is "no there there", or words to that effect. Try to get some human interest going. If you look at the "popular" photographs, you see lots of human interest, and they don't even have to be OF humans necessarily. Even the fox picture has some interest because of the way the eyes are staring back at the camera.

You are coming up against a realization that comes to most or all of us eventually and painfully.
Taking technically adequate pictures is a skill that virtually anyone can acquire with some amount of experience and a bit of innate ability to understand how the camera and light interacts.
Smart cameras provide a huge boost to virtually anyone thus the billions of OK pictures but the ability to get beyond technically adequate, to 'create' images that people remember takes work, insight, effort and some talent.

If you've ever seen the movie 'Amadeus', it might be enlightening to you about the gap between adequate and good art.

You have some skills; that shows.
I have no idea if you have any talent or creativity.

I've not seen that movie, and according to your post, I am in need of the ability to recognize the gap between adequate and good art.

So be it.

Sorry, I was replying to the OP and somehow got you caught in there.

L
 
M&M's, I thought that was the one with the Russian Gazzillionare with the tiny Giraffe?

I thought that was about a Russian guy and his elephant.. Putin's Pachyderm, or something like that.

You may be right about that, Putin's Petite Pachyderm. But wasn't that a movie based in Philly??

Pretty sure the one based in Philly was actually Dochevsky's Diminutive Drongo. Not a bad flick, pretty good special effects really.. well, you know, for the time, and for Claymation.

Lol
 
Looking at the first four pages of the most popular photos and what stands out to me is the bursts of vivid color that pull your eyes in and then you see the main subject. Seems if you don't have a half naked female handy you've got to really bear down on the color button. It's absolutely right to shoot all kinds of subjects but I think if you focus on publishing your best shots one or two subject areas you'll do better.
 
Some while back a friend encouraged me to post daily on Blipfoto for a while. I quickly found that I paid more attention to my work intended for posting, but not in a good way.

I started almost subconsciously taking photos that would please other posters instead of myself. I started changing my processing to suit other posters. I found time was used up on this stuff instead of being used for my own benefit.

If people stopped following me I wondered what I had done wrong (instead of accepting people tend to drift from poster to poster unable to maintain a long list of people to follow). If I did not post, I felt I might have let my 'followers' down.

I only posted for 3 or 4 months, then told myself to get a grip and resigned from the place to do other more beneficial things. I am glad I did it for a short while as it caused some benefit in the way I looked at my work, but overall it was not healthy for my photography to stay there.

Frankly the only people you need to please are people who pay you. Unless you have long term hope of obtaining some kind of market via being noticed on photo sites, you are better off elsewhere, getting paid or having more fun, rather than hand wringing over a fickle audience who give likes as 'return thank you' markers for being fawning to them.

Don't let photo sites crush your confidence at this early stage. You seem to be doing fine technically, but you are not giving yourself a chance to grow artistically. Very few photographers or artists of any kind can produce perfect work right at the beginning of their art life. I would stop posting there, at least for a while - find yourself instead of loosing confidence.

Above all be proud - you are doing ok so far and you will continue to improve, just as all posters on this forum will have gone through a similar learning curve.
 
Just to trow in some thought. After some time you will stop to care about the rating and votes in 500px. I was like that already.
There are some famous photographers already and it is hard for the new one to shine.
 
If you want pictures to get high ratings on 500px, then you need to post over-saturated, cliche-type landscapes with a chit-ton of post processing done on them.Or focus on semi-nude,conventionally beautiful 20-something year-old women in seductive poses and trashy outfits. No alt girl type models need apply.

500px is the graphic novel of the field of literature, the Applebees of the sit-down restaurant world. Your photos are not "slick" and "trendy" enough to get high ratings on a superficial site like 500px,which caters to an audience of people who like kitschy, over-worked stuff and who favor style over substance, and who like the facile over the sophisticated. It's a lot like Keeping Up With The Kardashians, as opposed to Masterpiece Theatre; popularity does not directly correlate with quality, or aesthetic values. If you like happy, shiny people, 500px is for you.

If you shoot just to try and gain high ratings on 500px, you'll be striving to please a very low common denominator, and will then be shooting to conform, not to excel, not to be unique, but to fit in with the herd. A lot of the work shown on 500px is exceedingly "of the moment", and will look cliche and dated within a few years, once the next new software processing fads take over from the current faddish stuff.
 
An entirely worthwhile video. This guy's "brain dump" is food for thought.
 

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