reason for photography

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beddingfield

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When you go around the interweb looking at people who do phototography, it gets really depressing.

In order to be "different" from everyone, they follow the instagram hash code of the week for photos, and follow every single internet meme for direction.

Somewhat like everyone arrested for public nudity claims "I streaked to protest starving children in Bolivia".

So are we stuck trying to outdo each other in terms of subject matter in some bizarre attempt to become "interesting"?


Is simple photography a dead thing for people?
 
Its just that so many photo takers, even those claiming to be professional paid level, have taken to doing kitche meme type things to "stand out from others".

Sad when a wedding photographer charges extra to customers to take photos with the pre exposed film sold by lomography, or to take photos of the entire event with a holga camera.
 
I post very few pictures to the Internet and I don't honestly make a point of looking at others' photography too often, in part because I don't want to follow what might turn out to be lame trends, and in part because my reason for getting all of this crap was initially for high quality family pictures.

Most of what I look at is technical, in the sense of trying to improve my handling of the camera itself.
 
Technical skills other then photo shop, putting a lens on the camera, and tossing it to AF, may be rather unwanted now.

Even proper focusing doesn't seem to matter with the glut of funky special effects lenses out in the great yonder that make things blurry and hazy and downright migraine inducing
 
Technical skills other then photo shop, putting a lens on the camera, and tossing it to AF, may be rather unwanted now.

Even proper focusing doesn't seem to matter with the glut of funky special effects lenses out in the great yonder that make things blurry and hazy and downright migraine inducing

I might agree with you for nice daytime lighting, but skill with the equipment very much matters in nighttime and dark indoor settings, and it may still be some time before camera manufacturers manage to create cameras that are good automatically in low light.
 
I have it on good authority that the sky is falling.

OP... your post is about the tenth one echoing the same sentiment within the past 2 years. It's too bad that we live in the 21st century instead of in the 1940s. You know, before Polaroid and color film came along and ruined everything.
 
Technical skills other then photo shop, putting a lens on the camera, and tossing it to AF, may be rather unwanted now.

Even proper focusing doesn't seem to matter with the glut of funky special effects lenses out in the great yonder that make things blurry and hazy and downright migraine inducing

I might agree with you for nice daytime lighting, but skill with the equipment very much matters in nighttime and dark indoor settings, and it may still be some time before camera manufacturers manage to create cameras that are good automatically in low light.

What's the difference between daylight and night time? What's the big skill difference? Ambient light is ambient light whether it's at night or in the day.
Post an example of one of your night shots that's more difficult than a daylight shot?
SS
 
When you go around the interweb looking at people who do phototography, it gets really depressing....
?
Depressing??????
Millions of people are posting pictures of their dinner with bunny ears. I find that very amusing. Photography has evolved into a much more accessible form of communication and photo's have become words in a non-verbal conversation. Brilliant!!!

The sanctity of searching for the perfect photograph is as intact as it has ever been and is a laudable goal to which I aspire. BUT......

The skill and effort required to achieve a perfect photograph is a personal thing. My daughter takes dozens of photographs every day but has no real interest in photography other than what can be done with her phone in under 2 seconds. Her vision of the perfect photo is as valid as mine.

The current state of the evolution of photography is very exciting. I cant wait for whats coming next.
 
When you go around the interweb looking at people who do phototography, it gets really depressing.

In order to be "different" from everyone, they follow the instagram hash code of the week for photos, and follow every single internet meme for direction.

Somewhat like everyone arrested for public nudity claims "I streaked to protest starving children in Bolivia".

So are we stuck trying to outdo each other in terms of subject matter in some bizarre attempt to become "interesting"?


Is simple photography a dead thing for people?

Bed, you're making an assumption that everybody goes around the internet looking at photos. Either way, in what way does looking at the internet get depressing? Are you saying that it's depressing because there is no originality or individuality left? Just people that want to follow?
I don't see how following hashtags will make you different, better or worse? Why would one follow the hashtags at all? I have an Instagram and I don't follow hashtags. I think we all look at photography and sometimes we are inspired and probably most times are not. I'll admit there is a lot of pitiful and over-saturated crap on the internet that many try to pass off as good photography.
That said there are a lot of beginners on the internet desperately looking for ways to improve their photography. At that stage a lot of that crappy photography looks great to them and is well worth aspiring too. We all started somewhere and if following hashtags is what helps, what's wrong with that?!
"So are we stuck trying to outdo each other". Not sure I even understand that statement? Whose trying to out do each other and in which way? Maybe I have to start following the hashtags to understand your frustration.?
What does simple photography even mean? One persons simple photography might be very complex to someone else and some photographers wouldn't know complex photography if it slapped them in the face!!! LoL
SS
 
Technical skills other then photo shop, putting a lens on the camera, and tossing it to AF, may be rather unwanted now.

Even proper focusing doesn't seem to matter with the glut of funky special effects lenses out in the great yonder that make things blurry and hazy and downright migraine inducing

I might agree with you for nice daytime lighting, but skill with the equipment very much matters in nighttime and dark indoor settings, and it may still be some time before camera manufacturers manage to create cameras that are good automatically in low light.

What's the difference between daylight and night time? What's the big skill difference? Ambient light is ambient light whether it's at night or in the day.
Post an example of one of your night shots that's more difficult than a daylight shot?
SS

2ndballoon-scaled-jpg.184716


Cropped from this:

2ndballoon-pre-crop.JPG
168mm f/8, 1 second, ISO 400.

The balloons were firing their gas jets for around a second. When they weren't firing the only light was from the buildings in the background and reflecting off of the water. The camera did not know what to focus on in auto mode as it couldn't make-out the balloons in the darkness. It would try to focus on the lake in the foreground or it would try to focus on the lights but would struggle.

I had been attempting to get both of these balloons firing at the same time.

This composite photo:

composite-scaled-jpg.184714


Started out with individual photos of balloons like this:

balloon-1-scaled.JPG

50mm f/8, 1 second, ISO 400

Again, with basically nothing bright enough to focus on quickly enough to get an automatic shot.

Now, perhaps a more skilled photographer than I am could have paradoxically gotten a better shot on full-auto in these conditions- I'm more like Gomez Addams than Ansel Adams when it comes to photgraphy- but to get good color and a wide enough depth of field to include all of the balloons at different distances without resorting to an incredibly high ISO I had to pick a shutter speed and aperture that no camera would automatically choose, and I had to manually focus during prior firings in order to get sharp images when I finally started snapping the shutter.

So, what would you have done differently?
 
id avoided the composite photo
 
id avoided the composite photo
Why?

The composite photo was close to what I was originally looking to do. I had to patiently figure out depth of field that included both the closest and the furthest balloons plus any reflection off of the water that I wanted focused, then wait and snap various shots as the balloons did what I wanted them to do. I did miss a few moments when multiple balloons were firing simultaneously.

While it is a composite shot, the camera never moved or was otherwise changed between shots. If anything, the composite image further illustrates how automatic settings wouldn't have worked, since undoubtedly the camera would have picked different settings for each balloon if it had managed to determine any settings at all, rather than maintaining a consistency across all shots to allow for the compositing to be extremely minimal effort.
 
I quite like the 3rd image. I would do some more photoshop to it. Loose the bottom 1/3 from the edge of the still water on the left.
Loose the white lighting like light right of the square patten ballon and a few other clones to remove distractions
Other than that I would have taken the same approach as you
 
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I quite like the 3rd image. I would do some more photoshop to it. Loose the bottom 1/3 from the edge of the still water on the left.
Loose the white lighting like light right of the square patten ballon and a few other clones to remove distractions
Other than that I would have taken the same approach as you

It might benefit from a little bit of burn. I'd have to take care in the process since a simple black spot would probably itself detract too given the presence of other background lighting, but it is just a little distracting. If I had to do it all over again I'd probably have gotten there earlier and checked the layout better, but I'm not sure I could have really done a lot better. Another photographer was set up not far from where I chose, I made sure to keep well out of his way. I'd probably have tried to be more patient about the last balloon that I didn't get, and I might've even set up the M100 to keep one camera focused on the whole scene while using the other to zoom-in. Oh well, live and learn.
 
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