What i was to who i am today

[photogod88]

I love the thought that this forum allows me the opportunity to listen. Not to have to pretend I know what I'm talking about or even give advice but just listen. Listen to the diversity if roads traveled by all of us to get to where ever we are in our career or hobby. I wanna open this thread to collect wisdom. And apply it I know the problems I am having with my pictures or growth aren't the first to ever come along. If you have a testimony of how you over came your biggest challenge as a photographer and where it took you in improving I wanna hear feel free to offer resources for where to get education or material on what it is you now know

 

[Tony S]

Don't seek out approval of your vision from others, it's only yourself you need to please.

 

[Judobreaker]

... it's only yourself you need to please.

Tell me... Do you have a girlfriend?

 

[Big Mike]

Have you ever heard of the 10,000 hour rule?

If you stick with something and are dedicated to continual improvement, all it takes is time.

 

[KmH]

It also takes effort and the study of a surprisingly broad range of subjects.

The most common issue I see most photographers have is they don't understand at a fundamental level how their tools work - camera, lens, light.
Many lack a good understanding of how to control depth-of-field (DoF), and the limitations of a DSLR's auto focus system.

As an example, a good understanding of how a camera shutter works facilitates using advanced photography techniques, like using strobed lighting (flash). Techniques like dragging the shutter, front or rear curtain flash sync, x-sync mode and high shutter speed flash sync modes are a lot easier to learn to use if one understands how the camera's shutter works.

With digital photography, a photographer also has to have a fundamental understanding of subjects like light color temperatures as they relate to white balance, limitations of the camera's metering system, what metering modes the metering system has available and their appropriate uses, bit-depth and how it relates to image file types, color spaces and how color space effects image display be it electronic or print.

Even fairly simple things like understanding an 8x10 image has a different shape (4:5 aspect ratio) than the images most DSLR cameras produce which is a 2:3 aspect ratio (8x12).

 

[Derrel]

Wisdom is soooo hard to acquire, and amassing enough of it to "collect" is tough! So, out with some nuggets of pseudo-wisom. Old sayings. Little bits of advice. Guidelines. Machine-gun style. Be open to new ideas. Look at pictures and evaluate them,constantly. DON'T look at the work of others-they will influence you,perhaps in a bad way. DO LOOK at the works of others--gain inspiration. Shoot tight. Shoot freely. Save everything. Delete the crap. Do not waste time deleting while shooting-save it for LATER! Use a 50mm lens. NEVER use a 50. Buy yourself an 85/1.8 AF prime and LEARN TO USE IT-it is a powerful tool. Good lenses last for years--buy some! ONE really,really,really good lens is worth a lot. Have a plan. Be spontaneous. Experiment. Work with rigid adherence to your own ideals. Get drunk once in a while. Never clean your gear while drunk. Never drive while drunk, or ALL of this could be academic. Use your cell phone camera--don't text with the damned thing--SHOOT with it. Study art. All kinds of art. Read about photography. Hang out with smart people. NEVER waste money on Keno, or video poker. If U wanna gamble play against PEOPLE, not rip-off machines. KENO is for idiots. Whew...

 

[KenC]

Wisdom is soooo hard to acquire, and amassing enough of it to "collect" is tough! So, out with some nuggets of pseudo-wisom. Old sayings. Little bits of advice. Guidelines. Machine-gun style. Be open to new ideas. Look at pictures and evaluate them,constantly. DON'T look at the work of others-they will influence you,perhaps in a bad way. DO LOOK at the works of others--gain inspiration. Shoot tight. Shoot freely. Save everything. Delete the crap. Do not waste time deleting while shooting-save it for LATER! Use a 50mm lens. NEVER use a 50. Buy yourself an 85/1.8 AF prime and LEARN TO USE IT-it is a powerful tool. Good lenses last for years--buy some! ONE really,really,really good lens is worth a lot. Have a plan. Be spontaneous. Experiment. Work with rigid adherence to your own ideals. Get drunk once in a while. Never clean your gear while drunk. Never drive while drunk, or ALL of this could be academic. Use your cell phone camera--don't text with the damned thing--SHOOT with it. Study art. All kinds of art. Read about photography. Hang out with smart people. NEVER waste money on Keno, or video poker. If U wanna gamble play against PEOPLE, not rip-off machines. KENO is for idiots. Whew...

You forgot to tell everyone to rotate their tires.

 

[Tony S]

Tell me... Do you have a girlfriend?

NO way..much worse, I'm married. lol

 

[cgipson1]

I love the thought that this forum allows me the opportunity to listen. Not to have to pretend I know what I'm talking about or even give advice but just listen. Listen to the diversity if roads traveled by all of us to get to where ever we are in our career or hobby. I wanna open this thread to collect wisdom. And apply it I know the problems I am having with my pictures or growth aren't the first to ever come along. If you have a testimony of how you over came your biggest challenge as a photographer and where it took you in improving I wanna hear feel free to offer resources for where to get education or material on what it is you now know

photo GOD has problems? Hmmmmm... with a name like that, you should be perfection itself, right?

 

[Fred Berg]

For me, the most important thing has been getting to know about light. I'm still learning, of course (look at my photos and you'll see that) but I have a much firmer grip on things since I started to really look at light as a key factor. This may sound obvious, but I think it's something that is often not given enough weight. There are other things that I'm still working on, of course: composition, interest (though I often favour the banal/ordinary, I try to post photos here that people will think interesting enough to look at), message and meaning, etc., but light is #1.


Another point is getting to really know the cameras I use. At the moment I'm mainly using a compact camera from Sigma (DP1s), which I bought about 18 months ago. Although I've had it a while, only now do I feel that I'm really getting to know all its habits - good and bad. Or perhaps I should say that I'm beginning to understand how to adapt my good and bad habits to the camera

 

[PlanetStarbucks]

Adding to Fred Berg's comments on light...yes, understanding light it the critical thing here. I don't know if this would really be of help to many others out there, but my understanding of light was really pushed forward with 3d computer rendering. I didn't even plan on it being the path, it just ended up that way. I had a project for work that I needed graphics for, and nothing I found looked good enough for me. So I decided to make what I want using a 3d modeling program.

The irony is that 3d modeling and ray tracing and all that stuff isn't truly doing what light does. It's using algorythms to fake what light does in the real world. It's an approximation but it really makes you think about how light behaves. When you design stuff inside the program you always have to think about what it is you want it to look like and what light it will take to achieve that. You're always asking, if I place a light here and it's apparent size is x and I want it to diffuse through y, then...whatever. It actually completely changed my entire outlook on the subject. It got to the point where when I would walk around I would think about the lights in a room and what they were doing.

And then, when I came back to photography, suddenly so much more made sense. I would say with confidence that my time doing digital art made me better at photography. I can't claim to be a great photographer by any means, I am still a long long long way away. But that time I spent doing another form of art was ultimately beneficial. I think this is true of all forms of art you can pursue. So in essence, don't just do photography...do other things. All of it adds up to being better.

 

[unpopular]

Don't be afraid to suck at photography. Making great images only regurgitates that which has already been done before.

 

[unpopular]

The irony is that 3d modeling and ray tracing and all that stuff isn't truly doing what light does. It's using algorythms to fake what light does in the real world.

Some are closer than others. The Maxwell Renderer is quite accurate.

 

[Overread]

Don't be afraid of bad ideas. Cause if you're afraid to put out a bad idea, the good ideas will get stuck in the back of your head behind all the bad ideas.
You've got to throw all the ideas out there on the table, the good, the bad and the ugly. That's the only way that you'll find the awesome ideas hidden amongst everything else.

And that line ain't mine its Lindsey Stirling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf6LD2B_kDQ&feature=plcp