Photography Your Own Way
October 20th, 2009
Published in
Photography
4 Comments
Tags: creativity, inspiration, opinions, photoshop
None of us should ever stop learning. By attaining knowledge we grow both as human beings and as professionals, but there is learning and then there is information overload. With so many excellent photography blogs, magazines and communities, there is no shortage of advice on anything and everything related to the field. If you were to study all these sources, you would have no time left to actually use the information gathered.
One trick is to be critical of what you read. Not just in terms of technical merit (sidenote: I see more and more bad advice from people more interested in being cool bloggers than providing valuable or even correct information), but also the style and feel of the writing itself. If I have too many sources of information on a given topic, I tend to keep the ones that are well written, engaging and personal as well as informative. The rest are discarded.
I reached the saturation point several months ago, which is also one reason I haven’t written a how-to post in a while. learning new Photoshop tricks simply doesn’t do it for me these days. I’m looking for something a little more profound, and would much rather work on improving what really matters, namely The Eye. As in the skill of actually framing and taking a picture. It sounds simple enough, but of all the aspects of photography it truly is the most important one. You can be a post-processing rock star or a master of lighting and still produce boring work. On the other hand, you can have no clue how to process an image and still create beautiful pictures, if your Eye is leading the way.
The best method to train The Eye is to shoot a lot. Take a ton of pictures, play around, try different lenses and angles, locations and conditions. Do stuff with your gear that you’ve never even heard of before. Break free of all the rules and tips you’ve gathered from all those tutorials, articles and blog posts. One of the reasons I chose to put microstock on the back burner in 2009, was to break out of a specific way of thinking. I had limited myself to the stock standard for creating images and that had become so ingrained in my workflow, that letting go of it was getting increasingly difficult. Since then, I have worked primarily on personal projects, where the only rules are the ones I set for myself. And in that time, I have grown and evolved tremendously as a photographer.
My encouragement and the point of this post is to read less and shoot more. To step back and look for your own approach, rather than the one you’re supposed to have. Learn the rules, gather tips and techniques, then turn it all on its head and use that knowledge your way. Don’t ignore what you have learned, but don’t let it stifle you either. You’ll discover stuff no tutorial can teach you, I promise, and those tips and tricks will still be there when you are ready for them.
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October 20th, 2009at 10:40 pm(#)
Great post Ras. It’s from the heart and full of wisdom.
October 23rd, 2009at 7:18 am(#)
Very well said, Ras. Information overload sums it up. I try to take bits and pieces, and remember a few things here in there. In the end, you make it your own by playing around and developing your own “eye” like you said. You will stress yourself out if you try and master everything you read about online, especially all at once. I think that in time, we all end up trying a wide range of different styles, subjects, and techniques, but sometimes decide to focus on a limited range of those; either out of ability or personal preference.
The stock mindset is definitely blinding. I miss so many good shots because I see dollar signs when I’m shooting. I don’t see things that might be dying to be captured, all of the time. I wrote a blog post about this recently, comparing myself to a close friend of mine, who helped me come to this conclusion :) It’s tough to be able to “turn off” stock. Once you’ve embedded it in your mindset, it just sticks.
November 25th, 2009at 1:27 pm(#)
[...] second major mistake was a lack of connection between the content and the comment. The post where the comment had been left was actually not about microstock, and there was nothing in the [...]
November 30th, 2009at 6:43 pm(#)
I have another school of thought that helps me, at least, and that is to treat digital as if I was shooting film. I’ll sometimes challenge myself by deliberately going out with a smaller memory card, or take out a camera with one prime lens (like a 35 or 50mm). I find it does help when I have severe creative block. It isn’t for everyone, but I would rather return home with 100 really good shots than 1200 jpegs that are trash. I come from film and rangefinders, so such limitations don’t bother me as much.
My problem when I went digital was that I think I was shooting too much and getting away from the core basics of what made a good photo. The lightbulb came on for me when on one photo forum, a guy bragged about shooting 2400 jpegs in one day, then posted two images saying “these are the best”. They were indeed garbage. That post just made me start thinking again.
On Photoshop – I can barely stand to look at “cool” Photoshop tutorials these days. There’s just no substitute for good shooting.