Photography can be a bit of a black art, but then anyone who has picked up any camera that is more than a point-and-shoot will know that. Aperture this, exposure that, bracketing, f numbers, focal distances and on and on and on with the terminology.
Of course that’s the same with any technology, I know, so I guess what I’m really saying is that I’ve yet to experience that lightbulb moment, that mental switch where everything goes from being “Maybe if I … ” to “I know this’ll look better if …”.
I guess this is what makes a hobby, a hobby. Specialist knowledge. Right?
As I’m constantly trying to improve my knowledge, and hone my, ahem, art, I generally spend some time analysing the photos I have taken, trying to figure out how they could be improved. I’m not a huge fan of heavy post-processing, so pretty much what you see is what you get.
One thing I’ve always been fairly happy with is my ability to frame things, to pick out an interesting angle or viewpoint. But even that has been failing me recently.
For example, our wander around Glasgow Botanic Gardens offered plenty of opportunity for ‘interesting’ photos. The main greenhouse in particular, cries out for attention and, of the many photos I took only two really stand out, this one and this one.
But just viewing them tells me that there are other photo opportunities that I missed.
Now, I know that this will always be the case, and that that is nothing new but it’s still a little annoying. With all the mumbo-jumbo that surrounds photography, and my increasing frustration at the slow rate at which I’m picking it up (I’m usually a fast learner), the fact that the one ‘skill’ I thought I had seems to be deserting me too… well it’s a little annoying. But I’ve said that already.
One of the two photos contains the ‘missed opportunity’. Can you spot which one? And can you spot what the ‘missed opportunity’ was?
Just curious. In case it’s, you know, just me.
Some days, I can’t take a decent picture to save my soul. And then I just start clicking pictures of things and see what comes out. Sometimes I get something good, and sometimes I get junk. I honestly don’t know that much about f stop and aperture and all the technicalities. I do know what looks good to my eye and I usually just roll with that and see what I get.
I don’t do much post-processing either. The most I will do is crop and increase the brightness as the flash on my camera is incredibly bright at close ranges, so I just turn the flash off when I take the picture and then fix it later.
It is definitely frustrating to have a knack for something and then suddenly lose it or try something and have it not work. Don’t worry…it’ll come back 🙂 As for the photos, I like the first one just fine so I’m going to have to go for the second one as the one that has the missing opportunity. Those decorative pieces in the corners were pretty nifty and you definitely could have done something cool with those.
Sorry for writing you a novel 🙂
I know a couple of people who have taken camera courses at night school. On the basis that if they could have grasped ‘it’ by now, then they could have. I think with something like photography you need an outsider to say, ‘ok, you did that, why not this?’ or make you justify what you are doing. It might be that if you are getting frustrated at your speed of learning that you need another view of it. I need different ways of learning for different things. Even a camera club, where you are getting to see other folks stuff AND hear where they are coming from?
Me? Can’t take a photo to save my life…
That’s rather like me, I’m afraid. A greenhouse full of wonderful plants and the pictures you choose are of the roof…
Just a thought – something to provide a sense of the scale
of the edifice?
Spiderman 3?
Oh BTW there is a camera sub £200 with a 10x optical zoom and 7 megapixels, you could do with that you could…
Calista nailed it, not one closeup of the overly decorative corner pieces.. and Sarah I DID take a few of the plants too, they’re on my Flickr account.
mumsy – actually I quite enjoy taking photos with no sense of scale, unless it’s something hugely grand or completely tiny.
hans – I have one of those.. 12x optical zoom, 7MB.. 😉
I think sometimes we can become so fixated on taking the photo that we forget to enjoy the experience. It’s good sometimes to go somewhere without a camera, especially if it’s somewhere interesting you can easily revisit, and it’s amazing how you actually start looking at things as things, imagining the photo, but having actually to use your brain, not your camera. I’ve done this near work (Westminster/Parliament Square) and in my local park. I wouldn’t recommend it on a holiday to a place you’re only likely to visit once!