Mister Bean Offline Upload & Sell: Off
|
1. I think my capture technique is ok.
* For the most part, I would say this is true.
2. Trying to substitute mid day for golden hour is wishful thinking.
* For what it seems you're trying to accomplish, yes.
3. Doing landscapes at the level I desire means I need to find the drama at the scene and not added by processing.
* Yes, but I wouldn't limit this statement to landscape photography. You have to have the right foundation to build on.
4. I think my processing is ok. It will evolve as it has for the last 10 years, but this is probably not what is holding me back.
* Yes.
5. Composition is probably my largest issue. I probably work too wide and have no skill at subject isolation.
* On composition, very much so, though I wouldn't necessarily generalize and say that it has to do with shooting wide or subject isolation. I've been watching your photography in here for some time now, though perhaps not as much as others. The impression I get is that of an engineer trying to build photos with a slide rule. You get bogged down in the technical details of capture and post-processing, and resist addressing the composition/art of photography.
If you're interested, I have a few ideas about some exercises that could potentially help.
a. Take a drawing class. All of the fundamentals that you learn in drawing translate in photography. It may sound like a stretch, but I've taken several drawing classes, and I can't think of any lesson from those that didn't apply to photography in some way. It will change the way you look at the world.
b. Spend time looking at art that you really love. I don't mean just looking casually, look at how they're composed, how your eye moves around them, try to figure out what the artist was trying to express, and how they were doing it, etc. It's probably best to do this with someone else so that you can get their interpretation as well. I wouldn't limit this to photography, again, most of the same principals apply in photography, drawing and painting. Visit museums.
c. Try a month (better six months or a year) of black and white photography. Ideally this would be with film so that you basically get what you develop, no futzing around with the post processing. But you're invested in digital, so that's fine to use also. The idea here is that you focus on seeing photographs, looking at light and composition, etc. Not everyone agrees, but I thought that Mike Johnston at the Online Photographer had a rather brilliant suggestion of using a Leica with a single lens, and a single type of black and white film for a year. You can read about it here - http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2009/05/a-leica-year.html This is a project I've wanted to try for some time now, but have never gotten to it.
d. Try doing some non-landscape photography. Learning to make interesting photos in other styles will almost certainly help with your landscape photography.
As for learning in this forum. Per above, I think you're biggest problem is related to the art/composition side of things. It also seems to be something you're very resistant to learning. Perhaps because it's less concrete a concept? An additional problem, at least from my perspective, is that this forum can ge a little stuck on the processing, and doesn't get into what makes a great photo. Actually, it's not really this forum. This has been the case on most forums I've visted. I think it's probably just the nature of the internet.
So I guess if I were to sum everything up, spend less time worrying about the technical stuff, and learn more about art.
|