sav1977 wrote:
That's nearly impossible on these boards. 98.7% of the people won't speak the truth since it might come back to bite them when they post garbage and get negative feedback. Their ego will get crushed. It must remain a big full of $hit happy board.
Learning is like that. According to psychologists, whenever we learn a task there are 3 distinct phases:
1) Its all new, you cant avoid but learn, you learn at a faster rate. You are not necessarily good at, say, piano but you learn roughly where the keys are and can read music. Its messy but a lot better than what your cat can do.
2) The plateau phase. This is when your learning rate drops off. Ask any teacher of anything, it is the MOST depressing stage in any task. Its when you feel like you are getting no-where and become unmotivated. You dont feel that you are making the same leaps and bounds because your expectations eclipse the fact that you are gradually hitting the keys square-on more often, making slightly few errors, timming is imperceptably better
3) If you can get through this you get to a slower and steadier learning curve but it doesnt matter, you see the fruits of your labour and understand persistance and patience. You have a handle on the fundamental aspects of playing a piano and now can feel things like intonation, timing, counterpoint.
Sometimes people have more than one plateau phase.
The point is that the failures give up at plateaus, the rest push through. Willful and deliberate practice, in the face of your own negativity is what trains you properly.
Combine what I have said with what Evan and Red have said and DEFINITELY what jcolman has said (best suggestion I have heard in, well...ever). Also look around you, what are the things that you see that stop you in your tracks? Why does it? What amazes you about the things you see? Get out and look at the world without a viewfinder. Translate that into pictures and you will have your style.
John Power wrote:
Not everyone has that advanced eye. I am not sure everything you want can be learned. Its like dancing. Some people are just better at it than others.
Very true John, but that doesnt mean he has to be the very best to be succsesful or fulfilled by what he does.
Some psychologists feel that success is defined often by the amount of time you spend practicing something. There are many photographers out there that are succsesful enough but not all that good imo.
I think that creating or creativity as seen in photographic work is organic and artificial at the same time. We all see inspiration and beauty from different sources and we process the information internally. How we perceive and replicate information is inherently different in each person. Though a style or technique can definitely be replicated close to 100%, a persons individuality or individual style can seep through each work. By watching things that appeal to one's eye, such as dynamic movies, reading comic books, watching anime and of course seeing other peoples work, one can be familiarized with the things that appeal to the human eye. How you perceive these things and understand how to incorporate them into your work will you start to develop your own style and individuality. Some artists bank on one or two things that make them famous. These people find their strengths and build upon them. It's like finding your own niche, promoting it and then enhancing your work. Hope this makes sense to you.
Perhaps this may not help, but what about posting an image you really feel captures what you want your shots to, and then post one of yours comparatively to see where you can improve? Just a thought.
Do a workshop with Ghionis or Beckstead. You'll spend two years digesting what you have learnt and start to see a progressive improvement in your work over that time.
I'm in the same place that form is at. I have hit that plateau - I know how all the functions in my camera work. I can create various exposures from the same scene. I can even set up a *very* simple lighting setup. But I want to get to that next level. We are at that middle ground -- good photographers, producing quality work. But not at the amazing photographer level yet.
One thing I learned at my last workshop was how to play - how to experiment and have fun with the camera. So I've been incorporating that into my work lately. I was getting so fed up with being a perfectionist (welcome to the club, btw - we should make a facebook group or something. Perfectionistic photographers united). I found that releasing and just having fun with the camera - trying new things - really helped me to start enjoying it again. Experimenting also helps you get better - because you start to see what you get from various angles, focal lengths, and setups. This will also protect you from burnout. Just be careful - you get a lot more "crap" shots when you experiment. Only a handful may come out, but that handful will include some really amazing shots. So it's hard not to get even more down on yourself because you think "I took all these crappy shots, and only a few were really awesome." Concentrate on where you are growing.
I think what evan said is what is going to save me this year - working on one thing at a time is really important. I know my deficiencies. it's tough because we see so many photographers grow so quickly. Technology makes this possible. But we each grow at a different rate and it is frustrating to see limited growth.
One thing to work on is learning to critique your own work. Look at ways that you could have had better posing or composition - or had better light, or moved to a different location, or shot from above, below, etc. I go through my shots and have to be honest about what I could improve one - but also what I did right.
Marcus Watts wrote:
Do a workshop with Ghionis or Beckstead. You'll spend two years digesting what you have learnt and start to see a progressive improvement in your work over that time.
Beckstead is the workshop I'm referencing. I learned so much from that. Aside from the amazing compositions, I learned that it's important to be yourself - shoot what you like. And experiment.
In all seriousness, the equipment used is a factor. F/1.2 is f/1.2, and photoshop / lightroom does things that Canon's DPP software can't.
But of course that's like 5-10% of it, the bulk has to do with practice and study. I'm sure Sam H. could take better photos than I with a Rebel and a 50/1.8. At the same time, the equipment can put that little bit of extra spit and polish to stand out.
Also realize that the greatest artistic photographers are not necessarily the most financially successful, and vice versa. Gary Fong is an example One can make a killing doing T&I photos for baseball leagues, or cap-n-gown shots for high schools where the lighting is clamped down on the "X" and you are reduced to a shutter monkey.
form wrote:
I can appreciate excellent work, but it's like looking at a foreign language to me: Beautiful, impressive, but I can't figure out how or why it's good, and how or why they made it.
How can I really wake up?
Just going by this, it seems that the first step should be figuring out what it is that you are trying to accomplish. Practice should help you to get better at consistently achieving a goal, but if you don't know what that goal is... you're not going to get very far.
I would recommend self-assigning some homework. Get some books with pictures that really stand out to you, or maybe find a handful of photographers' sites that give you that wow factor, then go image by image. Make notes on everything you can observe about the image in front of you.
What is the overall feel?
What draws your eye?
Where is the subject placed in the frame?
Where is the main light coming from?
- How does that affect the feel of the image?
- Is there any fill light?
- How is the ambient light exposed?
How is the image post-processed?
- Is there any color shift or toning?
- How does that affect the feel?
- How saturated are the colors?
Anyway, these are just a jumping off point. The point is to evaluate and look for patterns in what you like, then set to work practicing those aspects.
Marcus Watts wrote:
Do a workshop with Ghionis or Beckstead. You'll spend two years digesting what you have learnt and start to see a progressive improvement in your work over that time.
Or, just as fruitful - do a performance art piece where you burn a few thousand dollars in the middle of a shopping mall or melt a thousand pounds of quarters into a counterweight.
Study observe practice. Study observe practice. Study a LOT of very good photographers work. Try go figure out how they do things.
Or if you are very lucky you may be able to find someone good to work with you and teach you.
Do lots of practice shoots even if they have to be free, utilize your family and friends and their friends. Hard to improve your people skills working with people you already know. On every practice shoot work on something new to move your progress bar ahead.
During the winter which is my downtime I try to do a practice shoot every weekend, when spring comes I emerge much improved over the work I did the year before.
Progress comes slowly but it does come if you put in the effort.
Some people have to work at it harder than others.
The hollow praise comments are very true, it is poison to your progress.
I don't have any shots of my own that capture what I really want to capture. I have images that have one trait or another that I want, but not the whole.
This is always a good place for good advice and I want to thank everyone who has posted and will post.
Sometime I just stop taking any picture or editing none for a week, and spend the week entirely on browsing museums, galleries or too lazy (or rainy day) browse the web for any famous artists (not just photographers) until I've seen enough and itching to get my hand on camera again, because I got some creative ideas generated from the images I've seen and knowing that I could do better - with a lot of practices in some case.
Go to workshops where you can work with advanced photographers. Ask those questions, and listen and watch as they answer them.
Texas School sponsored by the Texas Professional Photographers Assn is a great place to get such a workshop economically. It's usually held every year in the Spring. This year's starts May 3-8. There may be still some classes with openings.
Check out their web site at
www.tppa.org
I'm sure there are others, but I am not as familiar with them
form wrote:
Great photographers can visualize the scenes, know the angles, imagine the shot the way it will come out really nicely, catch the flaws before they ruin the photo, isolate the best parts, and seamlessly and naturally create excellent photos. How can I learn to do that?
Wear out the shutters of a couple of cameras. ;-)
I subscribe to Malcolm Gladwell's "10,000 Hour" rule. I thought I was OK at portraiture, then we got the contract for Senior photography for a school with 1200 Seniors. Over a third opted for more than the basic yearbook pose and at least 100 went for the biggest package that included environmental portraits. At the end of the season I was a far better portraitist.
Throughout my 50 years (starting at 8) that I've been an enthusiast, there have been regular cycles of thinking my work was OK to wanting to burn all my negatives. Sometimes just getting away from it helped. When I worked as a professional, that was not an option. Then I would give myself a side project, an area to explore not related to my bread and butter worked. That always helped.
dmacmillan wrote:
Wear out the shutters of a couple of cameras. ;-)
I subscribe to Malcolm Gladwell's "10,000 Hour" rule. I thought I was OK at portraiture, then we got the contract for Senior photography for a school with 1200 Seniors. Over a third opted for more than the basic yearbook pose and at least 100 went for the biggest package that included environmental portraits. At the end of the season I was a far better portraitist.
Throughout my 50 years (starting at 8) that I've been an enthusiast, there have been regular cycles of thinking my work was OK to wanting to burn all my negatives. Sometimes just getting away from it helped. When I worked as a professional, that was not an option. Then I would give myself a side project, an area to explore not related to my bread and butter worked. That always helped.
