4.03.2006
i applied for this photography contest and i was the only one in my category so i'm going to the finals for sure. that's fuckin sad. for the others of course who didn't send any work! i'm just wondering which pics will be chosen among the three i sent.
and talking about photography, i know i promised you an article some time ago, but i'm lazy. so here it is
first:
a good subject is NOT a good picture. this is the only thing that really counts in photography. once you understand this concept you will be ready to improve your skills with composition, light conditions, tricks and all this boring kind of stuff. but techniques comes AFTER.
there's no point in aiming your camera at something just because it's the tour eiffel and everybody says it's beautiful. when you are holding a picture in your hand, you are holding A PICTURE, not the tour eiffel. the subject doesn't matter at all, should not even be considered.
so which one would you put in your room? the second picture represents nothing, just two doors. would you imagine millions of visitors for those two doors?
so you are walking down the street and you spot something that for some reason interest you. what do you do? do NOT point at it. walk around, have a look at the place where you are standing in its whole, think. how do you feel like in front of it? that's your picture. not the object that hit your eye, but the sensation you are feeling. you are photographing yourself, not the subject.
ok, given that you have made this concept utterly yours, what next?
second:
buy magazines, watch exibitions, look at as much "pro" photography as you can and start experimenting. walk in the street and start shooting and compare your pictures with the ones you were looking at. why are they so... so... incredible!, and why do yours suck instead?
then stop it. stop looking at the work of others and stop photographing. throw away any magazine you still have and hide your camera in your closet. get out and walk, and observe, and feel, and watch. for one or three or six months it doesn't really matter. but do not shoot anything. what do you want to shoot anyway if you don't even know the place where you are living?
now you probably have thousands of shitty pictures on your hard drive severral months old, and you look at them and you think WTF was i thinking of?? they are such empty bullshit, i can't believe i actually took these pics!
so now what?
third:
get a film camera. wanna learn? get a film camera. then you can switch to digital when you feel you are good enough, but it's quite simply not possible to learn from a digital camera.
this time you will take photography one step further: composition and details. it's all about that. composition is the mean that conveys the greatest part of the feeling, and details are the ones that give depth to a picture.
go out and shoot, one film, two films, three films and counting... for every film you shoot choose the best three pictures, and throwh away (yes, like in the fire or in the street or whereever they will be destroyed forever) the rest. your goal for next film is to have ALL of its slides being better then those three. and keep up with this sane behaviour, which has the side effect of saving so much room you can't even image right now.
last and least:
get some skills with lighting, shutter speed, depth of field and this kind of bullshit...
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and talking about photography, i know i promised you an article some time ago, but i'm lazy. so here it is
first:
a good subject is NOT a good picture. this is the only thing that really counts in photography. once you understand this concept you will be ready to improve your skills with composition, light conditions, tricks and all this boring kind of stuff. but techniques comes AFTER.
there's no point in aiming your camera at something just because it's the tour eiffel and everybody says it's beautiful. when you are holding a picture in your hand, you are holding A PICTURE, not the tour eiffel. the subject doesn't matter at all, should not even be considered.
so which one would you put in your room? the second picture represents nothing, just two doors. would you imagine millions of visitors for those two doors?
so you are walking down the street and you spot something that for some reason interest you. what do you do? do NOT point at it. walk around, have a look at the place where you are standing in its whole, think. how do you feel like in front of it? that's your picture. not the object that hit your eye, but the sensation you are feeling. you are photographing yourself, not the subject.
ok, given that you have made this concept utterly yours, what next?
second:
buy magazines, watch exibitions, look at as much "pro" photography as you can and start experimenting. walk in the street and start shooting and compare your pictures with the ones you were looking at. why are they so... so... incredible!, and why do yours suck instead?
then stop it. stop looking at the work of others and stop photographing. throw away any magazine you still have and hide your camera in your closet. get out and walk, and observe, and feel, and watch. for one or three or six months it doesn't really matter. but do not shoot anything. what do you want to shoot anyway if you don't even know the place where you are living?
now you probably have thousands of shitty pictures on your hard drive severral months old, and you look at them and you think WTF was i thinking of?? they are such empty bullshit, i can't believe i actually took these pics!
so now what?
third:
get a film camera. wanna learn? get a film camera. then you can switch to digital when you feel you are good enough, but it's quite simply not possible to learn from a digital camera.
this time you will take photography one step further: composition and details. it's all about that. composition is the mean that conveys the greatest part of the feeling, and details are the ones that give depth to a picture.
go out and shoot, one film, two films, three films and counting... for every film you shoot choose the best three pictures, and throwh away (yes, like in the fire or in the street or whereever they will be destroyed forever) the rest. your goal for next film is to have ALL of its slides being better then those three. and keep up with this sane behaviour, which has the side effect of saving so much room you can't even image right now.
last and least:
get some skills with lighting, shutter speed, depth of field and this kind of bullshit...
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