Some thoughts about my photographic development

[whooohooo]

Dear Luminous Landscape users,

I would like to introduce myself to your - before I go into my detailed questions - regarding my photographic development. I'm a 30 year old male from Germany, who is interested in photography since almost 12 years.
I started photography with a really cheap and old Konica camera, I printed some of these photos in a supermarket and fell in love with the - horrible - outcome. After I bought my first digital camera, the Sony f717, I joined a photocommunity and developed a typical simple style. It had to be eye candy. Macro shots, shots from abandoned buildings etc. Nothing special, but I enjoyed it.
After I wanted to get deeper into photography, I changed from the Sony f717 to the Canon 30d and from 2006 until now I worked with the Canon 5d. I love this camera, the lenses and the haptics. And of course the outcome. In between, I tried to change to the Leica M8, but I'm unfortunately not a patient person, I struggled with the non-existing autofocus and I did not enjoy the rangefinder system at all.

Currently, my Canon 5d seems to breath it's last breath. I have several electronical issues - had it of course in repair - but I have the feeling, it wont last long enough, since new problems occured.

So of course, I've started to look around for a replacement. At first I thought of the Canon 5d mkIII, so that I could use my existing lenses and other gear.
Later, I thought of getting a PhaseOne, because I want to try myself into some landscape photography and now I'm having the thoughts again, to buy a Leica. Maybe the M-E, oder M9-p model.

So it would be only the choice of a camera body and then everything would be fine, right? But there is always the BUT...

But I'm not only uncertain, what kind of camera I should buy, I'm also uncertain about my photographic development. As I said in the beginning, I shot macro things, abandoned buildings - nothing really special. I later began to go into portraits of friends and lately some street.
Due to my job, I live in different countries and I change my country where I'm living in from time to time. So I'm having the opportunity to see places, which are for others not so easy to visit - an opportunity I'd like to document with my (future) camera.
Since I'm also not happy with my workflow in Aperture, I frankly stopped working on photography for the last months. I had to fix several steps in my workflow (adding metadata and later keywords, which I did not in the beginning), I lost the joy of working with a photodatabase. It feels more like organising photos, instead of working creative. I would also put my focus on the fact, that my database consists of about 7000 photos only. I also try not to 100 pictures of the same image, I always try to reflect and improve on my skill and style.

With these thoughts in mind, I'm at the moment clueless, wheter it's only an urge for a new "toy", instead of a real development, if I'm buying for example a Leica with one or two lenses.

I love to have the best possible quality, so I can focus my amateurish skill on the subject, instead of loosing quality while owning a cheap camera. But at the same time I know, that a superb camera wont create strong images, if your skill sucks. Simple as that.

My questions to the advanced photographers and more experienced ppl outhere are:

Have you ever come across such a roadblock in your mind, where you can't decide what to do with your photography? I've never started an exibition, I even printed only a few photos, somehow I only have a small need to try this.
I also don't know where to go with my existing skill and experience. Should I go more into street, more into portraits? Right now it feels only like a documentation of things, out of boredom. Is it a problem, because I'm not "seeing" things in my Aperture database right? Does a complete reoganisation help? Does printing help to "see" better?
Should I try again a Leica system, because it feels better for me in the street genre (I hate to to have this huge body in front of my face), or am I missing a point, because I'm stuck with thoughts on gear?

I know it is a quite personal problem, but I'm happy if I could get some responses and maybe start a little discussion, that'll help me out of my block. I also hope, that my english isnt' too bad and you guys understand my issues. :-)

[Moderator Edit to delete URL]

Thanks for reading and many thanks in advance
whooohooo

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Welcome to the forum!

You are raising a number of interesting questions and at some point I might find the time to address them one by one.

In the meantime, I suggest to check Andy Ilachinski and his essay: The Eightfold Path Toward Self-Discovery Through Photography, about eight stages in developing your own style. Quite an enlightening read.

[RSL]

Hi Whoooooo, and welcome to LuLa. As usual, Slobodan's on the right track, but if you really want self-discovery, put away your camera, take off your clothes, and stand in front of a mirror.

It's been my own experience (85 years of it this month) that every time I've hit a roadblock in photography, or in any other activity that involves self-expression, it's because I've begun taking myself and the world too seriously. Setting out to "develop a style" is a sure way to take yourself too seriously.

Most of your questions seem to focus on equipment, but equipment isn't what makes great photographs. Take a tip from the most influential photographer of the twentieth century, Henri Cartier-Bresson: "Photographing is nothing. Looking is everything."

Two things can help you become a better photographer. Probably the most important is studying the work of the masters who've gone before you. If you're interested in street, study the work of people like Cartier-Bresson, Andre Kertest, David Seymour, Robert Doisneau, Willy Ronis, Brassai, Walker Evans, Elliott Erwitt, Mark Riboud, Garry Winogrand, Helen Levitt, and Robert Frank. If you're interested in landscape, study the great painters and buy some brushes and canvas. You also can learn a few things from Ansel, if paint fumes bother you.

The second thing you need to do is shoot a lot of pictures, but concentrate on one genre at a time. I've looked through your web and I get the feeling you've pretty much mastered the technology, but haven't made up your mind what you're after. I see a lot of what I call "tourist pictures," pretty stuff; the kind of thing people used to bore their dinner guests with in 35mm slide projectors. There's nothing wrong with shooting that kind of picture; I even recommend it because it helps you learn what works technically and what doesn't, but when it comes time to display your stuff to the world you need to be very selective. A really good picture always gets an "attaboy," but it only takes one "dumshit" to wipe out a whole mess of "attaboys." Here's a quote from my essay at http://www.russ-lewis.com/essays/OnStreetPhotography.html. It deals specifically with street photography, but it applies to any kind of art.

"Again and again I see howlers people post on the web as street photography, and I try not to laugh too hard because I've shot my share of flubs like these too. I'm sure I'm far from the only one who reacts that way. Fact is that even when you get good at street photography you'll shoot bags and bags of bloopers, a smaller number of not too bad shots, and the rare picture you should be willing to show.

"Beyond the rare picture that's showable there's the kind of picture upon which you'd be willing to hang your reputation. If you can average one of those a year you're getting pretty good."

If you want to develop a style, relax. Let your sense of humor take over. Shoot what you enjoy, but study the masters and learn what works.

By the way, "Whooohooo" seems a bit much. What should we call you?

[spidermike]

An excellent reference there from Slobodan and good comments from RSL.

Have you ever come across such a roadblock in your mind,

Frequently. And each time I agonise for weeks about what  gear I need then realise that for the way I present my pictures a new camera is not going to add anything over my current gear. The one major overhaul I have had in the last 3 years was buying into micro four-thirds (Olympus E-M5 with Panasonic GX7): for everything except wildlife the picture quality is virtually on a par with my APS-C gear but a fraction of the size/weight and that means I take it out more. 


You have some very nice shots on your web page (mainly the B&W - coincidence?). I will agree with RSL (and please take this as a straight assessment not as a critique) that many of them a holiday snaps that mean more to yourself as the person who was there than they do to a neutral looking at your collection of photographs and it means that the page is cross between a pictorial record of where you were and some that are bordering on commentary that tell something about the place. There is a skill to be learnt between the two and it depends on which of them you really want to improve. But you can do that with any camera gear (one magnum photogrpaher, Alex Majoli, uses point-andshoot for some of his best work) so 'what do you want to do' is at the moment far more important than 'what gear do I need'. However there is a time that new gear can invigorate what you take but think about this very carefully or you can waste thousands.

I was talking to one keen amateur photographer who reached the same positon as yourself and realised he was becoming more a gear-head and less a photographer. So he decided to refresh it all and got rid of everything and bought a bridge camera. He took zillions of photos and over a short time realised the sort of photos where the bridge camera could not cope, and if that shortcoming came to annoy him because it was type of shot he was interested in then he knew what gear he needed to solve the problem. So by the time I talked to him he was earmarking a very short list of new gear to do what he realy wanted.

Regards databases I understand your comments about the frustrations and sometimes I lose the will to live. But they are as complex as you want to make them - at times all I do is tag them all with the name of the place and flick through them giving them a star-rating, then if I can be botherd go back to them at a later time and add more detail (and be quite brutal in deleting duplicates or sub-standard ones). However the database will be good for one thing - look at the metadata and I think you will be surprised which are the focl lengths you use most often. That should help you decide on the gear you need.
Good luck with your choice.

[NancyP]

Thanks for that link, Slobodan.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

Some suggestions:

- Find your style
- Find your niche

For me, style was like calm, simple and well blanced. Regarding niche, I have found here at LuLa is that shooting landscape suit me fine.

If you decide on landscape, as I did, your most important tool may be a tripod. Having the camera on a tripod makes me to slow down.

You find some of my images here: http://echophoto.smugmug.com

My latest exhibition is here: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/Articles/Exhibitions/BergDalOchVatten_1/

All these images reflect my niche, vision and way to work.

Just to say, gear doesn't make anyone a great photographer. Find a niche and a vision, done that there may be tools around that are better than others to implement your vision.

Best regards
Erik

Dear Luminous Landscape users,

I would like to introduce myself to your - before I go into my detailed questions - regarding my photographic development. I'm a 30 year old male from Germany, who is interested in photography since almost 12 years.
I started photography with a really cheap and old Konica camera, I printed some of these photos in a supermarket and fell in love with the - horrible - outcome. After I bought my first digital camera, the Sony f717, I joined a photocommunity and developed a typical simple style. It had to be eye candy. Macro shots, shots from abandoned buildings etc. Nothing special, but I enjoyed it.
After I wanted to get deeper into photography, I changed from the Sony f717 to the Canon 30d and from 2006 until now I worked with the Canon 5d. I love this camera, the lenses and the haptics. And of course the outcome. In between, I tried to change to the Leica M8, but I'm unfortunately not a patient person, I struggled with the non-existing autofocus and I did not enjoy the rangefinder system at all.

Currently, my Canon 5d seems to breath it's last breath. I have several electronical issues - had it of course in repair - but I have the feeling, it wont last long enough, since new problems occured.

So of course, I've started to look around for a replacement. At first I thought of the Canon 5d mkIII, so that I could use my existing lenses and other gear.
Later, I thought of getting a PhaseOne, because I want to try myself into some landscape photography and now I'm having the thoughts again, to buy a Leica. Maybe the M-E, oder M9-p model.

So it would be only the choice of a camera body and then everything would be fine, right? But there is always the BUT...

But I'm not only uncertain, what kind of camera I should buy, I'm also uncertain about my photographic development. As I said in the beginning, I shot macro things, abandoned buildings - nothing really special. I later began to go into portraits of friends and lately some street.
Due to my job, I live in different countries and I change my country where I'm living in from time to time. So I'm having the opportunity to see places, which are for others not so easy to visit - an opportunity I'd like to document with my (future) camera.
Since I'm also not happy with my workflow in Aperture, I frankly stopped working on photography for the last months. I had to fix several steps in my workflow (adding metadata and later keywords, which I did not in the beginning), I lost the joy of working with a photodatabase. It feels more like organising photos, instead of working creative. I would also put my focus on the fact, that my database consists of about 7000 photos only. I also try not to 100 pictures of the same image, I always try to reflect and improve on my skill and style.

With these thoughts in mind, I'm at the moment clueless, wheter it's only an urge for a new "toy", instead of a real development, if I'm buying for example a Leica with one or two lenses.

I love to have the best possible quality, so I can focus my amateurish skill on the subject, instead of loosing quality while owning a cheap camera. But at the same time I know, that a superb camera wont create strong images, if your skill sucks. Simple as that.

My questions to the advanced photographers and more experienced ppl outhere are:

Have you ever come across such a roadblock in your mind, where you can't decide what to do with your photography? I've never started an exibition, I even printed only a few photos, somehow I only have a small need to try this.
I also don't know where to go with my existing skill and experience. Should I go more into street, more into portraits? Right now it feels only like a documentation of things, out of boredom. Is it a problem, because I'm not "seeing" things in my Aperture database right? Does a complete reoganisation help? Does printing help to "see" better?
Should I try again a Leica system, because it feels better for me in the street genre (I hate to to have this huge body in front of my face), or am I missing a point, because I'm stuck with thoughts on gear?

I know it is a quite personal problem, but I'm happy if I could get some responses and maybe start a little discussion, that'll help me out of my block. I also hope, that my english isnt' too bad and you guys understand my issues. :-)

[Moderator Edit to delete URL]

Thanks for reading and many thanks in advance
whooohooo

[David Eckels]

Some good advice above. AND, hang out with folks that love photography, like those of us here in LuLa land. We're perhaps a curmudgeonly lot, but generally helpful and somewhat harmless as long as you never crop or do HDR or post "crunchy" images with unintended color casts Personally, I've derived much from the User Critiques threads and highly recommend participating there. Most comments are sincerely intended to help (positive or negative) so assume that's true and you'll make out just fine.

[whooohooo]

Dear Slobodan Blagojevic,

many thanks for this astonishing link! I've printed the text, so I can read it even when I'm travelling the offline world. I'd like to answer all the postings one by one, so I can get a clear focus on this discussion.
Maybe I've lost the joy of working in photography, because I've never had a "structure" while doing so. I'll try to use this essay and path as guidline, to stay focused. Wonderful text !

Welcome to the forum!

You are raising a number of interesting questions and at some point I might find the time to address them one by one.

In the meantime, I suggest to check Andy Ilachinski and his essay: The Eightfold Path Toward Self-Discovery Through Photography, about eight stages in developing your own style. Quite an enlightening read.

I'd like to hear your opinion regarding my raised questions.  :-)

Many thanks in advance !

[NancyP]

If I don't wonder what the heck I am doing at least once every few weeks, there's something wrong with me. 

You have enough experience to know what focal lengths you use most, or if you don't know, start thumbing through your files. What's your inventory of lenses? Of course haptics count. So if you want an interchangeable lens camera, DSLR or otherwise, you will have to hold one to know if it 'fits'. Personally I like the medium size of the mid-priced Canons. Really small cameras - I don't have much experience with good quality general purpose small mirrorless cameras. I have a Sigma Merrill set that I like for landscapes, the handling and shooting from the lousy LCD screen, I don't like much.

I think there may be some value in getting a compact camera if you are interested in street photography - and the less impressive-looking it is, the better. If you have the camera on you 24-7, you may find out what sort of photography most interests you. I would look for a fast lens and a zoom of about 3-fold (24-75mm in 135 format terms). It must shoot in RAW mode.

I would caution you that the very newest cameras may not be supported by Aperture, which is no longer supported. I am glad I didn't pick Aperture, but instead Lightroom, which is here for the duration. I can think of nothing more annoying than having to master a new camera and migrate a photo database to a new DAM/RAW developer at the same time. If you are thinking about sticking with Aperture, get a used / refurbished camera. If you are thinking about moving to some other program, Lightroom, Capture One, etc, just get the program and the new camera, and work the new files in new software, old files in Aperture.  Later on you might migrate.

[Rory]

What a wonderful series of comments.  Thanks to each and every one of you!

[luxborealis]

Yes, thoughtful and helpful responses.

May I add one regarding printing. I can't recommend it enough. Printing a photo forces you to make hard decisions about which one to print. That, in itself, will cause you to think long and hard about what you like and don't like. You will start to nitpick your photographs which leads to improvement - mostly in seeing.

When I say "printing", I'm referring to enlarging + matting + framing. With digital, there is no cost to shooting and processing once you have camera and computer systems. But, when it comes to printing, there's nothing like the cost of making prints (or having them made), matting and framing to force yourself to become more discerning in your selection(s).

Printing also forces you to consider the difference between those photos that grab your attention for a few seconds but don't "last", compared to those that hold your interest for months or years - the ones you keep seeing something new in. Or, since you are the photographer, and know your photos intimately,  photos that others find fascinating and would enjoy having on their walls.

Pick a photograph - have it printed and framed. Hang it on your wall. Look at it frequently. Learn from it. Be honest with yourself. What do you like; what do you hate? What works? What wears on you? Invite commentary from others. Then, try another. Do this once a month for a year. My bet is that you'll grow more in a year as a photographer than you could ever expect through equipment purchases and workshops/courses.

To start off, try posting a photograph each week here on LuLa in User Critiques. I'd say the feedback alone is worth the price of admission, but that's free. The feedback should be, and often is, insightful, helpful and, at times brutally honest. But that's healthy too. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

[24pfilms]

I will add my two cents.

It is really not about the gear. It about the shooting, and lots of it. And I mean alot. Everyday. All day. Live eat and breath with your eyes.
For it is your eyes that take the image. The camera is just a machine that makes it real in the moment.

Through the daily shooting your eye and the technical process will become one.

[stamper]

I will add my two cents.

It is really not about the gear. It about the shooting, and lots of it. And I mean alot. Everyday. All day. Live eat and breath with your eyes.
For it is your eyes that take the image. The camera is just a machine that makes it real in the moment.

Through the daily shooting your eye and the technical process will become one.

Shooting every day will mean that you will quickly run out of subjects and risk sickening yourself?

[24pfilms]

Shooting every day will mean that you will quickly run out of subjects and risk sickening yourself?

That is definitely not the case for me. I live in a place that has many options to shoot.
But I also have lived in places that did not provide that opportunity. I just had to look a lot harder.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Shooting every day will mean that you will quickly run out of subjects and risk sickening yourself?

Unless you are a forensic or documentary photographer, subjects is not what makes (good) photography. How we see them does. One can shoot a single subject every day of the year.

On the other hand, if you are really afraid of running out of subjects, switch to passport and drivers license photography. That would surely risk sickening yourself 

[Paulo Bizarro]

Lots of good stuff in this thread. I like photography a lot, but thank goodness I don't have to make a living out of it. I started in 1990 or so, and early adopted slide film as my choice, because with it I could learn a lot about any mistakes I made, and I just loved projecting those suckers.

I got my first DSLR in 2009, so you can see I was a late adopter; but I was already familiar with the digital workflow since 2002, when I started scanning stuff. Therefore, by the time of transitioning to a DSLR, I had the workflow very well established.

A couple of years ago, I started trying different mirrorless systems, and today I am quite happy with the Sony A7 system: small, top quality, no compromise on IQ by going smaller, and ideal for my type of photography, which is landscapes and travel.

My recommendation would be to keep it simple, and don't commit before trying the stuff yourself, either on a shop, or renting. Today, technology is so advanced, that basically any system will provide you with what you require. So small changes in ergonomics and haptics, will have a big impact. Try a system you like, draw from your experience, after all you are not a newbie.

As for workflow, I can highly recommend Lightroom, and Jeff Schewe's book on the "Digital Negative".

[stamper]

Unless you are a forensic or documentary photographer, subjects is not what makes (good) photography. How we see them does. One can shoot a single subject every day of the year.

On the other hand, if you are really afraid of running out of subjects, switch to passport and drivers license photography. That would surely risk sickening yourself 

Before you see them there has to be one?

[David Eckels]

As for workflow, I can highly recommend Lightroom, and Jeff Schewe's book on the "Digital Negative".

+1 The entire series really.

[BernardLanguillier]

I would look at your existing portfolio of images, be brutaly honnest about them and select the 5-10 images that really and honnestly thrill you.

- if you don't find any, consider stopping investing too much time/money in photography and just shoot casually moving forward,
- if you find these 5-10 images, try to understand why you love them, what you did well, how much situation/luck/planning/equipment contributed,
- leveraging the outcome of this analysis, try to create more similar images and increase you success ratio.

Thus is IMHO the best way to both regenerate interest for photography, develop your own style, identify what equipment works best for you and simply become better.

Cheers,
Bernard