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Turning points in your photography

Anonymous Tue 26 Jun 2018 17:05:01 No.3315641 View View Reply Original Report

What were some turning points in your photographic life that made you reconsider your approach / how you view photography, certain techniques?

Pic related, I've been to Fotografiska in Stockholm to see Cathleen Naundorf expo and holy cow:
1) I'm never going to get on that level
2) Fashion photography doesn't suck and I've never thought it would appeal to me
3) I want to try analogue large-format camera 20 x 30 cm combined with Polaroid film now

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 26 Jun 2018 19:06:22 No.3315674 Report

Quoted By: >>3315675

I felt the same way about the Sally Mann expo in DC.

What really did it for me was taking up painting and making a lot of stock/reference images and understanding everything I was missing about composition and rythym. Some art history classes helped a bit but it was mostly when I started exploring it as a medium instead of an end result and started editing heavily. I really want to get into medium format and setup a darkroom for huge portrait prints to do something completely different that sitting with a model for hours and drawing what isn't really there can't capture.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 26 Jun 2018 19:09:19 No.3315675 Report

Quoted By:

>>3315674
The other little big things were shooting wildlife and realizing how ready you have to be to not only get a shot, but also a well composed shot and getting tired of deleting almost everything of the first couple thousand shots when I went digital.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 26 Jun 2018 19:39:27 No.3315683 Report

Quoted By: >>3315794

I found out what bokeh meant and I realized. This is it. This is what I want to do.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 26 Jun 2018 22:18:01 No.3315721 Report

Quoted By: >>3315732

>>3315641
>turning point
When I first stated lurking on /p/. Seriously.

I've always had a good eye for colour/composition and know my way 'round a camera. In the early days of facebook a lot of the activity centred around posting photos. Likes and compliments were two a penny (I deleted my account years ago).

The rough and tumble, no holds barred, idiocy of /p/ has made me a much better photographer. Nice comments from nice people is nice. I want to hear what some unhinged psychopath from across the planet has to say about my work, even if it is pedantic autistic screeching.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Tue 26 Jun 2018 22:42:08 No.3315726 Report

Quoted By: >>3315791 >>3315795 >>3315796

I bought Daido Moriyama's Record which changed my perspective massively. He is the anti-gearfag, he uses a drawer full of cheap Nikon Coolpix digital point and shoots most of the time and the work still blew me away with its creativity. I realised after that gear doesn't matter other than as a tool for getting the job done and I started being more experimental with perspective and spontaneity.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 26 Jun 2018 22:49:26 No.3315732 Report

Quoted By:

>>3315721
I take pedantic autistic screeching to heart because it can't be but so wrong. Every time I'm about to post a photo, I buy a better lens and body because it just doesn't meet standards. They know their shit when it comes to my specific brand of photography.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 27 Jun 2018 00:52:29 No.3315777 Report

Quoted By:

When someone on /p/ got mad at me for posting a photo of architecture and he screeched something about the architecture being good but not my photo showing the great architecture. I let it get to me so I went out and got a great shot (non architecture) on my phone and posted it and same guy actually complemented it. It's then I realized I shouldn't be doing photography to please other people. Fuck you, random anon. I take pictures for me.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 27 Jun 2018 01:20:21 No.3315786 Report

Quoted By:

When I realised that trying to process E6 in my bathroom was a fools errand. The lab could do the job properly and, at that time, not all that much more expensively.

From there onwards it was a slow evolution. Gear faggotry was never a problem. There was no internet back then and I didn't waste money on magazines.

Fulton12

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Fulton12 Wed 27 Jun 2018 01:30:59 No.3315788 Report

Quoted By: >>3315799

>buy a meme camera
>shoot bland landscapes
>buy tripod
>shoot a long exposure at my back yard
>look at the image and literally shit myself

and thats pretty much how i stumbled onto night scapes. you're looking at the first long expo i ever took (and tried to edit) this was a big moment for me, i became so obsessed with it, it was like every bland landscape i already took had a second chance to look really great at night.

i spent probably a year and every weekend, even in frigid nights, just taking boatloads of pictures and editing all night, then posting here where i got a lot of really great constructive criticism and learned a lot about not going overboard on the colors or editing. Shame, a lot of those guys are gone now so it seems.

Anyways, my point being, sometimes inspiration can happen on accident, or itll just bump into you one day, dont try to force it, obviously try to learn some pointers from the masters but dont emulate them, the important thing with photography is standing out in a way that makes you happy, not to appease flickr group.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 27 Jun 2018 01:32:23 No.3315790 Report

Quoted By: >>3315792

>>3315641
Anyone who has taken a photograph or produced a body of work that I found really well done and inspirational, ended up being a paradigm shift for me. I keep a folder full of photographs I save here and elsewhere to remind me why I do it, it reminds me all the time spent out wandering, scouting, waiting and being frustrated with bad or empty shooting days all end up being worth it when I get the stuff I love. Other people's work reminds me that there is always something new to photograph, because the world is always changing.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 27 Jun 2018 01:34:03 No.3315791 Report

Quoted By:

>>3315726
once you get over the "gear hill" its incredibly liberating to be able to just enjoy confidently shooting without having to nitpick at shit like noise, or lenses. subject, lighting and composition are all you need to make a magnificent photo

Fulton12

Fulton12 Wed 27 Jun 2018 01:37:18 No.3315792 Report

Quoted By:

>>3315790
>being frustrated with bad or empty shooting days all end up being worth it when I get the stuff I love.

boy do i understand that one, ill get days where im pumped to go for a long night walk around a designated part of town or the mountains, and once i set foot outside of my parked car at 9pm, its just....gone. ill go blank, and feel like ive taken this photo already, even though i know im looking at a landscape thats silver with moonlight, i feel like i cant take it because it wont impress me.

one of the best lessons and old anon taught me on here long before i started posting was "ONLY showcase your very best work, if it doesnt impress you why should you show us?" and its a very hard but gratifying rule to shoot by.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 27 Jun 2018 01:43:21 No.3315794 Report

Quoted By:

>>3315683
mine was the opposite. when I freed myself from the mindset of always using a thin dof, that's when I found photography hard, challenging yet rewarding. (especially with candid multiple subjects.)

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 27 Jun 2018 01:43:23 No.3315795 Report

Quoted By:

>>3315726
the worst camera is the one you dont have on you. Daido knew that, dudes a true night crawler

i remember when this picture of a baby being handed to a migrant under a barbed fence won world press photo, and SO many spergs were pissed because it was too noisey, with bad composition and editing. obviously having a pristine image with good framing has its place (large format, advertisements)

Anonymous

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Anonymous Wed 27 Jun 2018 01:45:20 No.3315796 Report

Quoted By:

Anonymous

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Anonymous Wed 27 Jun 2018 02:02:02 No.3315799 Report

Quoted By:

>>3315788
Nightscapes are pretty neat. Where I live it is pitch black with no artificial lights. So, it is a rare event to get anything at night except fireflies, stars, and trees.

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