Your pet peeves…
I spend a lot of time looking at people’s photos, both for work, and for this website. It helps me identify where I go wrong myself. I’ve grown to realise that my biggest downfall is that I tend to use odd crops on photos, and I’m obsessive about certain aspects about my photography.
I’m curious though… Are my hang-ups and failures the same as other photographers’?
Go on, vote below or — even better — go into some detail about the faults that gets you again and again, in the comments.
(you can vote on an existing option, or add your own)
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Insights, suggestions and comments
My biggest weakness is timing/position - when taking pictures of people they are usually half cropped out, i can’t center the damn subject in the frame. I usually blame this on the fact that most of the time i’m drunk at parties..
Exposure bedevils me time and time again. I’ve been told it’s just an issue of practice and patience, but I find I’m snap happy, burning through shots until it hits me on the way home: why didn’t I bracket the shots with tricky light?
I’m using the highlight warning on the preview screen more, but I’ve got to learn to be more patient and methodical!
Being quite a techy, I don’t have much trouble with the technical aspects of photography (exposure, focus, white balance, etc) because the first thing I did when I got my camera is learn what every button and setting was for and how to use it. My biggest weakness is simply finding something interesting to shoot.
I’ll frequently be out with friends taking pictures of stuff, and I’ll come back with some half-decent shots of this and that… But they will have incredible shots of things that I wouldn’t give a second glance, or taken from perspectives I would never dream of.
The topic made me think of one of my biggest photographic pet-peeves ever: when someone is taking a picture for you and they do awful job of framing it. You know what I mean: you’re out with a group and ask someone to take a picture for you. You can see them fumbling with the camera, hunting for the shutter button (it’s especially bad on my D300 — the shooting mode button is right where everyone expects the shutter button to be) and pointing the camera way too high. When you finally get a chance to look at the picture the bottom half of the frame is occupied by your group and the top half is something exciting like… A wall.
Focusing is by far the hardest thing for me. I am never sure it its my eyes or the view finder on the camera (I suspect my yes) but its very frustrating.
Exposure and getting images sharp. The sharp part seems to come from me still learning to use my camera (350D) but the exposure part is always getting me. The automatic exposure is good for most shots but I still have trouble getting the exact way that I want it to be. Like Robert said, it seems to be an issue of practice. (I always forget to bracket my shots too…). I’m getting better at it. I figure that once I can get an extremely good grip on it, then I’ll move on to off camera on hot-shoe flashes.
wolever took the words right out of my mouth !
As a techy myself I know about all the technical stuff of photography but I cant put it to use since I don’t have no inspiration and no creativity.
Most of the times I find myself mimicking the shots of others or using ideas from others.
Therefore my photography-interest has merely come to a complete stop lately …
But somehow I get to thinking: Creativity is nothing I can learn, either I have it or I don’t :(
Ah, Mike :) I have a similar problem only the other way around.
I find the thing that bothers me most when I’m taking photos is that in my mind’s eye I know exactly what I want the shot to look like. The lighting, the colours, the composition - all of it. But I reckon I only get what I visualised when I press the shutter button about 3 times out of every 10 and I find it intensely frustrating sometimes. I think that this is a matter of practice making perfect - it used to be a 1/10 ratio of success so I am getting better. Unfortunately this will require a far better grasp of photo-geekery than I current possess. I’m working on that. I have no idea what bracketing is, by the way.
I don’t see any problem with mimicking shots or using ideas from others, it’s all a learning process and I’ve found quite often that seeing other photographers’ work makes me think about how I would have taken the shot - which can only be a good thing. Whatever you’re photographing, it will never come out exactly the same as the shot you think you’re copying. You never know, it might come out better :)
Anna and Mike should go on a day trip together. Anna you can inspire Mike to take some imaginative shots and Mike you can help Anna succeed in capturing her vision by coaching her on the technical aspects. You’ll both come away from the experience as better photographers.
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