Very well said. It is the part that we cannot really control that make photography special. The part you cannot create, the moments you cant even pursue, when the moments come and you are there capture them, you might have good photos.
Photography for me is just tow words (( my therapy )) Photography is helping me a lot when it comes to fight depression and anxiety It’s like a therapy I use as much as I can to calm the noise inside my head Thank you for the video …
Agree! I have shot 20 years now and within last couple of years my mind have changed about things in photography, and especially within last couple of months. I don't care anymore that much about sharpness or if the sky is overblown or shadows are underexposured or that kind of technical stuff in many photos - instead what I care is the emotion. I have noticed that many photos what I personally like might not even be sharp, totally in perfect focus etc. but they have feeling and emotion. That is much more important than just technical details. I have also tried to capture good photos, but noticed that when I just take photos just because I love to take photos, I have got many photos I love. Of course I try to compose them well, use focus correctly etc. but it is not always on point but still photos have not been always ruined because of it. Also when I print those in paper it matters even less, at least on small 4"x6" photos (10x15 cm) and nowadays I print almost daily. No matter if the photo is "that good", it is just so fun to see those on paper and it removes pixel peeping and other useless crap out of photography and I just look the photo as it is. Maybe this is part of the reason why I have also started to care less about too much technical aspects and more about emotion and feeling. One thing what I have also now started to notice within last couple of days is that when I look CD album arts etc. those photos are quite often other than perfect. They have grain, there is blurry photos, there is strange colours and patterns. I think for many of us photographer hobbyist it would be a good reality check to think about "where are you going to use those photos", because then you could understand that hey, maybe there is something else in photography than just perfect bokeh, amazing color rendering etc. and many kind of photography even quite bad cameras are more than great. Gotta still say that there IS always situations on my photography where I need to get "as perfect photo as possible" but those are very rare. Only situations are when I take photos of some other person when they ask that they can send it to some places like applying a job. That is still very marginal use case at least for me :)
Nice! I've been serious about photography since I was 12. I even paid the bills. I've learned that taking a good picture is easy. Great pictures, not easy. It's at the nexus of hard work and luck.
Thank you! My thoughts exactly. I just recently started with analog photography and after the first hype I struggled to continue. I took so many pictures of the ever same places and it became boring. I realized that my photos need something special about it, some kind of movement, someone in there. I was hesitant to take photos of people, but thats what distinguishes something generic from a moment. Sure, pictures of nature or architecture can be nice too, but I always feel like that a quick google search would lead to better pictures of the very same thing. Freezing a unique moment through my very own (camera) action gives me back the feeling of self-efficacy and if its a good photo I can be proud of sensing a moment right.
Well said, Andre. Also pretty thought provoking. I found myself more and more replying to the question "and did you get any good picture?" with a "I don't know, I have to review them yet". Your video explains why. I try my best to get the "best picture, technically speaking" but then on top of the desired exposure and composition, you need to review timing. And timing can make or break everything.
In other words, have a subject. I often realize that I don’t have a focused subject, just a collection of stuff in an image. Photos should not only grab the moment, but a subject should be obvious.
Word, Since deciding to take camera everywhere and shoot everyday this year I "lowered" my standards when it came to shooting and editing trying to be less critical and less in my head so that I can actually shoot this much and get through quick edits to then have something of everyday life and its surprising what comes from that. Instincts and reactions are better and quicker and I get images I wouldn't have been able to previously.
What a thoughtful video this was - love it! I have owned X-Pro's since 2012, and the general experience takeaway from owning the camera was that it slowed the photography process down which was quite welcome. However, this eats into the 'capturing the moment' process somewhat. Of course, you can set the camera up to zone focus/auto ISO etc but to my mind I had the perfect camera for capturing the moment but it's 'soul' encouraged me to take my time! Like you say, maybe patient observation is key?
A good photo is a photo that tells a story and gets an emotional reaction from the viewer. A lot of the best photos ever taken have been technically "bad," but showed something so raw, or evocative, or beautiful that they went down in history.
Your quote: "And if you do this properly you will get a good photo as a result." So your point is that there is, in fact, a proper way to get good photos...........except that you said you stopped taking "Good" photos and summarily dismissed all the traditional measures of what makes a good photo. So not only have you tangled yourself up in a quagmire of semantics you have also made the term 'good' kind of useless by pronouncing it to be all relative. If there is no measure of what makes a photo 'good' then none are good and none are bad. You might could make an argument that they are all simply mediocre. And that would be true of a large portion of the images you see on RU-vid (and most of mine!). I don't see that as being a goal that should drive anyone's photography. I also don't buy the notion that what makes a photo 'good' is simply in the eyes of the beholder. That cheapens the artistic merit of truly excellent art and elevates the merely mediocre and truly bad to a status they don't deserve and cannot sustain. Now I totally agree that there is no one parameter or set of parameters that must exist to make a good photo. But I totally disagree with the idea that there are none. So rather than defining 'good' based on your own ideas about capturing moments and muddying up the other ideas of photographic achievement, I would recommend analyzing specific photos for what makes them good, bad or mediocre. That would be a great way for your viewers to learn and appreciate those aspects, especially since they are so widely varied. But analyzing art is hard to do if you go beyond simple subjectivity. But if there is no objectivity there is no good art and there is no bad art. And that means there is no art.
