nauticalmike wrote:
I have no artistic ability nor do I even have the ability to understand what makes one better than the other, and as such I can not tell a good photo from a bad one, within reason. Perhaps to be more accurate I should really say that I can not tell a good one from a great one. Be forewarned that the rest of this post is all about me. Just to give some insight into my experience I will tell you the following. When I was 9 I inherited a newspaper and I kept most of the photography equipment they had. I had a good negative projector for printing pictures, along with a Yashica, a Pentax, a Miranda and lastly a GAF along with various lenses light meters, filters and etc. They were all 35mm SLR's from the 60's and early 70's. I taught myself black and white developing and printed my own pictures, but I never liked any of my pictures. It was less than a decade before I lost interest in photography due to my lack of ability. I knew how to use the cameras from a mechanical standpoint, but that is all. Then after I got older and began working as an engineer I purchased a few digital point and shoot cameras to document what I worked on for my customers and for my own records, but nothing that was meant to be artistic. It was mostly just pictures of damaged machinery and equipment components and cracks in decks, bulkheads, and hulls and other various problems that I was hired to correct, or discrepancies that I found in the course of my work that needed to be repaired before they caused additional problems along with after photos of the same items after I performed the necessary repairs. Although I suppose that from a macro perspective some of them might have possessed artistic qualities, it was never my intention. Recently I bought a D5300 and a D3400 and my hope is to learn everything I can about using all of their features, and then maybe if I am lucky some of the photos that I take will be worth keeping. I do not expect to be able to consistently create photos that anyone would want to hang on a wall, but I am hoping that someday I may be able to look through the viewfinder and think, "I might even keep this one." I'm not going to get my hopes up though because I have very little natural artistic ability or imagination outside of the realm of engineering. I can make technical drawings but anything else but stick figures is beyond me. I lost my soul mate in 2008 which broke my heart, and I broke my back in 2010 which left me paraplegic and has really changed my perspective on just about everything and I now experience emotions that I never felt before, mostly just extreme sadness, but I do feel emotions now where before I was basically limited to feelings of only happiness and anger. I mention this because in my experience artistic people are also very emotional. I would be interested in learning to see the world with an artistic vision and be able to capture images that makes someone, anyone, stop and say "wow, that picture is really cool," if that is even possible... And now back to my question, can I learn to take amazing photographs or is that really only possible for individuals with brains that are wired with an inherent natural artistic ability?
I have no artistic ability nor do I even have the ... (
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When a student approaches me with a similar query, this is how I respond:
What is the quality in an image that you see that makes you stop and say "wow, that picture is really cool" - and therein lies key unlock the door to your creative side. The other side of that coin -what makes you not stop when you see an image?
Then we have a brief discussion about what is it about a scene that prompts them to lift the camera to their eye and snap the shutter for that particular image. What is it about what they see that compels them to record an image in a particular way, and most importantly, are they merely recording an image as a document that they can refer to in the future to trigger memories of being there, or are they "creating" a unique view - an artistic vision - that has not been done before and speaks to a different perspective.
People often get to a frequently photographed location and climb over each other to get "the shot" - think of Niagara Falls. You've seen postcards, illustrations pictures in travel brochures, images on social media, etc - and they are all pretty much the same. What I tell my students is to do exactly that - go take the same picture everyone else has taken. Then return later in the day or the following day, and take a picture of the same subject, then do it in a way that very likely has not been done - the way YOU, as the photographer/artist see it and would like others to see it.
Another way to approach this is to arrive at a place and stop. Leave the camera in the bag, and just experience the setting. Sound, smell, temperature, wind, precipitation, fog, visual elements like contrasting colors, textures, light and shadow, forms - all of these things are dynamic and fluid and unique to the time of the experience. Once you are comfortable that you have "taken it all in" then take out the camera and try and capture the sum of what you just experienced. The real challenge is to return to the same setting and do the exact same thing, and see how different your response will be and how that manifests itself in the picture(s) you end up taking. This is a way to unlock different parts of your brain and allow you to develop a unique perspective.
If you like the second idea, use google to find everything you can read on "Contemplative Photography." You may find it interesting and helpful.
The second part of creating an "artistic" image, or one that has that "WOW" factor is how you envision you will treat the image in post processing. There are may who will profess, with an air of superiority, that they "get it right" in the camera, and do not "manipulate" an image after it's been taken. Kudos to them. However, it has always been the case in creative or artistic photography, that pressing the shutter is only the first step in the creative process, and that many images lend themselves to artistic interpretation in the form of creative post processing. One of the best known before and after examples of this is the image taken by Ansel Adams entitled Moonrise over Hernandez. What his camera "took" was a pretty drab and uninteresting scene - but his creative vision saw something else. You be the judge with regard to the value of post processing and image manipulation. The purists may have tossed the negative into the circular file. It's a good thing that Adams was not "that" kind of purist . . .
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