Dennis833 Loc: Australia

Dennis my dear friend, I’ve had a revelation. Well, sort of.

No, I haven’t spoken to god or seen bright light where there was no light. I’ve discovered something about photography, which you have known all along and remained faithful to, while I was smashing furniture looking for ‘the secret’.

What I’ve finally discovered after years of photographic vandalism on my part is that I should have remained faithful to my own instincts, as you have.

All the U-Tube videos I’ve watched on how to do this and how to do that – in short, how to make my photographs look like someone else’s - was poison and a shocking waste of time. I used lenses I wouldn’t normally have used; shot subjects not worth the effort; tried to save lousy photographs with over-processing; and ignored the correct exposure for the actual subject just to make a sky look good, then tried to pull three-stops out of the shadows.

Yep, I’ve committed all those sins. But not any more. I know we all take lousy photographs occasionally, because we’re compelled to take photographs, even bad ones, but from now I will photograph what I believe is worth the effort, not what Nick Page or Marc Adamus or some other U-Tube guru says I should photograph, and in a way he would do it.

I’m telling you all this is because I know you understand better than anyone the frustrations of photography, and because, for some strange reason, I have to get the silly subject off my chest. I’ve wasted so much time. So I’m sharing what I’ve learned because I now understand that there’s no reason to make photographs at all if you never make anything original, and surely that’s the point of the whole damn thing.

Oh yeah, and I wanted to send you and Barb a bit of love. There’s not enough love about. The whole damn world’s gone mad. Go and kiss your wife and tell her I love the both of you, you wonderful old bastard.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Oddly, I've probably watched many of those same videos. They helped me understand the various settings and methods so I could make the photographs look like I wanted them to look. I never tried to make mine look like someone else's.
--Bob

anotherview Loc: California

Key phrase: "the correct exposure for the actual subject." It begs more thoughtful discussion.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

And therein lies the conundrum of what is "correct exposure"?
--Bob

User ID

A billboard sized AMEN to that

User ID

That hit me as an "everyday fact", a rather incidental routine piece of the larger picture ... not anything to be singled out nor put on a pedestal.

If it has special value in your eyes, I know you are capable of launching a thread dedicated to that.

(I will keep an eye out for it.)

User ID

While it never struck me as the "Key Phrase", I can see it as a whole new thread worth initiating.

But right here we have a post about a person "coming into their own" as an artisan or perhaps an artist, which has nothing to do with the minor issue of determining exposure settings.

Rongnongno Loc: FL

Reads like sarcasm to me...

CamB Loc: Juneau, Alaska

I’ve spent my photo life and career trying to make my work and art look different then the guy next to me. I am impressed when I see someone else’s work and it is the shot I was trying to take but couldn’t define in my mind. This is a nice reminder.
…Cam.

Manglesphoto Loc: 70 miles south of St.Louis

I have read a few articles, and tried to watch a couple of videos (can't stand most of the makers rattling on about this and that.
I have been doing this all my life sometimes successfully sometimes not.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

anotherview Loc: California

In my quest to learn digital photography on my own, I came across a simple approach to a correct exposure for a given subject: Adjust for its black point and its white point along with its mid-gray point during post processing.

agillot

Vodka is the cure !!!!

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

For me; for you; for the "expert";...

ecobin Loc: Paoli, PA

I don't watch photography videos as I have found them to be a waste of time. I do watch technical videos for each of my cameras and for Affinity Photo and have learned what I needed and am still learning.