Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Wow, I would take images to use as a reminder.

Stardust Loc: Central Illinois

This happens often in my travels because part of the beauty (birds singing), hustle & bustle (noise on cobblestones), colors flashing or blinking, background noises, smells (like open air markets), etc. just can't be capture in a photo but supplement my eyes when I see it. So I pause, take it all in, sear it in my brain, then take a photo to remind me of that moment vs being able to capture it.

lmTrying Loc: WV Northern Panhandle

Well said. Well said.

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

Oh GRASSHOPPER, the secret to good images is in closely studying your CRAP. In looking closely at your CRAP, figure out exactly why it is CRAP. Post your CRAP here and have us analyze it. We will give you good suggestions on how to improve your CRAP so you will start to turn out good CRAP. Always remember, photography is about improving, and the only way to improve, is to learn. So learn what your doing wrong and correct it.
Good luck and keep on shooting until the end.

NCMtnMan Loc: N. Fork New River, Ashe Co., NC

Is that sort of like the song "The girls all get prettier at closing time." Perception is a fickle thing.

Low Budget Dave

Many people take pictures of their wives (or husbands or whatever) and love the picture because they know and love the person. Someone else viewing the same picture might find it uninteresting.

Good photographers have a knack for understanding what the camera "sees", and composing pictures where the lines, shadows, and framing are enjoyable even without the context.

Great photographers also figure out a way to imply the context.

george19

Your camera doesn’t drink?

olemikey Loc: 6 mile creek, Spacecoast Florida

I just wrote this for the previous post (What the camera see's)... I think it works here too.

Camera can't think (in the way we do), it can process and record a scene based on method selected, it can only "see" what it is pointed at and what is in the OVF/EVF or on the rear LCD. You should train yourself to not only look at a scene visually, but look at it through the "looking glass" (OVF/EVF/LCD) to see what the camera will record, and after taking the shot, look at what it what it actually records (chimping a shot). Practice, did we mention that, it is the "stairway to the podium".

In the process you merge the intent (what you are trying to convey) with the preview in the "looking glass" and the actual shot taken for a capture, and then (photographers choice) you post process, or accept the SOOC as a finisehd product of your vision. Practice is usually involved.

Some photographers even purchase a "Directors viewfinder/loupe" to better visualize a scene intended to be a photo or movie. (I just look through the OVF/EVF or at the LCD).

I know many musicians, but I would only want to listen to those who have practiced their craft and have developed their talent to produce wonderful music, and they never stop practicing, so they can maintain their level of proficiency, and improve on that.

PS - I would not walk away, I would practice and adjust till I have at least have recorded what my eyes see.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

It’s the difference between how you see things and how a camera sees things. Depending on settings, a camera may or may not see what you see and it will not feel the emotion that a scene elicits from you. You have to be able to manipulate the device to get what you want.

camerapapi Loc: Miami, Fl.

This is my humble take on this. The general rule is to see a subject we want to photograph and do two things:
1- Take the picture from where we are standing.
2- Not analyzing the scene and the light before shooting.

Our tendency is not to walk around the subject and look it from other angles. Our tendency is to shoot first and "ask questions later." We have to analyze the subject and the light and by looking at the majority of the images I see here they are shot with front lighting, sometimes in harsh light making the subject to look flat. Look at a sidelighted or backlighted subject and you will see a difference. The light I guess we all know is softer during early and late hours of the day. Colors change, mood change even the subject looks different.

I know for sure that many newbies are looking for the "sharpest" lens and many for the "best" camera. If we cannot see the light will the sharpest lens give us interesting photographs? Will a professional, expensive camera make a difference?
Pausing to observe the subject and how the light makes it look differently requires patience. That patience will reward us as when we prepare our senses to make the image. Happy shooting does not mean better photographs.

Freeman Patterson, the Canadian photographer from Brunswick is an educator who has published several books on photography. One of them, "Photography and the Art of Seeing" will teach the reader how to see photographically and he has in his book plenty of exercises to train our eyes and our perception of subjects. I am sure there are other books that can also teach the photographer how to observe and plan for a good image.

I know that a camera and lens are important but they do not make the photograph, that depends on the photographer.

Richie G Loc: Blackwood,New Jersey

When i see something nice that i like to take a picture of i try to think of 4 things before i trip the shutter. #1 subject #2 light #3 composition #4 exposure.Once you understand these 4 things and practice them over and over,you will see your pictures as you visioned them.

cactuspic Loc: Dallas, TX

Part of the difficulty is that our sensory perceptions are a bundle of separate senses that occur in a continuum of time, molded by the immediate past perceptions and shaped by our anticipation of the future. With a simple turn of head or body we weave what’s up, down, to the left, to the right into our continuous stream of sensations. The art of photography to somehow simplify and distill the welter of sensations that surround us in a 3D world and it essence in a flat representation, frozen in time and stripped of sound, smell, taste, or or touch. We ask much of our images, often too much of any single one. Bill Burke’s suggestion to think in terms of telling a story by a series of shots is so strong.

Two exercises have helped me. The first involves visualization. Before you snap shutter, shut your eyes and paint the image in your head. Then compare it to the image in the viewfinder. Often distracting elements are lurking in the difference. As you are more able to accurately paint the image in your head, you will be more able to see as the camera sees.

A second exercise is to define the magic. Compared. To the sum of our waking hours, the small fractions of time captured in all your images is infinitesimal. Something is screaming, “press the shutter and take a picture. “. The better you can define why the shot is calling, the better you can determine if you have the best perspective, the strongest composition etc.

Hope this helps

Picture Taker Loc: Michigan Thumb

That the hard part of photography. Our cameras do most of the work but it up to us to MAKE the picture.
don't give up. and have fun.

axiesdad Loc: Monticello, Indiana

Your query made me remember a discussion of Ansel Adam's "Moonrise, Hernandez" that included images SOOC and after he had "post processed" it in the lab. The image we want is not always captured with a click of the shutter, but we can sometimes get there anyway.

Notorious T.O.D. Loc: Harrisburg, North Carolina

The eyes have much higher resolution and dynamic range than any camera or print. The 3 dimensional world is much different than can ever be put on a 2 dimensional print.