Fotoserj Loc: St calixte Qc Ca

that what I’m telling my girlfriend couple time s day,

StanMac Loc: Tennessee

And your photos prove your point, Joe. Fantastic wildlife shots!

Stan

Haydon

I agree with this. Thinking outside the box allows you to grow. Shooting outside your comfort zone with new subject matter or different lighting conditions helps. Many pros use their cellphone everyday to key a sharp eye in composition later to be applied to their paid work.

vg Loc: Kansas City area

I find learning from pro’s on the web, especially KelbyOne teach me how to improve my landscape photography. Doing the same thing over and over isn’t really learning and learning from the right people and practicing is what makes ordinary become extraordinary.

MarkSki

Or go insane.

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

Actually, only if you actively continue to review and improve. Otherwise, it would be the same old shot with just different lighting conditions.

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

Anyone who knows my participation in this form also knows I don't ever make harsh or demeaning critiques of anyone's photography. So...a a few months ago, a local photographer in my city came to me and asked me to critique his portfolio- seemed he was aspiring to get back into the business after a dormant period. Let's just say the work was nowhere near professional quality, not even close. As my grandchildren would say "it looked like a train wreck or a dumpster fire"! Of, course I would not say such a discouraging thing and would only attempted to help the photographer improve his work. Problem was, the guy argued with and resisted all of my gentle suggestions. His recurrent and adamant ARGUMENT was "...BUT I HAVE BEEN DOING THIS FOR 30 YEARS -I HAVE 30 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE!!! Finally, in my utter exasperation and loss of patience, I exclaimed, "NO!...you only have one year of experience and all you did was repeat it 30 times over"! This is not a joke- it actually happened!

Of course, repetition and practice count. I always felt that learning and improving in photography is like studying music and taking music lessons, practice, practice, and PRACTICE. In actual practice, you repeat the etudes, the scales, certain passages over and over again- diligently strengthening your technique, attack, dexterity, voice, expression, improving your velocity and precision and mastering the "instrument" until you get it right. THEN you must not stagnate but go into the next stage- do the variations, experiment, improvise, challenge yourself to expand and improve. In photography, you don't wanna become a "one-note photographer"!

As any good music teacher will tell you, you must not start off with bad habits- doing things the wrong way, because bad habits are hard to break. I realize that there is a popular aversion to setting "rules" and procedures in art but sound technique is a good foundation for creativity.

Now, folks, I ain't talking about talent! You can't teach, learn or practice talent, you can only develop and support your talents with good technique or encourage others to do so. You can't teach a tone-deaf person ear-training or harmony but you can get them to play a song on a musical instrument-mechanically.

There are some folks who have the so-called "eye" for art and photography but you can help the other folks train their eyes to recognize certain elements of lighting and composition. Many folks have hidden talents that they don't even recognize in themselves until they try their hand a something that interests them.

Repetition and redundancy have their place. It's always good to have a safe method to fall back on in order to get results. Sometimes "jumping out of the box" is impractical or inappropriate in many situations so you gotta jump back in- which ain't bad as long as there is some good stuff stored away "in the box"!

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Just remember the saying, "if you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you always got".

I wish I knew who to attribute that to, but don't know the source of that quote.
--Bob

Angel Star Photography Loc: Tacoma, WA

Perhaps this may help:

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/04/25/get/

davyboy Loc: Anoka Mn.

Thanks Grasshopper! Also if I may inject is patience! Patience in time the grass will be become milk

Indiana Loc: Huntington, Indiana

Well, that is partially true if the initial results are good, however, repetition of faults will not cause change.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Thanks, Charles.
--Bob

artBob Loc: Near Chicago

50 year in the art field have taught me that you are right, BUT, so are those who continually change up. Both paths work if what is made is True and Beautiful, or put another way, has a truth about the human condition that is expressed in a unique and technically/compositionally superb way.

Scruples Loc: Brooklyn, New York

The word "repetition" is definitely a poor choice of words. Here at the forum we share and improve. Critique is key because the next photograph should be better than our last.

dick ranez

But.....practicing bad habits doesn’t help.