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Reminiscing over treasured photographs
Online photography communities are heartbreakers. Like the addictive ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends whose heady experience you find yourself wasting four years of your life with, online communities can be very much the same blur of pointless highs and gut-wrenching lows where your world becomes dictated by page views, comment counts and favourites.
An interesting thought occurred to me the other dayhow about taking some photographs and not exhibiting them online? Sure, you may find that you have neglected to upload an outtake here and there, but the practice might still stand of having always shared your photography with the public.
For me, it has always been difficult distinguishing between the comments on my photographs like where randomphotodude would say, "awesom foto, ur model is hot, chek out my stuf thnx" and the people who sincerely liked my work and was keen to watch me grow. They have been a source of both intense frustration and great, great pleasure.
I am not pledging a vow of silence, or anything else revolutionary, but simply proposing the idea to all interested readers that we allow ourselves the room to grow a little through the old-fashioned celebrations of amateur self-satisfying artpaper photo albums.
Still shoot anything and everything to your hearts content, but only when it pleases you and not when youre garnering for page views. Shoot your models and sitters, but as a memento of your growth and not as any contrived or grandiose attempt at art. Page by page, I challenge you to fill an album that you will be able to carry around with you for the rest of your life, and measure its worth by the fond memories it inspires, and not by comments.
Charles Dodgson aka Lewis Carroll filled volumes of albums with his portraits
Looking back through this blogs previous writers articles, I found some very informative and comprehensive posts, including using patterns, the rule of thirds and lines and shapes to enhance your shot.
Keep these concepts in mind and you will be well-prepared to take technically proficient shots. Much harder to learn, and even harder to teach, are the conceptual foundations of art photography.
It does not hurt to think about your purpose in addition to camera setting and compositions. Perhaps there is something in particular that sets your blood on fireprovocative portraits, intense black and white nudes, exotic flora, sweeping landscapes, realist street lifewhatever it may be, explore it. Make it your goal to learn as much as you can about it and explore your theme through your photography every way imaginable.
Ansel Adams was an environmentalist, and his striking photographs of Californias Yosemite Valley are his records of what the national parks were like before human intervention and travel.
Clearing Winter Storm by Adams (1942)
Robert Doisneau captured empathetic and often humorous depictions of Parisian street life which were reflections of his life and time.
Kiss by the Hotel de Ville by Doisneau (1950)
Think about our time nowpolitical tension, nuclear weapons, mass marketing, the Internet and digital agemaybe you have a statement you wish to express or an idea you wish to challenge? Patricia Piccinini's 1997 installation of Protein Lattice is a confronting statement of tissue engineering.
Piccinini's Protein Lattice (1997)
Before you find yourself filling a blank memory stick with shots, ask yourself why am I taking this? and what am I trying to say?.
Welcome to Photography Tales, the latest blog on the Orble Network. The market out there for prosumer (professional-consumer) digital cameras is ever-booming with new technological developments every year seeing the existing prices drop. Photography, especially digital photography, is becoming an increasingly accessible and affordable hobby, and we see new galleries and portfolios emerge on the Internet with self-professed photographers sharing their creations with the rest of the world. Film however, is far from being forgotten, with professional photographers and artists alike celebrating the old medium.
Criticisms have arisen surrounding the rapid introduction of consumer digital cameras. For as little as a few hundred dollars, you can pick yourself up an easy to use point-and-shoot camera, and with the automatic settings, snap up a few pictures of flowers, or your cat, and call yourself a photographer. While I do not want to reintroduce the snooty juries of the Paris Salon, I believe that there is some value in earning myself the title of photographer before I abuse it.
We are at a very exciting age where we photography enthusiasts are straddled between the old world and the new, the traditional mediums and techniques of film and the transformational technological advancements of digital and image editing software. We get to see the best of both worlds and we have the opportunity to learn both as long as we choose to take it.
I started digital photography in high school as my selected medium for Visual Arts. With my teachers trained only in drawing and painting, I was left to flounder my way around it on my own. From the onset, I knew my passion would lie in portrait photography, but as many of my friends were camera-shy, I began to pose for myself with the aid of the self-timer and a tripod. I gathered a small fan-base online and supported myself with print sales of my works.
In 2004, I took a break from photography and through my contacts in the industry, began to model for artists and photographers in Sydney and Canberra. I was exposed to a world so far removed from what I had grown accustomed to in working alone. I worked closely with my photographers and gained considerable insight into their idiosyncratic working styles and methods.
Through this blog, I will share with you my personal accounts and experiences working on both sides of the cameraphotographer and model, online art communities, and the photography out there that inspires me to create. On occasion, I will also reveal a few of the projects I am working on in my own pursuit of capturing beauty through a lens.
Readers of Photography Tips may be well aware that this blog has been suffering from a bout of non-activity since March but I am pleased to inform you that the torch has now been passed and Ill be sharing my techniques, tips and ideas to arouse and inspire every creative bone in your body.
Parallel to this, I will also be writing for Photography Tales, which is more opinionated and anecdotal in nature. I am not a professional photographer, but you might find my experiences as an amateur art photographer who used to exhibit a lot of her work online and is now struggling to develop on her own, more relatable than if I confine myself to talking about how successful I am in my well-established career
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