PDA

View Full Version : Photography, the way I see it...


Upitnik
08-26-2009, 11:57 AM
First of all a little disclaimer :thumbs2:
This is my personal view on photography as an art and I’m not dismissing the technical aspect as it is an important tool for the professional and of course not every lens can do the same job equally and what not. I’m simply telling how I’ve perceived photography through the years.

At the beginning I was terrified and also angry because here I was, bought a dSLR, a good lens and my pics were crap. I blamed the marketing, blamed the camera, blamed everybody but myself. After the initial shock I pulled myself together and started to read about the technical approach and the best obtainable results from the camera-lens combination. My pics were now technically good but still I was disappointed since I didn't feel anything looking at them. I was baffled so I started to read even more books and magazines and pretty much anything photography related. It was not until 30 books a hundred magazines and countless online articles later I actually began thinking with my heart instead of my brain I got some good results. I ignored common sense and started using a sort of intuition. I thought, well crap I'll use the 10mm for a portrait, let’s see what happens, let’s use a telephoto for indoor shots. Experimenting is what opened my senses and my eyes to seeing things differently.

A lot of trial and error and experimenting took place in the last two years before I reached a way to efficiently learn every day. I replaced all my zooms with primes and forced myself to explore composition styles with no ability to zoom except what my feet can carry me. From all that evolved a technique I use today and will use when I want to expand: I carry my camera with me almost everywhere but with a single lens. The rest of the gear stays home. That way I'm forced to think creatively about composing pics. For instance you come across a panoramic view of the city so naturally you shoot wide but what if that day I have my 200mm on? No sweat, I look for other points of interest and remember that scene for another day. The purpose being on expanding the potential use with every focal length available. This way, in time of course (years probably, I’m still learning immensely), you can carry more and more gear with you but when you come across a beautiful view you instantly know what to use and why. I've expanded creatively that way in a vast variety of ways and continue to do so and probably will till the day I die. You learn how to shoot panoramic views with a telephoto, a wide angle portrait that looks gorgeous but more important you open up your heart to all the beauty around you, you don't immediately settle on the first view you see, you explore...

Today I feel confident I can shoot adequately almost anything with any kind of lens and I really mean this in the humblest way possible, I don't think anybody can capture the beauty God intended us to grasp in person. How can anybody capture what you feel when you look into your children’s eyes, how can you photograph the emotion of perhaps a couple kissing when you tremble thinking of your first kiss. I try every day to capture but a glimpse of what I witness and hope people around me imagine the emotion I express through photography. Oh yes, it’s worth mentioning I continue to read new books, visit exhibitions, attend a variety of art shows (not all photography related) since all art is connected somehow but these events I attend still without my camera. It is hard to appreciate a piano player wrapped up in emotion while gently touching those blacks and whites, the ballet dancer gracefully moving on the stage, the florists arranging the colors from the flowers they love so much, animals in their own habitat, when you’re thinking what f/stop, what ISO, maybe different composition, etc….First I want to experience everything naked and capturing will follow. Of course I’m pretty busy lately so I try to attend what I can and as of soon I will start to carry my camera in an attempt to immortalize what I see.

I hope you didn't find my writings tedious and I just recently opened up my facebook page so if anybody wants please feel free to be my friend :D
I post photos regularly there and will continue to do so.

Cheers.


A small landscape photo for closure.

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g141/upitnik/FREE/Mrkopalj_panorama_BW.jpg

jollyskeleton
08-26-2009, 12:27 PM
thats a lovely shot! u have great skills!

thx217
08-26-2009, 09:24 PM
Beautiful shot!! Love it!

ta2215
08-26-2009, 11:29 PM
Great story and advice and AMAZING shot.

P1X4R
08-27-2009, 12:03 AM
very inspiring post! i too have come to find myself trying to get passed gear and more into what i can truly bring from the heart and eye. you are an exceptional artist my friend! :thumbs2:

speedracer
08-27-2009, 07:16 AM
very very nice insight. I just enjoyed the read..=)

fuzzy
08-27-2009, 08:56 AM
Amazing pics bro!
Wow my cousin should visit this thread , he is so in to photography

Upitnik
08-29-2009, 06:23 AM
Thanks everyone.

Now for a little bit of technical stuff. I always post process my images and not a one has been free from a little bit of Camera Raw adjusting at least. It’s simply the fact that Raw output is just that, think of it as raw meat. You wouldn't eat raw meat would you? You would cook it, fry, flambé it, whatever. That's exactly the beauty of Raw capture. As the photographer you have the vision and through photoshop you get to manifest that vision you want for people to see, not the camera. The fact is our eye is so much more advanced than the camera sensor you can never capture what the eye can see and that’s where post processing comes in.

O.K. enough for today. I leave you with a little vision of I what I experienced when I saw the sky beautifully lit up.







http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g141/upitnik/FREE/_MG_5512.jpg

RogueCylon
09-06-2009, 12:16 PM
In the less is more category, I'd like to see that picture without the left most image. :)