An 'eye' for photography - DPChallenge Forums

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

09/08/2004 04:17:45 PM · #26

Very nicely put...

To clarify for myself, are you suggesting that I need to stop trying to capture beauty the way I see it and instead need to understand better how the camera sees beauty (and therefore how the camera can capture beauty)?

Keep explaining, I'll begin to understand...

zeuszen

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II

09/08/2004 04:33:35 PM · #27

Originally posted by thatcloudthere:

...To clarify... are you suggesting that I need to stop trying to capture beauty the way I see it and instead need to understand better how the camera sees beauty (and therefore how the camera can capture beauty)?...

When we're new to photography (or to the equipment), I think, the camera interferes with seeing. As we become more comfortable with it, we begin to take pictures more instinctively, more directly. Having arrived at a point of comfort (with the equipment), we can, hopefully and ideally, look at the world through the camera, while, temporarily, forgetting what it looks like without it.

I wouldn't get to hung up on the idea of beauty either - swans shit after all.
Beauty, to some of us, is just truth. ;-)

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

09/08/2004 04:40:37 PM · #28

Originally posted by zeuszen:

Beauty, to some of us, is just truth. ;-)

To me it is just that...

GoldBerry

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM

09/08/2004 04:45:18 PM · #29

Ansel Adams wrote once that the camera TEACHES the eye to see. ANd for me it was sooo true. I never realized that something like 'depth of field' is more than a camera techy term, but that our eyes actually see that way. Things like that..maybe I'm just obtuse, but those details escaped me before I looked through a lens.

scalvert

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

09/08/2004 04:46:06 PM · #30

Originally posted by zeuszen:

I wouldn't get to hung up on the idea of beauty either - swans shit after all.

How eloquent. I really should stop trying to visualize everything I read. ;-)

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II

09/08/2004 04:47:39 PM · #31

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by zeuszen:
I wouldn't get to hung up on the idea of beauty either - swans shit after all.

How eloquent. I really should stop trying to visualize everything I read. ;-)

zeuszen was just being pessimistic. An optimist would say "Even shit lives in a swan for a short time!"

ggbudge

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

09/08/2004 05:18:33 PM · #32

thatcloudthere, I can't thank you enough for starting this thread. :)

I too believe I have an "eye" for photography and my scores from the challenges have been much less than anticipated. I've got a competitive streak in me that has caused me great disappointment and a bruised ego. I've just realized that I need to temper that, as I'm pretty sure that's not what this site is about. It's about learning and experimenting. Trial and error and the three P's. Practice, Practice, Practice...

Thank You all, for teaching me more than you could ever have imagined.

George

Olyuzi

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX7

Panasonic Lumix G 14mm F2.5 ASPH

09/08/2004 07:23:14 PM · #33

To improve your photographic eye why don't you set yourself an ongoing project to photograph the most ordinary and familiar of settings and trying to make something esthetically pleasing from those pics? You can even subdivide your project by concentrating for one week on say, high vs low key shots...another week on macro shots...another week on wide angle shots...etc, etc. etc.

Don't get down on yourself cause you've done poorly in a few challenges here. If life were that easy that all we had to do was purchase a tool to do something better you would lose interest in all of life. It's about mastery, so get busy on mastering your visual universe and see what you can come up with. It will be uniquely YOU.

swagman

Nikon D200

12/30/2004 04:49:54 PM · #34

I wonder if you've ever studied general composition: visual elements and how they work together. These are the real tools of creating an image. Photography is just one media for puting them together.

In conjunction, a detailed knowledge of light is required. A natural eye helps, but training is far more important to anyone who wishes to become an artist.

I've been told I have a natural eye. They don't realise how many years went into developing that eye.