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General Photography
Project 365 & Daily Photos
What do you think . . . u
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<blockquote data-quote="BackdoorArts" data-source="post: 239072" data-attributes="member: 9240"><p>I started out with an idea this year - a bad one - and failed after a week as it was far too restricting for where my skills were. I decided to try to shoot every day, and life circumstances made it such that I couldn't really do what I wanted, but I shot as much as possible, and was able to stretch into areas this year that I hadn't planned to go, and got much better in my post processing skills simply by spending time with the tools and learning to "make pictures" rather than simply play with filters.</p><p></p><p>I had my Mom stay with us over Christmas this year, and she asked me to give her copies of some of my photos so she can have them rotate through her screen saver at home. I used to post a lot to Facebook and she would grab them from there, but since their use policy changed I've stopped doing that, and Mom hasn't bothered to learn how to download from Flickr (hey, she does well in the internet age for a 72 year old former housewife with no computer experience until she was almost 60). So we paged backwards through my Photostream and as she asked for one I'd find it in Lightroom and export an appropriately sized copy, and as I did it I couldn't help but notice the points at which I made measured improvements in my "darkroom" techniques. I found myself cringing at overcooked HDR shots, over-saturated and way too contrasty cityscapes and the like. But the kicker would come when she'd say something like, "I love how you did that" or "I love how you made that look", and I'd go back and show her the original RAW file and try and step through my process. I never save my layers in PS when I'm done as they take up so much more space, so I attempted to recreate the shot, and <em>every</em> time I did the version I came up with was absolutely better than the one I'd done earlier in the year, even when I repeated the overcooking.</p><p></p><p>I'm not saying this to pat myself on the back, though I'm proud of the growth I've made. What I'm saying is that there's nothing that helps your photography more than just doing it. On top of that, I spent a lot of time this year looking at the work of others and allowing myself to be influenced by what I saw. With some I saw things I wanted to emulate, with others things I wanted to avoid, and with the rest it just served to fuel the fire with ideas - places to go, styles to try, lenses to buy.</p><p></p><p>This year I am thinking I have two parallel paths I want to travel on. The first is simply a continuation of this year's journey - to keep shooting and growing, trying new techniques and refining what I'm only starting to see as a personal style and vision. </p><p></p><p>The other path is something that I have only given serious consideration in the last week and that is to try and maximize my photos straight out of the camera - to start shooting JPEG. I was gifted an Eye-Fi card, allowing me to immediately upload and share my work, with edits limited to what I can do on my iPhone. After reading <a href="http://nikonrumors.com/2013/12/30/guest-post-switching-from-nikon-to-canon.aspx/" target="_blank">an article</a> today I realized that by only shooting RAW I am shortchanging my camera knowledge. There are so many functions that folks ask about, from Active D-Lighting to High ISO NR to Profiles, that I can claim justifiable ignorance of since shooting RAW allows me to bypass them. And while that's neither a crutch or an excuse, it does point to a potential area of growth. Were I to be thrust into a situation where someone was willing to pay me to shoot something where I simply needed to hand them an SD card at the end of the event, could I deliver results, or does my photography rely more on my post processing skills than my shooting skills? I think it's more than OK to be a better "darkroom guy" as it's something I see with a lot of big names in photography. Heck, even a guy like Scott Kelby who lectures everywhere on Photoshop has a guy who handles all his post processing for him. But I know that I have room to grow there. So while I will continue to shoot RAW, my plan is to shoot RAW+JPEG this year and learn to maximize that other end of my camera.</p><p></p><p>I'm not sure if I'll do a 365 or not, or possibly even two 365 projects, but I will likely have 2 "as often as I can" threads this year with one featuring only Straight Out Of Camera" shots. I'm going to strive for one-a-day, but no promises.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="BackdoorArts, post: 239072, member: 9240"] I started out with an idea this year - a bad one - and failed after a week as it was far too restricting for where my skills were. I decided to try to shoot every day, and life circumstances made it such that I couldn't really do what I wanted, but I shot as much as possible, and was able to stretch into areas this year that I hadn't planned to go, and got much better in my post processing skills simply by spending time with the tools and learning to "make pictures" rather than simply play with filters. I had my Mom stay with us over Christmas this year, and she asked me to give her copies of some of my photos so she can have them rotate through her screen saver at home. I used to post a lot to Facebook and she would grab them from there, but since their use policy changed I've stopped doing that, and Mom hasn't bothered to learn how to download from Flickr (hey, she does well in the internet age for a 72 year old former housewife with no computer experience until she was almost 60). So we paged backwards through my Photostream and as she asked for one I'd find it in Lightroom and export an appropriately sized copy, and as I did it I couldn't help but notice the points at which I made measured improvements in my "darkroom" techniques. I found myself cringing at overcooked HDR shots, over-saturated and way too contrasty cityscapes and the like. But the kicker would come when she'd say something like, "I love how you did that" or "I love how you made that look", and I'd go back and show her the original RAW file and try and step through my process. I never save my layers in PS when I'm done as they take up so much more space, so I attempted to recreate the shot, and [I]every[/I] time I did the version I came up with was absolutely better than the one I'd done earlier in the year, even when I repeated the overcooking. I'm not saying this to pat myself on the back, though I'm proud of the growth I've made. What I'm saying is that there's nothing that helps your photography more than just doing it. On top of that, I spent a lot of time this year looking at the work of others and allowing myself to be influenced by what I saw. With some I saw things I wanted to emulate, with others things I wanted to avoid, and with the rest it just served to fuel the fire with ideas - places to go, styles to try, lenses to buy. This year I am thinking I have two parallel paths I want to travel on. The first is simply a continuation of this year's journey - to keep shooting and growing, trying new techniques and refining what I'm only starting to see as a personal style and vision. The other path is something that I have only given serious consideration in the last week and that is to try and maximize my photos straight out of the camera - to start shooting JPEG. I was gifted an Eye-Fi card, allowing me to immediately upload and share my work, with edits limited to what I can do on my iPhone. After reading [URL="http://nikonrumors.com/2013/12/30/guest-post-switching-from-nikon-to-canon.aspx/"]an article[/URL] today I realized that by only shooting RAW I am shortchanging my camera knowledge. There are so many functions that folks ask about, from Active D-Lighting to High ISO NR to Profiles, that I can claim justifiable ignorance of since shooting RAW allows me to bypass them. And while that's neither a crutch or an excuse, it does point to a potential area of growth. Were I to be thrust into a situation where someone was willing to pay me to shoot something where I simply needed to hand them an SD card at the end of the event, could I deliver results, or does my photography rely more on my post processing skills than my shooting skills? I think it's more than OK to be a better "darkroom guy" as it's something I see with a lot of big names in photography. Heck, even a guy like Scott Kelby who lectures everywhere on Photoshop has a guy who handles all his post processing for him. But I know that I have room to grow there. So while I will continue to shoot RAW, my plan is to shoot RAW+JPEG this year and learn to maximize that other end of my camera. I'm not sure if I'll do a 365 or not, or possibly even two 365 projects, but I will likely have 2 "as often as I can" threads this year with one featuring only Straight Out Of Camera" shots. I'm going to strive for one-a-day, but no promises. [/QUOTE]
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