Question for all y'all...

[brad]

Originally Posted by DJRobin

My "other football mom" friend who said, "you're right, WE should get into photography! I take pictures all the time, too! We could make a fortune!" was my drop head moment.
I don't WANT to take a lot of pictures.
I want to take INCREDIBLE pictures.
<snip>
must...practice...more...

If you're football mom friend thinks you're going to make a fortune at photography, well... she can keep dreaming there. :) You can make a living.. even a decent one.. but fortune.. like any business, that's rare.

And these other two statements go hand in hand with your practice statement.. its the Carnegie Hall joke. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.

You've got a good start with this forum. Ask questions.. post some pics and ask for honest critiques.. there are some of the nicest bunch of folks around here and they are willing to help. You don't even have to want to do it for a living.. you may not aspire to be anything more than a hobbyist who makes good images.. there is nothing wrong with that. The fact that you are here says that you want to be more than these people you meet who say "I wanna take pictures, too!"

Remember one mantra: There is a difference between taking pictures and making pictures.

Actually, make that two: If it were easy, everyone would do it.

[johnastovall]

Originally Posted by jeffkohn

So you received your copy of "Letting Go of the Camera"... I just got the latest issue of Lenswork in the mail today but haven't had a chance to look at it yet.

Yeah, that one's annoying but at the same time all of us have thought something similar at one point or another, even if to a lesser degree. I mean after all, I didn't spend all this money on gear because I thought it would make my pictures worse...

But I know what you mean, and I think what it boils down to is that the average person doesn't have any understanding/appreciation of the effort/skill/craft that goes into serious photography (as opposed to casual snapshots) and so they don't realize how naive that sentiment is. It's always frustrating to have somebody look at photos I've taken and say, "wow, you must have a really nice camera", especially when they're trying to compliment you and don't realize what a back-handed compliment it is. And in fact I do have a nice camera, but trying to explain to them that's there's more to it than that without sounding oversensitive or defensive is more effort that it's worth so I just smile and let it pass.

Yep, got Letting Go of the Camera last week and Single Exposures Wednesday.

Along with the camera comment, I have my office covered with prints. And the people are always asking what kind of printer I have and then come up with, "Oh, if I had one of those I guess I could do prints like that to." They don't know about the month I went crazy getting my workflow calibrated, profiles for the paper and ink and the monthly monitor calibration.

It's sort of like what my mother, a fine art painter and teacher, once said, "The worst thing you can tell a serious painter is, 'He has good technique.'"

[Rick Waldroup]

What about someone like Gary Winogrand? There are all sorts of stories about the way he shot, especially later in life, right before he died. There are stories that he was even sleeping with his camera at one point, afraid of missing a shot. Towards the end, he was teaching to make a living and was basically telling his students to "just fire away", you are bound to get something worthwhile. After his death, they discovered thousands of un-processd rolls of film plus thousands of rolls of film that had never been printed or even had contact sheets made.

I happen to love his stuff, but his methods, especially late in life, became extreme to say the least. Was he the ultimate snapshot shooter? Or was he a gifted artist? Where do you draw the line?

[johnastovall]

Originally Posted by Rick Waldroup

What about someone like Gary Winogrand? There are all sorts of stories about the way he shot, especially later in life, right before he died. There are stories that he was even sleeping with his camera at one point, afraid of missing a shot. Towards the end, he was teaching to make a living and was basically telling his students to "just fire away", you are bound to get something worthwhile. After his death, they discovered thousands of un-processd rolls of film plus thousands of rolls of film that had never been printed or even had contact sheets made.

I happen to love his stuff, but his methods, especially late in life, became extreme to say the least. Was he the ultimate snapshot shooter? Or was he a gifted artist? Where do you draw the line?

Sorry double post.

[johnastovall]

Originally Posted by Rick Waldroup

What about someone like Gary Winogrand? There are all sorts of stories about the way he shot, especially later in life, right before he died. There are stories that he was even sleeping with his camera at one point, afraid of missing a shot. Towards the end, he was teaching to make a living and was basically telling his students to "just fire away", you are bound to get something worthwhile. After his death, they discovered thousands of un-processd rolls of film plus thousands of rolls of film that had never been printed or even had contact sheets made.

I happen to love his stuff, but his methods, especially late in life, became extreme to say the least. Was he the ultimate snapshot shooter? Or was he a gifted artist? Where do you draw the line?

I've read he died with 10,000 rolls of undeveloped film.

He's once said, "I photograph things to see what they look like when photographed."

[TxKent]

Originally Posted by johnastovall

But you have to take A LOT OF PICTURES to take one INCREDIBLE one.

Amen brotha. That's the truth. 99.9% of my images are in the "ehhh" category but in the 20+ years that I've been tinkering with photography - including many with my own darkroom - I've probably come up with ... maybe 5 that I have actually said "Wow!" about.

I think I need a better camera and more glass... maybe some of that mythical "L" glass.

[KdLaneJr]

For me, the difference between a snapshot and a photograph is the time you spend setting up for it. That time is relative. The more comfortable you are with your camera, the quicker it goes. Before I moved to digital, I rarely took a photograph until I has focused, framed, metered, used my dof preview button and then evaluated whether i wanted the metering to have any plus or minus exposure correction. If that was covering a particular event, I checked all that before I started shooting. That helped ensure that my depth of field was what I was looking for and not some random act of a camera with a program function. I had a book "Petersons Big Book of Photography" that was specific to the Olympus OM-1. Kept it for years. I've since given that book to an acquaintance that was interested in photography as I've never seen another that did a good a job covering how to get the most out a 35mm camera and when she was interested, the book was out of print.

-Ken