I've been involved with photography since 1982,and although I still consider myself an amateur,I do take this hobby very seriously,and spend 90% of my spare time in attempts in trying to be creative .
Lately however,I've been in a real stagnant stage, and my efforts in producing some decent images have been worthless .
Hi Michael,
You are plain wrong! I have spent considerable time studying your pictures from a number of series and found like, the rest of us, you do have some mediocre shots. So what. You still have some very fine images. The secret is selecting your best and then working on them further. for example, there's an interesting dead tree on its side, _IMG_4468. It might be worked on further in Photoshop either in color or in B&W. There's a picture,
here, with a cut off tree to the lower left and other bulkier trees cut off too the left, revealing sky. very startling to find this odd presentation and it could be intriguing and work much more effectively if the clouds that are displayed were perfectly rendered. However, the sky seems to be just what the shot delivered.
Other shots are simply wonderful and worthy of being made into great prints such as
this perfectly amazing cat,
this, ,
this,,
this,
this or
this. However, one does want to unite groups with a theme if one can. Still, you have such a large collection, it would be relatively easy to make a commendable gallery with just the top 30%.
This, for example is a great motif to capture, but perhaps one needs a ladder to get the all the pattern of the fence and the tree and maybe use a wider angle lens too. This is an example of a worthy project, but not ready to be put to the top of your favorites and shown.
I would have displayed the examples picked, but I can't find the urls for linking them as they must end in .jpg.
I've decided to start all over again,and try to concentrate in taking a class,or doing some reading on "Seeing".
Michael,
You have no problem seeing. You do have some difficulty not choosing to show pictures that are just memories of a wonderful place. Don't buy a book. Are you in a big city? Visit museums. See how a collection is constructed, united by some common essence of the photographer's choice. One advantage of OPF is that people will give you feedback that is often much better than "Wonderful!" and the like, although we do sometimes work in shorthand too.
Photographs have to be made. They are not, IMHO, generally what just comes out of the camera, unless you shoot products, weddings etc and the lab does the rest. You are no different from the rest of us. We all get disappointed by the trash we make and we chide ourselves.
I print a bunch out in B&W, make copies, get a red wax pencil and draw on each copy what I might have done or should do in PS and then go back and try to get it right or else shoot it again.
Ask, "Is this picture able to stand on it's own as something that grabs me to get into it?" If not what's missing. Is too much included or is this not wide enough, the light wrong or I was in the wrong position or maybe the tonalities are not developed as needed.
Unless you do this with your own work, your pictures cannot improve. Certainly, reading some book wont help you much without working on your own ideas first.
So maybe, post the pictures I pointed out and let's see what other photographers think. Wait till the guys tell me I've got it all wrong!
Asher