Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Photos in Absence
All the shots I uploaded to flickr while I was in Edinburgh but didn't get a chance to post them to Facebook or Twitter:
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Photography Bucket List
After reading this article dredged from the mammoth backlog in my Google Reader I decided it was a good enough idea to steal.
So here is my bucket list.
A really good portrait
If you've browsed my photostream you'll see that portraiture isn't my thing. There are probably three photos with people up there in total. This is a shame because I quite like portraiture. So why not go out and get more? Well I hope to. In fact in the not too distant future I may be pestering you with my camera.
That waterfall
Yes it's a massive cliche. I still want one. I've even had the chance a few times, but it's never been exactly what I'm after, which is a lot of water flowing captured with a slow shutter speed.
One of those slow motion coastal shots - Again a cliche but these are just great when done properly. Here's a good example example.
A wild fox - To be honest any sort of wildlife photography would be a bit of a dream. A fox is just the top on the list. They're elusive buggers though and without a super telephoto lens this is probably never going to happen. I'd best start saving.
A studio shoot - Another dream. Someday i'd love to rent a studio out and have the right equipment to do justice to a shoot. I'd probably go for a proper fashionesque model and see what I coud get of her.
Let me know what you'd like to shoot. There are plenty of other shots I'd love to get. I'll probably expand this over the year.
So here is my bucket list.
A really good portrait
If you've browsed my photostream you'll see that portraiture isn't my thing. There are probably three photos with people up there in total. This is a shame because I quite like portraiture. So why not go out and get more? Well I hope to. In fact in the not too distant future I may be pestering you with my camera.
That waterfall
Yes it's a massive cliche. I still want one. I've even had the chance a few times, but it's never been exactly what I'm after, which is a lot of water flowing captured with a slow shutter speed.
One of those slow motion coastal shots - Again a cliche but these are just great when done properly. Here's a good example example.
A wild fox - To be honest any sort of wildlife photography would be a bit of a dream. A fox is just the top on the list. They're elusive buggers though and without a super telephoto lens this is probably never going to happen. I'd best start saving.
A studio shoot - Another dream. Someday i'd love to rent a studio out and have the right equipment to do justice to a shoot. I'd probably go for a proper fashionesque model and see what I coud get of her.
Let me know what you'd like to shoot. There are plenty of other shots I'd love to get. I'll probably expand this over the year.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Flickr - The numbers game
I've been using flickr for a little while now and it's become apparent that while easy to use it is somewhat limited as a service.
Flickr is a great way to share your photos and find great photos easily. It has a clean layout and if you pay the $2 a month fee then you get unlimited storage.
On the other hand there are some major things wrong with flickr.
Black and White
The biggest problem is it's design. Flickr always shows every photo against a white background. Sadly most photos look better against a black backdrop, and this can have a bigger effect on your shots then you might think.
Take this shot and it's displayed on black version. You should immediatly notice the diference. The reason for this is a little odd. The human eye actually has no default value for white. When we look at a scene we immediatly take the brightest value we can see as white. What this means is that photos on flickr that have areas that appear white on a black background look less bright and slightly off white against flickr's white backdrop.
Poor Stats
Stats on flickr cost money. Ostensibly it's what you pay for when you spend money to make your account PRO. Sadly stats are severely limited. The main problem is a lack of options. You can't really compare shot stats, or try to understand what you did to get a photo seen more widely. THe graph flickr does provide you only goes back a month but the biggest problem is that the stats don't give you any depth; You can't tell how long someone looked at your shot and flickr has no built in system to let people rate your shots.
Groups - Too many, not fit for purpose
Groups on flickr are a great idea. With them you can collect together photos on any subject, style or quality. However flickr hasn't adapted to what groups are most comonly used for: competitions.
On flickr we generally post to groups to get our photos seen by a wide group of people. The easiest way is to post in a group where the rules of the group insure people look at your photo before they post theirs. However competitive groups are a mish mash of moderating and silly award images and despit having been around for years flickr hasn't made an effor tto improve them.
The addition of facilities to give group awards through flickr would majorly improve the service. As would the addition of a photo rating system.
The numbers game
If you do get into flickr you will probably be sucked into the numbers game. As with any website or social network we all tend to get slightly obsessed with how many people see our efforts and contributions.
On flickr this takes the form of individual views, comments, favourites and the holy grail, intrestingness.
Hits on flickr aren't that dificult to get, provided you are willing to put the spade work in. Hits are basically decided by the quality of the photo (actually not as important as how good it looks small) and how much you promote it. The easiet way to get hits is to post lots of photos into lots of diferent groups every day.
When posting into groups your shot needs to look good in a very small format. What this boils down to is that there has to be high general contrast (i.e both bright and dark areas), there has to be large details as opposed to small, the colours should be warm and vibrant and the shot should preferably be easily discernible at a small scale.
I generally post shots to about 20 groups a day and on good days get about 500 hits as a result.
Comments are received en masse in a similar way to hits. If you want useful constructive comments then you're best to post in groups where part of the rules is that you must comment and rate other photos. These groups give you useful feedback about your photos. Be warned however, not everyone on flickr knows what they're talking about and people will present themselves as experts in comments by using technical terms (Depth of field, exposure, selective contrast) when in fact they themselves are not great photographers. When in doubt check them out.
Favourites are much much harder to get. Really this boils down to contacts and the quality of your work. I have a simple method of boosting contacts and one that is beneficial to all. I add as a contact anyone on flickr who adds me first and anyone who has a shot I deem worthy of a favourite. Over a short time I have accumulated around 500 contacts who will see my photos on their contacts page and, if they like them, will give them favourites. In return I regularly check my contacts page and comment and favourite shots I like.
Intrestingness is the holy grail of flickr. We all like to get our shots into the top 500. Sadly intrestingess is hard to achive. Even your best shots won't make the list on a good day. The real way to make the list is to have loads and loads of contacts and then don't promote your photos at all intrestingness is about the ratio of favourites to views, so the fewer people who see a shot but the more who favourite it the better. This can seem a little counter-intuitive but it makes sense if you assume that the best shots don't need to be shouted about, news about them will spread no matter what.
Any and all questions in the comments
Flickr is a great way to share your photos and find great photos easily. It has a clean layout and if you pay the $2 a month fee then you get unlimited storage.
On the other hand there are some major things wrong with flickr.
Black and White
The biggest problem is it's design. Flickr always shows every photo against a white background. Sadly most photos look better against a black backdrop, and this can have a bigger effect on your shots then you might think.
Take this shot and it's displayed on black version. You should immediatly notice the diference. The reason for this is a little odd. The human eye actually has no default value for white. When we look at a scene we immediatly take the brightest value we can see as white. What this means is that photos on flickr that have areas that appear white on a black background look less bright and slightly off white against flickr's white backdrop.
Poor Stats
Stats on flickr cost money. Ostensibly it's what you pay for when you spend money to make your account PRO. Sadly stats are severely limited. The main problem is a lack of options. You can't really compare shot stats, or try to understand what you did to get a photo seen more widely. THe graph flickr does provide you only goes back a month but the biggest problem is that the stats don't give you any depth; You can't tell how long someone looked at your shot and flickr has no built in system to let people rate your shots.
Groups - Too many, not fit for purpose
Groups on flickr are a great idea. With them you can collect together photos on any subject, style or quality. However flickr hasn't adapted to what groups are most comonly used for: competitions.
On flickr we generally post to groups to get our photos seen by a wide group of people. The easiest way is to post in a group where the rules of the group insure people look at your photo before they post theirs. However competitive groups are a mish mash of moderating and silly award images and despit having been around for years flickr hasn't made an effor tto improve them.
The addition of facilities to give group awards through flickr would majorly improve the service. As would the addition of a photo rating system.
The numbers game
If you do get into flickr you will probably be sucked into the numbers game. As with any website or social network we all tend to get slightly obsessed with how many people see our efforts and contributions.
On flickr this takes the form of individual views, comments, favourites and the holy grail, intrestingness.
Hits on flickr aren't that dificult to get, provided you are willing to put the spade work in. Hits are basically decided by the quality of the photo (actually not as important as how good it looks small) and how much you promote it. The easiet way to get hits is to post lots of photos into lots of diferent groups every day.
When posting into groups your shot needs to look good in a very small format. What this boils down to is that there has to be high general contrast (i.e both bright and dark areas), there has to be large details as opposed to small, the colours should be warm and vibrant and the shot should preferably be easily discernible at a small scale.
I generally post shots to about 20 groups a day and on good days get about 500 hits as a result.
Comments are received en masse in a similar way to hits. If you want useful constructive comments then you're best to post in groups where part of the rules is that you must comment and rate other photos. These groups give you useful feedback about your photos. Be warned however, not everyone on flickr knows what they're talking about and people will present themselves as experts in comments by using technical terms (Depth of field, exposure, selective contrast) when in fact they themselves are not great photographers. When in doubt check them out.
Favourites are much much harder to get. Really this boils down to contacts and the quality of your work. I have a simple method of boosting contacts and one that is beneficial to all. I add as a contact anyone on flickr who adds me first and anyone who has a shot I deem worthy of a favourite. Over a short time I have accumulated around 500 contacts who will see my photos on their contacts page and, if they like them, will give them favourites. In return I regularly check my contacts page and comment and favourite shots I like.
Intrestingness is the holy grail of flickr. We all like to get our shots into the top 500. Sadly intrestingess is hard to achive. Even your best shots won't make the list on a good day. The real way to make the list is to have loads and loads of contacts and then don't promote your photos at all intrestingness is about the ratio of favourites to views, so the fewer people who see a shot but the more who favourite it the better. This can seem a little counter-intuitive but it makes sense if you assume that the best shots don't need to be shouted about, news about them will spread no matter what.
Any and all questions in the comments
Monday, December 21, 2009
10,000 views
10,000.
It's a big number. The first of the big numbers. Banks ask for a lot of collateral on 10,000. There weren't 10,000 students in my university. It's the number of homeless families on the streets of New York this christmas and it's the size in kilometres that the earth's atmosphere stretches to.
So hitting 10,000 views on my flickr profile is pretty major. It's not unique visits, but i reckon that at least 1000 people have seen my photos and that's still impressive.
It hasn't taken me that long either. I started my flicker account on August 25th, so in just under 4 months I've done really well.
The whole point of this long self-congragulatory piece is to (eventually) thank anyone and everyone who took the time out to view my page, comment on a photo or drop me an email. I started my flickr account to improve my photography and it's your feedback that helps me do that.
So I hope you stick with me to 20,000 (and beyond). I still have a guaranteed 310 days of uploading photos so if you do like what I'm up to there will be plenty more.
Thanks,
Robin
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Tips from the first 53 days
So i've made it over a seventh of the way through my 365 challenge. I haven't kept to the spirit of the thing. I've uploaded a photo to flickr every day (bar day 9 where i missed by an hour) but i havn't taken a photo every day.
This bothers me but is something I aim to rectify in the new year.
However I have been taking photos practically every day and it's begining to teach me some important lessons which I hope to impart to you.
Bring a camera everywhere
Always, always, always carry some sort of camera with you (preferably better than your phone). Keep it in your pocket or your bag. Everyone tells you this but it's the cardinal rule. When you start seeing photographs everywhere you'll curse yourself if you can't capture them.
Never pass up a photo
When I started the challenge I tried to be single minded, if i was going to get pictures of a sunset on a hill I'd rush up the hill to get the shot. In one way this is a good thing, you don't want to lose the light, but in another it's a bad idea. If along the way you see a good photo take the shot immediatly even if you run the risk of missing your intended shot.
Why you might ask? A shot in the camera is worth two in the head. You might reach the hilltop to find the sky isn't interesting tonight but that shot you've taken is with you for good.
Always clear your camera
I've learnt the hard wy that you should take shots off your camera as soon as you get home. If you don't you might spot a shot and not have room and the time it takes to clear unwanted shots off your camera in a crucial moment might mean missing a great shot.
Make sure people see your photos
This is more important then you might think. Taking a shot a day willimprove your photography regardless but if theres an impetus to show off your photography you'll find yourself trying harder in the taking. You don't want people to see poor work and in a 365 challenge you have to upload a photo every day, wether the quality is high or not.
See and rate other people's photos
While you'll improve more from practice seeing and apraising other people's photography will improve yours. THe act of critiquing other's work will make you think more about your own. It's not enough to just look at shots though. Try to ask yourself why you like or dislike a shot and what you'd have done diferently. Then tell the person whose shot it is. At worst they won't pay heed but at best they might get back to you and tell you why they shot the pic that way. That means you'll learn something, even if you thought you could improve the shot.
And that's it for now. I may give another few tips when i hit the 70 or 80 day mark.
This bothers me but is something I aim to rectify in the new year.
However I have been taking photos practically every day and it's begining to teach me some important lessons which I hope to impart to you.
Bring a camera everywhere
Always, always, always carry some sort of camera with you (preferably better than your phone). Keep it in your pocket or your bag. Everyone tells you this but it's the cardinal rule. When you start seeing photographs everywhere you'll curse yourself if you can't capture them.
Never pass up a photo
When I started the challenge I tried to be single minded, if i was going to get pictures of a sunset on a hill I'd rush up the hill to get the shot. In one way this is a good thing, you don't want to lose the light, but in another it's a bad idea. If along the way you see a good photo take the shot immediatly even if you run the risk of missing your intended shot.
Why you might ask? A shot in the camera is worth two in the head. You might reach the hilltop to find the sky isn't interesting tonight but that shot you've taken is with you for good.
Always clear your camera
I've learnt the hard wy that you should take shots off your camera as soon as you get home. If you don't you might spot a shot and not have room and the time it takes to clear unwanted shots off your camera in a crucial moment might mean missing a great shot.
Make sure people see your photos
This is more important then you might think. Taking a shot a day willimprove your photography regardless but if theres an impetus to show off your photography you'll find yourself trying harder in the taking. You don't want people to see poor work and in a 365 challenge you have to upload a photo every day, wether the quality is high or not.
See and rate other people's photos
While you'll improve more from practice seeing and apraising other people's photography will improve yours. THe act of critiquing other's work will make you think more about your own. It's not enough to just look at shots though. Try to ask yourself why you like or dislike a shot and what you'd have done diferently. Then tell the person whose shot it is. At worst they won't pay heed but at best they might get back to you and tell you why they shot the pic that way. That means you'll learn something, even if you thought you could improve the shot.
And that's it for now. I may give another few tips when i hit the 70 or 80 day mark.
Sudden Snow
Soft and sudden snow flakes drift dreamily down dark dizzy circles to land lightly on my lapel.
Creaking and cracking the crushed ice eases into empty trembling tracks.
Fox feet fell here half an hour hence.
The wild wind whispers, lightly leaving little crystals on my chest.
I clasp the camera cord and all concentration, click the shutter.
Frozen now forever the cottage sits awaiting summer.
http://flic.kr/p/7oWN9o
Creaking and cracking the crushed ice eases into empty trembling tracks.
Fox feet fell here half an hour hence.
The wild wind whispers, lightly leaving little crystals on my chest.
I clasp the camera cord and all concentration, click the shutter.
Frozen now forever the cottage sits awaiting summer.
http://flic.kr/p/7oWN9o
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Winter Photography
Winter is a mixed time for photography. On one hand you have spectacular weather conditions (snow, crisp cold days, storms) to shoot and a different colour to the natural light, as well as interesting subjects. However there is one glaring drawback; there's less light to play with and those inclement weather conditions mean photo hikes can be troublesome.
In my own photography I've noticed a steep fall off in quality and quantity of my shooting since the start of December. Sadly this is because I either stay up late to work (which means you miss most of the day's light in the early morning the next day) or I get up early and work for the day. Work either way is getting in the way.
Another issue is claustrophobia. I don't have a car and in Winter it's much harder to convince friends or family to go on long walks, especially in odd weather. As I live in the countryside I have been relying on walks in the locality for much of my photography, but I'm beggining to feel that I've exhausted the photographic potential of my immediate surroundings.
Even with the problem identified it's hard to work a way out of this gutter. I can sacrifice sleep and work to get shots earlier in the day, but this will impact on me financially (and I'll be a cranky bastard). I could use public transport to go further a field, but irish transport networks are poor and this means I'd get mainly urban shots. Travelling by bus also means a loss of a whole day and will cost me money the further a field I go.
In the end I've turned to doing more Macro shots and will probably for the next while begin exploring sets and perhaps portraits under artificial light. This isn't ideal but for the time being it's all I can do.
In my own photography I've noticed a steep fall off in quality and quantity of my shooting since the start of December. Sadly this is because I either stay up late to work (which means you miss most of the day's light in the early morning the next day) or I get up early and work for the day. Work either way is getting in the way.
Another issue is claustrophobia. I don't have a car and in Winter it's much harder to convince friends or family to go on long walks, especially in odd weather. As I live in the countryside I have been relying on walks in the locality for much of my photography, but I'm beggining to feel that I've exhausted the photographic potential of my immediate surroundings.
Even with the problem identified it's hard to work a way out of this gutter. I can sacrifice sleep and work to get shots earlier in the day, but this will impact on me financially (and I'll be a cranky bastard). I could use public transport to go further a field, but irish transport networks are poor and this means I'd get mainly urban shots. Travelling by bus also means a loss of a whole day and will cost me money the further a field I go.
In the end I've turned to doing more Macro shots and will probably for the next while begin exploring sets and perhaps portraits under artificial light. This isn't ideal but for the time being it's all I can do.
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