I've been thinking about this lately, thought it would be interesting to discuss.
Especially given the new people who are starting to break into photography.

I'm just curious about the thought process regarding deciding what pictures to shoot.

For example, most people, I think, are sort of photojournalists. Rather than keeping say, a travel diary, they shoot pictures instead. They shoot pictures of themselves with whoever/whatever they are visiting. I think this differenciates a photographer from a non-photographer. No interest in photography, per se - at least not the art of image creation. Or worded differently, interest in what makes picture A different than picture B. (we can start a whole different thread on this topic alone)

People tend to be surprised that I don't have pictures of myself. It's not that I don't like them - it generally doesn't even occur to me to take them.

When I shoot, I just wander about, doing my thing. If I see something that catches my eye, for any reason, I pull out my camera. It may look good or bad - but whatever it is, it was visually interesting.

So it never really occurs to me to shoot pictures of myself because - well, I don't see myself, except for a reflection pic.

But I always thought there must be a different mentality when it comes to say, shooting macro. It's easy to know if you may need a wide angle lens. But how do you know whether or not to bring a macro? Or is that a 'always bring with you' lens? And how do you shoot macro anyway? When I walk about, I think I subconsciously mentally 'picture frame' everything I walk past, wondering whether ot not it would look good in a photograph. But when you're talking a picture frame the size of a quarter, can you actually think that way? You could spend hours standing in a single spot.

I have read, and I believe this to be true, that to become a great photographer, you need a fascination for your subject. You need that strong interest in order to explore that topic, and learn what aspects of that thing look good, bad, etc. This allows you to bring out the good parts and eliminate the bad/boring parts, and end up with an overall strong picture.

I know there have been times where I see something particularly fascinating and I'll just wander in circles around it, trying to figure out why I can't stop looking at it. And trying to figure out how to capture that in a picture, in a way that makes the picture equally interesting to look at.

In any place, there are an infinite number of photo possibilities. You can stand anywhere. Point the camera in any direction. Shoot at any point in time. Zoom as much as you want. And each picture is different. It's interesting to think about how you end up picking a particular spot, and picture to shoot.

 

Great topic!!

I just don't know how to respond....I need time.

I was going through a lot of what you mentioned this past weekend.

 

This is interesting to me as well. Frankly, I think it's one of the more difficult aspects of photography. It's easy enough to pull out the camera and shoot away, but that tends to produce somewhat pedestrian images. It does require thought, IMO, about your subject in order to come up with interesting pics. I find myself using the "fill the frame" mentality a lot, because I tend to like images that have a lot of immediate impact, things that pop out at me. With cars, for instance, I like detail shots as well as shots that include the whole vehicle.

As far as including myself in the pic, I haven't done a ton mostly because I'm the one taking the shot I do more now because I'm more likely to have a tripod with me these days. My Flickr page has some selfs of me at work that I took just becasue I had the pod with me. I think shots like that are important also, because pictures I look back on years later always have more impact for me when I'm in the scene (me and friends, family, etc). Stirs up more memories.

One thing is for sure, I've always regretted not taking more pictures in the past, so these days I'll take the shot and worry about how good it is later. I did a lot of travelling in my teens, twenties and thirties, and I don't feel I have enough shots of those days, even though I have quite a few. So I say shoot away. Digital gives you a lot of leeway in that regard.

I tend to take my 20D everywhere now.