I could call photography my hobby, interest, past time, but to me it's my passion. I first started taking photos in what might be termed 'on a more serious note' around 2006. Prior to that it was mainly shots of the kids, family holidays, Christmas etc, the phrase I and others who are more serious about our photography would now use to describe this activity as 'record' shots or snapshots. It's not meant in any derogatory way but it is a recognition that there is very little skill /knowledge required from the person taking the photo, it's just point the camera (or nowadays the phone) at the subject and press the shutter. Let the camera do all the calculations, estimations and work it's algorithms to produce a decent snapshot which looks like the way the technician who wrote the algorithm thought it should look!
To me, being a good photographer is about taking control of the camera, taking it out of auto pilot, setting it to manual and producing images that look how the photographer wants them to look, not how the algorithm says it should look! Of course it takes time to learn all of the options, settings and technical aspects of the camera but in time all those can be conquered with constant practice. The next bit is the difficult part...the ability to 'see' a beautiful image before it's ever taken, to visualise a photograph while non-photographers around you just see a scene. Next and most difficult especially for me being a fairly practical person is creativity, the ability to dream up, to imagine, to compose a series of elements and place them all together in the 'right' part of the photograph so that it all fits together majestically.
So right now I'm on that journey, I'm pretty competent with all the settings and technical aspects of the camera and shooting various genres including landscapes, sports, portraiture and macro. I'm fairly ok using artificial lights, softboxes etc and I'm in the process of educating myself more in this area. The area I struggle with sometimes as mentioned above is creativity. To help I search the web, watch YouTube, read books, try as much as possible to see what other photographers are doing to open my mind and help to release some creative juices (if there are any there!). My last project along these lines was to take some images based on the Netflix series 'Peaky Blinders' I hired some 1920's clothes from a local costume/theatre supplies firm and my 19 year old son Daniel helped me out by modelling for me. I took some shots of him at home with a 'Green screen' in the background and then composited him into some alleyways I had taken photos of in Tallinn earlier this year. I enjoyed this immensely as I found it challenging to get the lights right and make him look like he was actually there in the alleyway. I'd like to do some more of this as winter approaches
Peaky Blinders Inspired
However, Autumn is here and with it the colours on the trees, the reasonable hours for sunset and sunrise so that might take priority for the next few weeks but if there's a few rainy days I'd love to do something similar...now where's that book on creativity so I can look up my next project!:-)
