Choices
My notion is life, art, photography our existence is endless choices. Even not choosing is a choice. I believe you are your choices, and I believe art, your art, your true style is a result of conscious thought and choice! I think you need to plant a freaking flag! Some photographers see value in collections, more than one image with similar theme or subject or idea, and honestly nothing wrong with that. It's a choice and it's valid and there is at least one positive result, put your best images together and they will start to tell a story of who you are and where you are in your photographic journey. Personally beyond that I like to pick one, this, is the one that I think tells the story best that was in my head and I don't need 8 images of lone trees to express that. Photography is about expressing what you see and feel about the world and honestly you don't have a great chance of making others feel the same. But you can make them stop for a moment, feel something/anything and that's an accomplishment. These five images are for me, some from 2024 where I felt I was expressing what was going on as well as I am capable of. The plan is to keep working on that in 2025. Jeff
Travel, photography and the planet
Likely not a subject we want to think about, though it sure needs to be. Air travel like we experience it today just isn't sustainable. The carbon footprint is horrendous. Yet there's nothing quite like traveling to a far flung exotic location to rev up our creative instincts. To make it worse there are photographers whose business plan is to take 6-10 maybe more people along with them. With friends this subject quickly gets rerouted or I hear something lame about the plane is going anyway! My idea is just a little less travel, maybe a trip a year for start. In the meantime work on your seeing or your awareness! Your home probably is exotic for someone! What are your creative photographers credentials if you can't find images close to home? Give it a try! To add fuel to the fire, lots of photographers seem to want to get to Antartica. Talk about a carbon footprint for your travel. Here's an Atlantic magazine article from last year where the continent is referred to as the place no-one should go! Jeff T
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/07/antarctica-tourism-overcrowding-environmental-threat/674600/
Aspect Ratios
A very obvious, but too often overlooked tool to make better images!
Composition in photography seems pretty simple, point your camera at something that is interesting to you and press the shutter. What could be easier? Now back up and decide make it a more interesting image, you might have to move those 4 corners around. I don't really need that rock in the photo or do I? That edge of building adds to my shot or does it? You'll quickly discover that making a compelling image is about not only what you put in your viewfinder but what you leave out! One valuable tool is aspect ratios, and it's way too often ignored. It's almost laughable how many "good" photographers simple leave their camera and their editing software in the default 2 by 3 ratio. What a waste. Often the best images are the simplest ones and how simple is it to just let a square a 1x1 aspect ration tell the story. Simple, balanced, no emphasis on height over width. Why not start there and expand if you need to. Frankly I find the default 2 x 3 boring and downright awkward especially in a vertical view. I tend to stick with traditional ratios, 1 x 1, or 4 x 5 in both horizontal and vertical views and the classic XPAN panoramic ration of 24 x 65. But experiment and learn to use the aspect ratio that best tells the story you want. If your camera allows you to compose in different ratios so much the better! Some like Fuji’s have a wide variety and it’s not only fun but you will produce better images.