SCHMAP.COM is great for those who are planning to travel to European or North American cities. It’s a downloadable dynamic application which integrates maps, hotels, restaurants, tourist sites within your chosen city. I’m in the photo credits in the Prague Schmap guide, and the funny thing is, I’ve never even stepped outside the city airport.
Photography Peeves. I don’t claim to be good or educated or whatever, I just love looking at interesting and beautiful photographs. Photography has replaced what blogging used to be, everybody wants to be a photographer, everyone wants an SLR, or the latest point and shoot jampacked with features you probably don’t even know how to use.
“If only I had a better camera, I would take better pictures.” I repeat again and again, your camera does not matter! It can only do so much. You can even take good pictures with a cameraphone. A friend used to shoot lovely images with an old 2.1 megapixel camera. Another uses a rickety plastic camera and expired film. Don’t think owning an SLR can entitle you to a photographic license. You just need to know what works and what doesn’t. Perhaps the most important rule is simplicity. Shooting a scene with a lot of things going on is to be avoided; once you have that down pat, you’re on your way to improvement. No “busy” pictures with no focus on a subject. Composition is everything. You take that out of a technically strong photograph, and it’ll be reduced to a waste of digital space.
“Trying Hard To Be Artsy Shots.” Dark and blurry pictures, inappropriately underexposed / overexposed, weird camera angles with no subject at all. I don’t get this. If you’re going for unusual, “artsy” shots, you have got to make it work and not leave your audience with these thoughts– “whatthehellisthis.”
People who got the goods but don’t deliver. You can buy (and brag about) all your latest equipment but still produce mediocre or worse yet, substandard output. That’s such a waste of tens of thousands of pesos.
People who get into it just so they can shoot and consequently, mingle with fine photogenic specimens of humankind. Revealing photos bordering on sleaziness. When an artist does it, you can tell that it is devoid of any malicious intent.
Digital purists who scoff at postprocessed photographs. Photoshop, Picasa, The Gimp, iPhoto etc. are there for a reason.
That’s a lot of work-induced angst right there. Carry on. 🙂
.. and so what provoked you to post such entry full of “work-induced angst”?
“Digital purists who scoff at postprocessed photographs. Photoshop, Picasa, The Gimp, iPhoto etc. are there for a reason.”
i was a purist. it was the way for me to practice on composition. i make my photos look the best they could upon snap.
also i am too lazy to edit! until i discovered how to use picasa. and cropping. oh i love cropping.
now im no longer a purist. but i still have the composition attitude that i acquired when i used to be one. all that purist sh*t and scoffing worked well for me.
and you know it.