this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2023
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Photography

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A place to politely discuss the tools, technique and culture of photography.

This is not a good place to simply share cool photos/videos or promote your own work and projects, but rather a place to discuss photography as an art and post things that would be of interest to other photographers.

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Hi everyone. I would like some advice :) I come from a background in fashion/editorial photography and I’m satisfied with my works in this field, but recently I started taking my camera with me during my hikes and I’m never happy with the photos I bring home. They always have something “off”: I find them almost amatorial, sometimes plain. How can I improve? Can someone advise me some good resources to learn about this topic? Thanks!

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[–] msabeln@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

They say that the camera adds ten pounds and ten years to the subject. Also consider the phenomenon of “Hollywood ugly”: a typical good looking person before the camera often appears to be average or worse (that’s one of the reasons why I prefer being behind the camera). Fashion photographers put a lot of effort into making their subjects look perfect, and there are good, solid reasons why that should be so. A photograph is flat, lifeless, and typically small, and most everything about a person that makes them lively, charming, personable, and exciting is missing from a photo, or at least difficult to capture effectively; but we do see flaws.

It’s likewise for a landscape photo: an ordinary interesting scene will look flat and dull in a photo. It takes a truly epic landscape in real life to make an interesting landscape photo. Flaws totally overlooked in real life become apparent in a landscape: power lines, trash, parked cars may end up being seen for the first time in the photo.