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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What is a good photo? (alien.top)

submitted 10 months ago by OleBentsBallonCirkus@alien.top to c/photography@viewfinder.pro

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So I'm going to Paris in a few weeks, and I will be bringing my new 70-200mm f4 for the trip.

However, i have this thought in my head that I don't really know what to photograph. I usually take pictures of people and situations with people in them, as those are memories I want to hang on to.

When I see a lot of street photographers on YouTube etc, I feel like they take some well framed and pretty, but also irrelevant images. Would they ever go back to an image of a busdriver they snapped at an intersection?

I'm not putting those people down, but I personally have a hard time seeing the real value in that. I guess that simply making a nice shot is a great feeling. And a really nice shot might o ly happen once every 1000 images.

But what makes a nice image to you? Can the image stand alone? Or does it have to be part of a series with a certain theme to it?

I'm looking for some fresh perspectives on street photography that will get me excited for my trip :)

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

I often come back to those pictures that seem inconsequential to other people, because THEY weren’t there.

I was, and that’s enough.

It’s easy to go on Google and find pictures of the Tour Eiffel in every angle, every season, every lighting.

To me, monuments are not a thing to photograph. This picture, though?

https://preview.redd.it/7u1r8b5vv20c1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a5743742dde44f4f2329bd20309f6bc7ce4b0f54

I remember it was a winter night. I remember the street, I remember the bar. I remember going in just because it was raining, I had my freshly done laundry with me and I seriously needed a coffee.

I remember going in, seeing this guy. I remember I had my Nikon d3400 on me, 35mm lens on. I remember thinking “holy fuck I need to take this”, dropping the laundry bag, pointing, framing and shooting. I remember I had it in manual, set up for dark scenes.

I also remember some guy telling me on social media that he recognized the bar and his grandfather, that he wanted to buy a big ass print.

I also remember that some other guy hired me to take a picture in this precise same bar for the cover of his book, after seeing it.

Memories are like that. Pictures taken in random moments will bring you so much more, precisely because they’re random. “I took this pic of X because i was in Paris” doesn’t hold the same power that “I was walking down this alley and this grabbed my attention”.