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.
Posing. I shit you not, posing.
Most of what I learned when it comes to photography, from composition to lighting, was learned in a photoshoot as a model.
I kept an eye on how the photographer was working. How he told me to pose. The angles. The lighting. And in the end, he allowed me to watch as he edited the shoot in Lightroom.
I didn’t know much about photography before that. Just the basics. After? Oh. Man.
Getting a bunch of vintage lenses of different focal lengths and physical aperture settings and spending time studying depth of field with focus peaking. Sadly much more expensive since vintage lens prices have spiked but more worthwhile than any class.
I would go with a documentary story project. Not only do you have to come up with the idea, research and communication for it all, you need to look at architecture space, portraits, details and establishing shots, et al - could even be published!
Really like this one, thanks
When shooting anything with kids, send releases home with the kids before the shoot. Then only shoot which kids’ parents have signed the releases. I mistakenly obtained releases after the shoot, many parents got cold feet, and I couldn’t use the images with kids. It was an architectural shoot of a school.
Any assignment where you have an editor, because someone objectively looking at your photos and critiquing them in a paid position will know what’s good and what salable versus the other photos you’re taking.
The time I had a magazine cover photo shoot but forgot my SD cards.
You know that scene in limitless where Bradley Cooper is panicking to remember where one last pill could be. That was me, it was so similar I actually remembered that scene as I was running to the car, hoping and preying that for some reason I may have left a card near my charger.
Magazine cover was taken and everything worked out fine. To this day I have a spare card in every new car I own.
Nothing major but:
Finding out there is no such thing as "compression". I was long under the impression, that something like a 135mm can't be replaced with cropping and a long lens can't be replaced.
Well I was wrong. A photo with a 24mm can be cropped to look just like one from a 135mm (or more). obviously we would need enough megapixels and would need an appropriate aperture to match the look, but the "compression" would be the same.
Since then my shooting style changed. Favouring high megapixels and worrying even less about the Tele end
The low paid/unpaid first few commercial jobs I did. Sky high expectations on a minimal budget. It literally changed my brain and made me consider my photos as a product to be delivered rather than just art or just accepting what was in focus or whatever. It was a good learning experience even if I would never do that type of work again.
I was teaching continuing Ed to seniors on digital photography. I gave them this assignment. You're going to the "old country" to visit relatives. Before you go, take pictures of your area of things you would show them if they came to visit you.
Product photography of mirror finishes:
Mission: photograph polished chrome and brass biometric locks. They're mirrors, so everything surrounding them shows. The reflections ruined the first test shots.
1st revision: I built an igloo of white foam core (and softbox) around them, which fixed the reflections but there was no contrast and the form of the locks was indistinct.
2nd revision: I moved the camera aside and shined a laser pointer on the lock where I wanted to see shape and looked to see where the dot reflected to. I taped black felt in a pair of stripes inside the igloo where the laser directed me to. The metal looked liquid and the lock looked great. Success!
An exercise I did in a digital photography class in college that I still think about frequently (and maybe would be a good idea for me to do again, as I want to get back into noticing unusual mundane things around me): find the entire alphabet in your surroundings. It was a fun exercise in framing but also in paying attention to little details everywhere.
One camera, one prime lens for a year. Now I don't even bother with a zoom.