Inspiration

Any ideas?

Save for a trip into London I've not taken any pictures since Christmas.
I've not even thought about getting around to taking pictures for the shoot
in.

Pete


--
Pete

Go on a safari to Africa or the zoo and shoot some animals, with your
camera, I mean.



Cody,

http://community-2.webtv.net/AnOverc...otographyLinks

"Peter Chant" wrote in message
...
Any ideas?

Save for a trip into London I've not taken any pictures since Christmas.
I've not even thought about getting around to taking pictures for the
shoot
in.

Pete


--
Pete

Put some film in the camera, slap a lens on and go for a walk. The first
"click" is the hardest, then its just a matter of time.

And hurry up, you've still got some time for the "backstage" shoot-in.
Grand-pa Al will even take late submissions. :-)

Jim Kramer

Peter Chant wrote in :

Any ideas?

Save for a trip into London I've not taken any pictures since
Christmas. I've not even thought about getting around to taking
pictures for the shoot in.

Do a photo-essay about where you live. Start with wider shots showing
the whole landscape, then close in on the details. Concentrate on telling a
story, or at least illustrating one. Research your area on the web, find
out its history, then go find evidence of it.

Prowl the house looking for interesting textures. Experiment with the
lighting on them, and taking them so far out of context they become totally
abstract.

Try your hand at something you've never done before - macro work,
long exposure astrophotography, high-artsy portraits, candids, whatever
fits the bill. Pinhole? Harris Shutter? Colored strobes? Camera Obscura?
Drawing with a laser pointer?

Review your stock with the thoughts of making a complete portfolio
(or another one). Then go out and fill in the gaps.

Fill out your family album.

Go out, in a natural area, or a knickknack shop, or a well-stocked
grocery store, and get one item, then examine all its possibilities. Ever
shot glasswork before? How about food?

The first Shoot-In topic, Pinhole, was a great one to force people to
find something interesting to shoot. For an additional challenge, try to
make the shot reveal the location.

Load a spare camera (this is a necessity, trust me) and do the one-a-
day exercise - can't for the life of me remember the Nat'l Geographic
photographer that did this a few years back...

Mount your camera to your car or bike and do a few slow shutter pics.
Or find a nice moving subject to practice panning to blur the background.

Do a shot with a split depth-of-field. This has been one of my
occasional projects for a while.

Take some small replica (model train, sculpture, etc.) and make it
look real.

That's a start, anyway. Good luck!



- Al.

--
To reply, insert dash in address to match domain below
Online photo gallery at www.wading-in.net

Peter Chant wrote:

Any ideas?

Save for a trip into London I've not taken any pictures since Christmas.
I've not even thought about getting around to taking pictures for the shoot
in.

You too, eh?

--
-- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm
-- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm
-- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin
-- e-meil: there's no such thing as a FreeLunch.

Al Denelsbeck reasonable excellent response, thanks Al.

Do a phopractice about where you live. Start with wider shots showing
the whole landscape, then close in on the details. Concentrate on telling
a story, or at least illustrating one. Research your area on the web, find
out its history, then go find evidence of it.

Hmm, I'll have to think about that one.


Prowl the house looking for interesting textures. Experiment with the
lighting on them, and taking them so far out of context they become
totally abstract.


Excellent idea. Precious few of my shots involve texture. I need the
practice. I'm wondering, does colour or B&W work better here?

Try your hand at something you've never done before - macro work,
long exposure astrophotography, high-artsy portraits, candids, whatever
fits the bill. Pinhole? Harris Shutter? Colored strobes? Camera Obscura?
Drawing with a laser pointer?


Of those I've really only done the laser pointer and a very limited go at
Astro-photography. As far as portraits go, my first serious go was at
Christmas and well, um, they looked like mugshots. Technically bad
mugshots save one or two, though the lighting was not bad. I was playing
with a Mamiya C330, and I do note that DoF works a lot different on MF than
it does on 35mm.


Review your stock with the thoughts of making a complete portfolio
(or another one). Then go out and fill in the gaps.

Fill out your family album.


Hmm, I missed an obvious chance to catch my dad hacking bits off a holly
tree. Much more interesting than the usual lets all line up in a row for a
boring snap type family photo.

Go out, in a natural area, or a knickknack shop, or a well-stocked
grocery store, and get one item, then examine all its possibilities. Ever
shot glasswork before? How about food?


I did buy some card to make a backdrop before Christmas so I can give this a
go.

The first Shoot-In topic, Pinhole, was a great one to force people to
find something interesting to shoot. For an additional challenge, try to
make the shot reveal the location.


Sounds like a reasonable day out.


Load a spare camera (this is a necessity, trust me) and do the one-a-
day exercise - can't for the life of me remember the Nat'l Geographic
photographer that did this a few years back...

Mount your camera to your car or bike and do a few slow shutter pics.
Or find a nice moving subject to practice panning to blur the background.

Do a shot with a split depth-of-field. This has been one of my
occasional projects for a while.

Take some small replica (model train, sculpture, etc.) and make it
look real.

Now where's my train set... Actually I have a battered old toy mini on the
mantlepiece. It was my favourite toy car when I was about four. I found
it a few years back stuffed into the base of one of my late grandmothers
old arm-chairs.


That's a start, anyway. Good luck!



Cheers.

--
http://www.petezilla.co.uk

Peter Chant wrote:

Any ideas?

Save for a trip into London I've not taken any pictures since Christmas.
I've not even thought about getting around to taking pictures for the shoot
in.

Shoot the alphabet. Finding photos of letters without using real letters
can be a challenge. Of course 'a,' 'x,' 'm,' and 'w' will be easy, but
see what it takes to find a 'p' in nature or the city streets. 'Q' isn't
so easy either and requires an entire set of new eyes! (It's easy if you
live where there are cobras...)

Steve Kramer
"PhotoEnvisions" Freelance Photography
Chiang Mai, Thailand
http://www.photoenvisions.com
--
"The voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new horizons, but in seeing
with new eyes." - Marcel Proust

Steve Kramer wrote:

see what it takes to find a 'p' in nature or the city streets. 'Q' isn't

Probally not that hard but I don't want to take that sort of photo...

--
http://www.petezilla.co.uk

"Peter Chant" wrote in message
...
Any ideas?

Save for a trip into London I've not taken any pictures since
Christmas. I've not even thought about getting around to taking
pictures for the shoot in.


Dull grey weather outside is great weather for natural light still life
indoors. Work near a window and you still get soft, but directional, light.
Experiment with reflectors to get the light you want. Despite all my studio
flash, I still do a lot of my still life work with natural light, and -
fortuitously - the best weather to do it is just the weather when there
isn't much worth shooting outside.

Maybe also the light to record interesting buildings where you live. No
leaves on trees may let you see views that are blocked at other times, and
flat grey light means you can make shots work that might be impossibly
contrasty in 'nicer' weather.

Look at some calendars of landscape pictures. Apart from the obvious snow
scenes, what else have photographers used to convey the idea of 'February'?
Are any of them worth trying?

I hate February too - but at least the snowdrops in my garden are coming up.
Lots of good places to photograph snowdrops...




Peter

"Peter Chant" wrote in message
...
Any ideas?


And another thought: Chinese New Year.


Peter