The Bridge

Once again, I have fallen prey to the belief that a ‘new’ camera/toy will make better pictures !   While it is true that the quality of these images is beyond comparison to the point and shoot.  I have not been struck  wonderful as the worlds best photographer.

Being a good photographer is beyond the camera, and is also in the eye of seeing the photo.  What does that mean, the ‘eye of the photographer’ ?  There are several things that go into developing the ‘eye of the photographer’.

• Recognizing the emotional appeal of a photo or a scene.  Or you can think of this as seeing the beauty of a scene
• Technical craft: turning the camera  on, holding the camera still (usually),  getting the right exposure
• Thinking about what makes  the picture the strongest picture possible. This includes composition, deciding if you want the distance to be blurred or sharp and choosing the picture you want.

Here Is another image, not as strong;

Different angle on the bridge – developing the eye of the photographer

The top image could be made stronger by taking out the telephone pole and line which are distracting.

Part of the learning the craft, is to go beyond recognizing what would make a nice photo (the bridge) but also how to make it the strongest statement as possible. In this case, I was having to contend with cars, changing fog bank, no visibility to traffic.

In this case, being in the center of the road leads to a rather static feeling photo, whereas on the edge, there are diagonal lines which liven the photo. Having practice enough there wasn’t conscious thinking, but rather just knew, felt, intuited that the diagonals inherent in taking the photo from the side would make it more appealing.

What can you do to go beyond the recognition of a scene, to making it a stronger picture?

What I have found that works very well for anyone, novice through expert is looking at someone else’s photos (get rid of the ego – all my photos are good) and having to give useful reviews.  I particularly like  PhotoSig for this. It is free or pay (pay you can post more of your own photos).  People post photos, and other people who want can write reviews (very good practice), and the remainder of us can rate both the photos and the reviews.  Writing reviews that others find helpful forces you to examine the photo and give gentle feedback, which is the skill we need to learn for ourselves.