Camera Labs

~~Sorry, I couldn't find a better place to put this.~~

Where do you get your inspiration from in photography? I've always been interested in photography, but I kind of feel like a goob when I'm looking for things to take pictures off. People kind of give you that, "What the hell are you doing?" look. Don't get me wrong; it doesn't put me off from doing what I enjoy. I'm just curious as to where you get your inspiration.

My Grandpa loved snapping pictures of flowers and birds. Now, they aren't the artsy, super-macro, three months in post processing kind of pictures, and I doubt he played with his settings too much. He let the auto focus take control and just took a picture of everything he found beautiful. The strange part is, even though almost every picture in very typical fashion (dead center, framing the object), they are still a pleasure to look at.

I guess what I'm trying to ask is how long did it take you to train your eye to look for good pictures? I've been trying to do it for a little over a year now, and very rarely do I get a picture that just has that "wow" factor.


Thanks for your input.

I think it's like you could photograph or you just couldnt. If Im just walking and I see something I get a wow-effect from, I get my camera asap and take a picture of it. If you never get those things, you will never become a good photographer (not talking about macro and astrophotography etc)
Very often I get positive feedback of the picture. I wont say that if you cant take good pictures, that you just cannot photograph.
No, but you cannot train yourself in taking better pictures. It isnt like learning (a bit though!) but you have to ''have an eye for it''.
Feedback from people can really help you, so let everybody see your pictures and let them tell what you could do better.

EDIT
Dont get me wrong though! Photography is art, and artist have become artists by what they' ve done. But, artists need someone's interest. You have to let people see your photographs.

_________________
Ruben

Panasonic DMC-FZ18, Panasonic DMC-FZ28, Canon G5, Canon 350D, Canon 50D + BG-E2N
Tamron 17-50 2.8, Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM,
Canon 18-55 II plus lots of Minolta MD/M42 lenses and bodies

Hi,

It's a real good question this!

I'm a lazy guy, have a DSLR and take stuff in my comfort zone most of the time. However this leads to many of the same shots etc and not much real improvement?

I'm a lazy memeber of the local club, I do the odd comp here and there. However, what has been very good for me was a recent club activity. We went on a picture treasure hunt, this worked in the following way:

We turned up at the club house, paired into teams of 3 or 4 people and were given a sheet of subject to shoot, 20 in total. The subjects were simple but interesting, Angles, Circles, Information, Signs, People, Water, Song title, Harmany, Strong, Natral history and transport, etc.

We then had to go out in out teams and come beack within 2 hours with immages to fulfill all of these titles. This was fantastic, straight out of the comfort zone, into thinking mode and listening to others and their perseption of a possible shot, chipping in to constructive converstaion , using the camera quickly etc etc -

The images were then loaded on to the club computer back at the cliub hosue and the next club evening the individual teams presented their images and talked through their rational for each shot.

In general there were some poor shots but one or two very good efforts. Point is that I saw a number of shots on the viewing evening that nobody has tried before. I will go out again and have a go at some of those better shots myself, it has certianly made me think much much more

Hope this helps!!

Robinhood