I was perusing a website for information on field audio recording, which is one of my other-but-related-to-photography interests. This section on 'diversity' struck me as being great advice for photography, too.
Quote:The more ways in which a day's (a week's, a trip's, a life's) recordings differ, the more satisfied I am.
I try to vary my subject, of course, but also to vary scale, proximity, location (interior versus exterior), motion, time of day ⦠everything discussed here.
If you record all subjects the same way, your recordings will have a uniformity apparent only when you hear someone else's. I learned this the hard way.
A good exercise is to make audio studies of the same subject using as wildly different strategies as you can. Then find the commonalities and vary those.
When traveling I strive to notice what is unique. I have many similar recordings I thought would differ more than they do.
Unless you get lucky, markets and rowboats are markets and rowboats, no matter where they're recorded.
quiet american
I like very much to have this kind of readings specially when I am stuck in a project/idea and you don't find the way to make it work.
Thanks Matthew for the link...
Matthew, this is a subject of great interest to me right now. I am trying to notice things about me better and than to develop the skills to communicate to the viewers what I see. In my view by definition the way you communicate will be different as each "discovery" needs to be communicated differently. Of course my photos do have common themes and ideas reflecting in part my interests, but I am not too worried about not being original as I am worried that I will fail to notice things about me or fail to communicate what I see effectively. I suppose for me the originality comes from learning to be effective in those two areas and not relying on 'presets" (for example on the beach pulling out the ultrawide and going close to the ground and to the object and shooting slow shutter speed and processing for angry sky). Preset photos are effective but overused and in themselves require little originality.
I always thought I had to dedicate my photography to only one kind, dedicate all my efforts and trying to be the best in only one, that could be macro, landscapes or studio... then I saw that using all of them was great as I can communicate what I want in the way I want using the kind of photography that suits best...
I am a firm believer that anything you want to learn, you find it in internet...
And now Pavel, that you talk about communication in photography, I have spent some hours looking and reading the gallery in PBase of Phil Douglis...
http://www.pbase.com/pnd1
Expressive Travel Photography and Travel Photojournlism: communicating with pictures.
Thank you Irma and Mathew, I will be looking at your links this coming week. I very much appreciate the links. Pavel