What are your Photography Fears?
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Or more correctly what do you least like to shoot?
For me it's people, they just spoil the view! Seriously I would sooner shoot Pitbulls than children! I think the main reason is I am just not confortable giving people direction, stand here, turn there, raise that....
Now what are your least favorite subjects and why?
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Animals, Insects, Birds anything that needs a large dose of patience - that's just not me.
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Studio style work, if I'm taking shots of people I prefer more natural, capture the moment shots
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I'd add to my comments that if I MUST shoot people, I like to use a 300..so I am not in their face. Maybe I should consider purchasing a 70-200, a happy medium perhaps.
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I think taking people requires a little bit of bravado. You are afraid they will take offence. When you look down a telephoto lens they appear to be in your face looking directly at you.
If someone took your photo and then said is it OK, would you say "No it isn't, delete it". I don't think so. :/
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I think my least favorite is portraits , i love to shoot models ( if i could only get some  ) there is no posing them , thats what i do not like about portraits . Then people also want you to make them look " pretty " . Makes me laugh , i tell them " the camera sees what we all see " LOL.
...... Shawn
Canon 20d and a few cheap lenses ..
It is our job as photographers to show people what they saw but didnt realize they saw it ......
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I love candids of kids beings themselves, and adults at work and play--again being natural.
Posing anyone fills me with dread.
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I have only had the chance to take portraits three times, and I didn't tell them how to pose, I left that role to them. When they asked me how to stand, I told them I don't know you pose for me, show me what you want to show in your picture. When I saw a nice pose I told them to hold a bit and I started shooting around them from different angles. The best to me is to do it at home, so then I can show them the pictures and see whether she likes them or wants something different so then we can correct the pose, light, etc.
The time I was more affraid was with the last girl, because she told me that she was not photogenic and her pictures wouldn't look nice, but she was willing to give it a try. I felt very responsible. She moved and showed me some poses she wanted and we worked very nice. I prepared tea and had cookies nice music, so the ambience was relaxed. She was very happy with her pictures at the end.
Anyway, my fear is to go to events where your time to get the picture is short, like the flight show and not to have a good picture. That makes me think that I wouldn't be good at weddings. I would be worring weeks before about the kiss picture.
A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.
Paul Cezanne
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My fear, and what I least like to shoot, is street photography.
That may sound odd, since it seems like my main thing, but the reality is that I hate taking photos around strangers. Most of the time I go to places where there's nobody around, or where there's enough room that I can still be apart from passers-by. On the rare occasions that I do work in crowded conditions, I have been challenged once and occasionally get waved off by store staff, but it's never actually lead to any unpleasantness. Regardless, it's where I feel my least comfortable.
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Like most people here - anything that involves telling people what to do, and making them stand around while you get your shots...
Hey what am I doing posting? I should be on my trip!! 
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My biggest fear is self portraits. I've tried taking one just to use for an avatar but couldnt stand to see it repeatedly... I think this requires alot of self confidence and I give credit to those that do have self portraits.
It is interesting though that we almost never see self portraits in the showcase or critique areas on this site.
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Banded Drake Wrote:thats what i do not like about portraits . Then people also want you to make them look " pretty " . Makes me laugh , i tell them " the camera sees what we all see " LOL.
...... Shawn I took pictures of sales staff at work for use in personal newsletters, one guy complained I made him look old and grey.... well, the blunt fact is, he is old, he is grey.
Teh day after I took his picture, his grey beard was shaved off and i had to re-shoot LOL.
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EnglishBob Wrote:I took pictures of sales staff at work for use in personal newsletters, one guy complained I made him look old and grey.... well, the blunt fact is, he is old, he is grey.
Teh day after I took his picture, his grey beard was shaved off and i had to re-shoot LOL. LOL , thats funny , i am supprised he didnt ask you to " photoshop it off " for him ( hear that a lot too LOL ) ..
I have to agree with Shane too . I havent thought about self portraits . Although i thought about shooting one ,but mainly to play with lighting ......
........ Shawn
Canon 20d and a few cheap lenses ..
It is our job as photographers to show people what they saw but didnt realize they saw it ......
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Self-portaits are a GREAT way to play with lighting (so you should try it Shawn) but the only ones of myself that I actually like were accidents like my avatar.
I was playing with some long-exposure+flash ideas, and didn't care where the autofocus went.
The shot I used for my avatar was so blurry that it would be terrible at any larger size than what you see. And then there's my sunburned neck with a white halo showing through my cut-off Tshirt's missing collar. If you didn't notice it before, it'll draw your eye like a magnet from now on.
Like Matthew, confrontations while shooting people on the street are a big fear of mine, but I try to force myself anyway since the rewards are high.
Mainly I have just gotten more sneaky about it, trying to not get caught.
I'm thankful that my camera is silent--I think a DSLR's noise would make me even more nervous.
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Snap Smarti. I wrote something very similar yesterday but didn't post as it sounded smug.
I'm kind of unhandsome in my eyes. I wonder if others feel the same. (excluding Paul R.  )
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The other day I bushed nicely my hair and put some makeup and asked G to take some pictures of me. When I saw the pictures I told him, "Hey, that is not what I saw in the mirror. Sure, your lens makes some distortions." :/
I have tried selfportraits but they are very difficult, specially when you are not photogenic like me...
A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.
Paul Cezanne
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I had to shoot some pictures of schools for a TV commercial for my dealership. It was during a week when schools were closed so I didn't think it would be an issue.
I was confronted by an angry parent at one school, and 2 armed police at another. Both occasions were resolved reasonably once I explained my employer was donating money to the schools and wanted pictures of them to publicize this. I showed the police the pictures on my camera and they were very polite and apologized for bothering me.
The only other time I have been confronted was a few years ago when i was shooting some shots of a public monument in the UK and a guy got in my face saying I had to destroy the film as he was in the shots and he didn't want his picture taken. He was in the shots, at a distance of about 100 feet. As I was MUCH larger than him, I pointed out it was a public place, photography was commonplace there and if he didn't want to be seen he should wear a bag on his head or stay out of the monuments.
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I like portraiture but to test the lighting I use myself as the subject and having to see myself depresses me for the rest of the day. My biggest bug-bear was photo-shoots with camera clubs and have someone constantly looking over my shoulder saying things like "oh. You,re going to use that lens are you?" aghhhh!
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essaljay Wrote:My biggest bug-bear was photo-shoots with camera clubs and have someone constantly looking over my shoulder saying things like "oh. You,re going to use that lens are you?" I'm about to go out with a group from my club, so I'm going to need to think of some snappy come-backs for that one.
Too bad I'm not very clever first thin in the morning....
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Nice post Craig; let's us know a bit more about us all here
Like Irma, mine is people shots; I always think it's cheating to use a telephoto apart from modelling, so it requires scary, feel-like-a-prat conversations(which take me a lot of courage to pluck up) to get to the point of using a "stock" lens as unintrusively as possible.
Animal shots too...it always takes me yonks to get a half-decent shot; I don't know where petographer or Rufus get their patience from.
Oh yeah...and macro too: depth of field against image quality gets me every time.
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essaljay Wrote:I like portraiture but to test the lighting I use myself as the subject and having to see myself depresses me for the rest of the day. Haha yeah, I hate looking at myself in pics as well.
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Yep, people for sure. Hate that.
Pavel
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negative feedback.
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RP What do you mean by negative feedback?
A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.
Paul Cezanne
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