5 ms·

Finding Photo Opportunities Near Home

65 points by luu 4y ago

anta40 4y ago
When I started learning photography a few years ago, I was highly impressed by landscape photography: seeing beautiful images of seas and mountains. Eventually I realised as someone livin' in a city, those are not parts of my city. Well, there's a beach in Jakarta but the view isn't particularly exciting. And of course it takes some time to reach the place, due to traffic jams. And lockdown/social distancing in 2020 changed my perception about photography. From landscape/street photography to something I can photograph within 20 meters. For me, that means capturing abstract patterns like stones, leaves, peeling paint on the wall, etc. There's always something interesting as long as you are willing to "see"
- mikub 4y ago
  As someone who's living in a small "empty" village in germany I always find it fascinating to see pictures of crowded places like Jakarta. Sooo many people everywhere. :)
  - Brajeshwar 4y ago
    You should come for a holiday to India. ;-)
  - anta40 4y ago
    I think those pictures only tell you half of truth. The crowds are usually concentrated on certain areas like business districts, shopping malls, traditional markets, or at certain hours like streets at after office hours. If you want to see "less-crowded" Jakarta, book a ticket say 2 or 3 days before Eid al-Fitr. Quite a lot Jakartans "mudik" (visit their hometowns to spend the holiday there).
- rr808 4y ago
  Jakarta sounds like one of the most exciting places in the world. Familiarity breeds contempt :).
- jerrre 4y ago
  > seeing beautiful images of seas and mountains are the places beautiful, or the photos of them
  - yakubin 4y ago
    I’ve never seen a sea, nor a mountain, which wouldn’t be beautiful.
k2enemy 4y ago
A common exercise that photography schools use to teach students to "see" is to photograph shapes that form letters. For example the bough of a tree might look like the letter "Y". The idea is to collect the entire alphabet. It helps people separate the visual form of something from its literal interpretation as an object. Good photographs are often not just a documentation of an object, but a nice visual composition that is also compelling when viewed upside-down or on its side. Being able to set aside the label of an object and focus on the visual elements helps create these compositions.
Brajeshwar 4y ago
For "Photos near You", I remembered Thomas Hawk, whom I followed on Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk and a good friend who shoots around London a lot - https://www.instagram.com/9e3k/ https://www.instagram.com/9e3k/
anileated 4y ago
“How to find photo opportunities?” is not an inherently bad question, but in my opinion the right answer shouldn’t be “well, you can take photos of X, Y and Z”. The right answer should be a counter-question: “well, why don’t you see opportunities for photography around you, including in your home?”. The answer should have more to do with learning to see beauty/stories in the mundane, learning to capture/communicate them to others by way of photography (e.g., learning to work with existing light and recognizing the effects time of day or year, weather or air pollution have on it), and having the right equipment in the right situation (because even if you see a scene and know how to communicate it, it’s still pointless if you shoot a 1+ kg bulky setup that you can’t easily carry everywhere without thinking, or have to swap lenses while the moment goes away, or you envision a long exposure shot but it’s too bright and you forgot your ND filters). Without changing my location, one week I see a lot of things I want to photograph, another week barely any. It’s not easy to intentionally get into the former state unless I go somewhere new (yes, at first I was fascinated by Hong Kong’s neon advertisement too) or get new gear to play with, and it’s not always good to be in it because many of the resulting photos are low value junk. It’s easy to accidentally slip into the latter state by neglecting mental health (being preoccupied, burning out, or just in bad shape), and it’s always not good to be in it. Looking at the photos taken by the author, I feel “seen” so to speak because I do a lot of the same—and I am trying to stop, because I think it’s a dead end when the photo doesn’t tell a story, especially now that a realistic photo of X, Y or Z can be generated on demand for a few cents they have little value.
- porphyra 4y ago
  Being the second article on the topic, this blog post is about the author sharing some of his collections. Definitely not (just) supposed to be "you should take photos of x, y, and z" haha
regus 4y ago
I personally prefer to take pictures of people, preferably people that I know. I almost never revisit photos I take of random things like landscapes or buildings. In the hands of a more skilled photographer those pictures might be valuable, but for me taking pictures of random things seems like a waste. Especially since I primarily shoot film, and every single picture I take costs money. In twenty years which picture am I going to want to look at? A picture of a family member or a picture of a gas station?
- Herval_freire 4y ago
  The key is both. Your family member at a gas station doing something. A photo should tell a story. In twenty years you want the memory of the story not some posed artificial set up. Like with all stories, the setting is important so you should not discount the gas station.
- hawski 4y ago
  I agree with you, but I would add stuff serving as a reminder. It may be also something you or people you know made. As for reminders think about a story from your life you like to tell people. I have a few photos like that, for example a parrot I have found one day. Landscapes can also work for this. I have a photo in Belvedere in Potsdam, it was a beautiful sunny day and the photo was nice even if made with 1st gen Moto G, I'm always reminded of that day just looking at that photo. Or a photo of a view from window in Supetar, Croatia. I also prefer pictures of people, but I would generalize it to pictures that help form a memory, most are connected to people.
- anta40 4y ago
  I think the key is "be intentional". So if you take photos of old gas stations or buildings or whatever, the reason is because... say.. you are working on a documentary project. Or a photo book/essay. BTW, I still also shoot with 120 film and had certain themes to work on (like "color", "flower", "morning activities", etc). If I want to take (lots of) random images, my phone or DSLR is always ready. I understand your point, though. Probably lots of us urban photographers have more gas stations photos on their drives compared to their relatives :D
Herval_freire 4y ago
One thing that makes photography collections extremely flat is a lack of people. A lot of programmers like photography and a lot of their albums, I'm sorry to say, just aren't good and a huge part of it is because these albums lack people portraits or photos that tell a story. Finding inanimate objects for photography is honestly trivial which is largely what this blog is talking about. There's three types of photos with people. Taking a photo that happens to have people in it (unsuspecting bystanders), taking a photo of an unsuspecting person where he/she is the main subject of the photo and taking a photo of a person you asked if you can take a photo of him/her. The first style of photography is one photographers mistakenly avoid. They want some pristine capture of some landscape or object without people, but they don't realize that often people enhance the photo via the illustration of a story or providing a sense of scale. The later two style of photos people avoid out of fear. It's quite scary to ask someone for their photo and it's a bit rude to take photo without permission. I advise you to just go for it and not care. The end result is a collection of photos illustrating an apocalyptic earth where all humans have suddenly vanished. The blog post is in fact unknowingly promoting this style of photography.
- matthewmcg 4y ago
  This is so true. Another factor: when there are people in pictures, they're often looking at phones. My Dad ( https://petermcgrath.me/#/people https://petermcgrath.me/#/people ) is a great enthusiast of "street photography." He doesn't sell his work, but it's more than a hobby for him--Garry Winograd was one of his graduate school instructors and he's been shooting actively since the late 1960s. He says his big challenge in the last decade has been finding interesting shots of people when most in a crowd are looking down.
  - nimrody 4y ago
    Your dad has a beautiful street gallery. Thanks for sharing!
- codingdave 4y ago
  Please tell me you are only talking about urban photography. Because there is more life in this world than just people, and if you honestly feel that nature photography without humans is apocalyptic, that is a really bleak outlook on the vast diversity of life and beauty in our world.
anorphirith 4y ago
I find it much harder to do any type of photography in the USA where it's hard to find places to walk around. And if you do find a place to walk you'll end up in strip mall, a parking lot, a multistate chain.
- LeftHandPath 4y ago
  I can certainly understand the sentiment - most parts of most towns are like this. But if you look, virtually every town of reasonable age has a walkable "downtown" area. Even in small Kansas towns - look at downtown Ottawa, Seneca, Lawrence, etc. Or, across the country - Rock Hill, Greenville, Savannah, Tampa, Orlando, San Diego... The only ones that lack walkable downtown areas are the most recently constructed communities (Nocatee, Florida comes to mind - recent construction, the "town center" is effectively a strip mall).
- flipthefrog 4y ago
  Just take photos of strip malls, parking lots, and multistate chains then. They'll look great in 40 years, like William Eggleston or Stephen Shore's work does today

65 points by luu 4y ago

When I started learning photography a few years ago, I was highly impressed by landscape photography: seeing beautiful images of seas and mountains. Eventually I realised as someone livin' in a city, those are not parts of my city. Well, there's a beach in Jakarta but the view isn't particularly exciting. And of course it takes some time to reach the place, due to traffic jams. And lockdown/social distancing in 2020 changed my perception about photography. From landscape/street photography to something I can photograph within 20 meters. For me, that means capturing abstract patterns like stones, leaves, peeling paint on the wall, etc. There's always something interesting as long as you are willing to "see"

mikub 4y ago
As someone who's living in a small "empty" village in germany I always find it fascinating to see pictures of crowded places like Jakarta. Sooo many people everywhere. :)
- Brajeshwar 4y ago
  You should come for a holiday to India. ;-)
- anta40 4y ago
  I think those pictures only tell you half of truth. The crowds are usually concentrated on certain areas like business districts, shopping malls, traditional markets, or at certain hours like streets at after office hours. If you want to see "less-crowded" Jakarta, book a ticket say 2 or 3 days before Eid al-Fitr. Quite a lot Jakartans "mudik" (visit their hometowns to spend the holiday there).
rr808 4y ago
Jakarta sounds like one of the most exciting places in the world. Familiarity breeds contempt :).
jerrre 4y ago
> seeing beautiful images of seas and mountains are the places beautiful, or the photos of them
- yakubin 4y ago
  I’ve never seen a sea, nor a mountain, which wouldn’t be beautiful.

k2enemy 4y ago

A common exercise that photography schools use to teach students to "see" is to photograph shapes that form letters. For example the bough of a tree might look like the letter "Y". The idea is to collect the entire alphabet. It helps people separate the visual form of something from its literal interpretation as an object. Good photographs are often not just a documentation of an object, but a nice visual composition that is also compelling when viewed upside-down or on its side. Being able to set aside the label of an object and focus on the visual elements helps create these compositions.

Brajeshwar 4y ago

For "Photos near You", I remembered Thomas Hawk, whom I followed on Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk and a good friend who shoots around London a lot - https://www.instagram.com/9e3k/ https://www.instagram.com/9e3k/

anileated 4y ago

“How to find photo opportunities?” is not an inherently bad question, but in my opinion the right answer shouldn’t be “well, you can take photos of X, Y and Z”. The right answer should be a counter-question: “well, why don’t you see opportunities for photography around you, including in your home?”. The answer should have more to do with learning to see beauty/stories in the mundane, learning to capture/communicate them to others by way of photography (e.g., learning to work with existing light and recognizing the effects time of day or year, weather or air pollution have on it), and having the right equipment in the right situation (because even if you see a scene and know how to communicate it, it’s still pointless if you shoot a 1+ kg bulky setup that you can’t easily carry everywhere without thinking, or have to swap lenses while the moment goes away, or you envision a long exposure shot but it’s too bright and you forgot your ND filters). Without changing my location, one week I see a lot of things I want to photograph, another week barely any. It’s not easy to intentionally get into the former state unless I go somewhere new (yes, at first I was fascinated by Hong Kong’s neon advertisement too) or get new gear to play with, and it’s not always good to be in it because many of the resulting photos are low value junk. It’s easy to accidentally slip into the latter state by neglecting mental health (being preoccupied, burning out, or just in bad shape), and it’s always not good to be in it. Looking at the photos taken by the author, I feel “seen” so to speak because I do a lot of the same—and I am trying to stop, because I think it’s a dead end when the photo doesn’t tell a story, especially now that a realistic photo of X, Y or Z can be generated on demand for a few cents they have little value.

porphyra 4y ago
Being the second article on the topic, this blog post is about the author sharing some of his collections. Definitely not (just) supposed to be "you should take photos of x, y, and z" haha

regus 4y ago

I personally prefer to take pictures of people, preferably people that I know. I almost never revisit photos I take of random things like landscapes or buildings. In the hands of a more skilled photographer those pictures might be valuable, but for me taking pictures of random things seems like a waste. Especially since I primarily shoot film, and every single picture I take costs money. In twenty years which picture am I going to want to look at? A picture of a family member or a picture of a gas station?

Herval_freire 4y ago
The key is both. Your family member at a gas station doing something. A photo should tell a story. In twenty years you want the memory of the story not some posed artificial set up. Like with all stories, the setting is important so you should not discount the gas station.
hawski 4y ago
I agree with you, but I would add stuff serving as a reminder. It may be also something you or people you know made. As for reminders think about a story from your life you like to tell people. I have a few photos like that, for example a parrot I have found one day. Landscapes can also work for this. I have a photo in Belvedere in Potsdam, it was a beautiful sunny day and the photo was nice even if made with 1st gen Moto G, I'm always reminded of that day just looking at that photo. Or a photo of a view from window in Supetar, Croatia. I also prefer pictures of people, but I would generalize it to pictures that help form a memory, most are connected to people.
anta40 4y ago
I think the key is "be intentional". So if you take photos of old gas stations or buildings or whatever, the reason is because... say.. you are working on a documentary project. Or a photo book/essay. BTW, I still also shoot with 120 film and had certain themes to work on (like "color", "flower", "morning activities", etc). If I want to take (lots of) random images, my phone or DSLR is always ready. I understand your point, though. Probably lots of us urban photographers have more gas stations photos on their drives compared to their relatives :D

Herval_freire 4y ago

One thing that makes photography collections extremely flat is a lack of people. A lot of programmers like photography and a lot of their albums, I'm sorry to say, just aren't good and a huge part of it is because these albums lack people portraits or photos that tell a story. Finding inanimate objects for photography is honestly trivial which is largely what this blog is talking about. There's three types of photos with people. Taking a photo that happens to have people in it (unsuspecting bystanders), taking a photo of an unsuspecting person where he/she is the main subject of the photo and taking a photo of a person you asked if you can take a photo of him/her. The first style of photography is one photographers mistakenly avoid. They want some pristine capture of some landscape or object without people, but they don't realize that often people enhance the photo via the illustration of a story or providing a sense of scale. The later two style of photos people avoid out of fear. It's quite scary to ask someone for their photo and it's a bit rude to take photo without permission. I advise you to just go for it and not care. The end result is a collection of photos illustrating an apocalyptic earth where all humans have suddenly vanished. The blog post is in fact unknowingly promoting this style of photography.

matthewmcg 4y ago
This is so true. Another factor: when there are people in pictures, they're often looking at phones. My Dad ( https://petermcgrath.me/#/people https://petermcgrath.me/#/people ) is a great enthusiast of "street photography." He doesn't sell his work, but it's more than a hobby for him--Garry Winograd was one of his graduate school instructors and he's been shooting actively since the late 1960s. He says his big challenge in the last decade has been finding interesting shots of people when most in a crowd are looking down.
- nimrody 4y ago
  Your dad has a beautiful street gallery. Thanks for sharing!
codingdave 4y ago
Please tell me you are only talking about urban photography. Because there is more life in this world than just people, and if you honestly feel that nature photography without humans is apocalyptic, that is a really bleak outlook on the vast diversity of life and beauty in our world.

anorphirith 4y ago

I find it much harder to do any type of photography in the USA where it's hard to find places to walk around. And if you do find a place to walk you'll end up in strip mall, a parking lot, a multistate chain.

LeftHandPath 4y ago
I can certainly understand the sentiment - most parts of most towns are like this. But if you look, virtually every town of reasonable age has a walkable "downtown" area. Even in small Kansas towns - look at downtown Ottawa, Seneca, Lawrence, etc. Or, across the country - Rock Hill, Greenville, Savannah, Tampa, Orlando, San Diego... The only ones that lack walkable downtown areas are the most recently constructed communities (Nocatee, Florida comes to mind - recent construction, the "town center" is effectively a strip mall).
flipthefrog 4y ago
Just take photos of strip malls, parking lots, and multistate chains then. They'll look great in 40 years, like William Eggleston or Stephen Shore's work does today