What skills are you working on / how do you want to improve? (1 Viewer)

[Citizen87645]

And the answer shouldn't be "by getting that new lens."


Mine is portraiture. I admire portraiture work immensely but at the same time it inspires me, it is also where I have the least experience (or is where I want to most improve). So incrementally I'm trying to get better at it and not find it so intimidating.


Right now I'm reading a book "Picture Perfect Posing" by Roberto Valenzuela, which demystifies what makes a good pose. I like that it's not a series of posing diagrams but an analysis of why a particular pose works or doesn't, in a given situation. I also like that the author doesn't expect you to notice or deal with all the details at once, but deal with one thing at a time (e.g. hands). It's worth a read if you have similar goals as I, or if you just want to learn how to look better in front of the camera (all of us need this, to varying degrees).

 

[Alf S]

NINJA

 

[Carabimero]

This is hard to articulate but I hope by trying to express it, I can somehow gain clarity on the skill: I'm making a documentary about someone dead for 31 years. I have interviewed on camera everyone I could find that knew him. I have hundreds of photos stretching from his boyhood to his death. And I have letters he wrote his wife while he was serving in Korea in the mid 1950s.


The skill I am trying to cultivate is making connections.


For example, I am the only person on the planet that has access to these three unique assets about this person: 1) the interviews with friends, colleagues and family that I produced; 2) the photos; and 3) the letters. I want to create something original, some expression of knowledge never known in this world. And I can do it if I can find, for example, a reference someone makes to a person, place or object that is also mentioned in one of the other assets. I can do it by creating new contexts. By understanding how things connect.


If I can improve the skill of making connections between on the surface what seems random data, then I can create new, wholly original expressions for my film.


I start in earnest tomorrow. But I have already found a name mentioned, and every time a name of interest comes up, I have to discover as much as I can about that person, hoping that knowledge intersects with knowledge I have in my three assets. It's a kind of film making I have never done. I may spend a months at this and and come up dry. But it's all about creative faith: if I do my job every day, and try to improve at it, I have faith that some creative power, greater than myself, will touch me and help me see the connections I seek.


Wish me patience, luck, and faith.

 

[JohnRice]

I want to fundamentally see differently than I do. That, and continue to get more of a grasp of the digital medium, after a lifetime of film. I think too many people are just copying the techniques of others. I suspect there is a lot left unexplored.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I want to fundamentally see differently than I do.

This is what I struggle with and wish to improve, too. We travel to Myrtle Beach 2-3 times per year, and I try to look for different things to photograph, or shoot the same subjects from a different viewpoint. But sometimes it just feels like I am taking the same photos over and over.


Something else I want to get better at is shooting birds in flight. It is difficult to practice this, though, as there are not many places around home where I can find larger birds. We have lots of Canadian geese, but they mostly just walk around like they own the place... not a lot of flying going on. I call them Canadian pigeons. So, this is something I end up doing mostly on our trips to South Carolina, but those are not often enough to really work on my technique.

 

[Sam Posten]

I'm pretty comfortable with my skill set and am happy to add new techniques as I go. I don't have a laundry list of skills but I'm always working to cut down what I show more and more to just my best. That's hard for me.

If there is one thing I want it's more things and places to experience. I try to get out of my comfort zone as much as I can too.

 

[Patrick Sun]

The culling is the hardest part. One way to combat excessive displays/uploads of a bunch of photos from a single shoot/event is to pick out photos with potential (viables), and work on them quickly with the usual global adjustments that render the photos about 90% done. Then let that pile of photos sit for 2-4 weeks (if possible, if not, maybe at least 24 hours).


Come back to the smaller pile of photos, and look at them with a much more critical eye, and keep evaluating each photo with the question "Is it strong enough? or is it needed to tell the story" and if not, discard it, and move on until you have a smaller set of photos, and work on those to finish them up in terms of sprucing them up as if they were going to be published somewhere, and you don't want to see any distracting elements in the photo if possible.


There are some people who have honed their culling skills to the point where they can take the 500 photos from a session, and pick out 5-10 of the strong photos upon initial review, and they never look at the other 490-495 photos ever again. I still don't have that discipline.


I take portraits here and there, and in the past, I would spend far too much time cleaning up the skin and hair on a lot of the photos from the session/event, and then I realized I just need a few solid shots, and I don't need to clean up all of the "viable" photos. It saved a lot of time for me, and nowadays, I kind of avoid doing full-on portraits (where the face occupies 80% of the frame, or more) if I can help it, just not enough value for me to spend a lot of time retouching the hell out of a portrait, unless it's an amazing shot (or getting paid to do so). (Note, it does help to get a MUAH "Makeup Artist/Hair Stylist) to save on retouching effort/time)


But I don't really regret all that time I spent in honing my Lightroom developing skills, and every now and then some photoshopping when dearly needed, mainly because I'm now pretty quick in the early rounds, and don't hem-n-haw about the choices, I've been through most of them, and know where I would like the photo to go now.


But dat culling... still trips me up. In the fall of last year, I started an instagram account, mainly with the idea to feature my favorite photos from the past few years, so the culling from photo sets gets another round, and it's been interesting to see what I end up uploading to IG now. I've seen trying to do that with my Flickr account, which used to be my dumping ground for photo uploads, but nowadays, the photos are getting culled more before I upload them to Flickr too (though I still upload far too many to Flickr. Heh).


I've also used my IG uploads to see what my tendencies are from the past few years, and what they are in my more current output. Some folks on IG mainly just do their "style" and that's about it. Mine evolves, depending on the needs of the photo, so my style is all over the place, which, obviously, can confuse folks looking for tog who do certain styles. So, still a weird jack-of-all-trades-in-training, and not quite saddled with a style that overrides everything in my output. I think it's mainly because I get bored doing the same style motifs, so I change it up, and probably to the detriment of my brand. But I can live with it.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I have become much better at culling photos over the years. After a trip to someplace like Yellowstone or Alaska, I will usually come back with somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 photos. I will try to get that down to 100 - 150 by the time I am done, and I actually delete the culled photos as I am rejecting them in Lightroom. So, once they are rejected, they are gone forever. *


* Technically, they are still on the compact flash cards, as I do not reformat the cards until I am done processing everything in case I make a mistake while culling, but I have yet to go back to the CF cards to re-import an image.


I would like to take my "best of" shots from my Smugmug account and create a new gallery similar to what Patrick describes, but I have not had the time yet. I do have a good start on the process, though, as I have a folder on my PC setup with "best of" shots from the past decade that is used for my screen saver.

 

[Citizen87645]

I can be pretty brutal in the culling (see that other thread where I purged everything that wasn't more than viable), but I understand where everyone is coming from about it being difficult. Despite being fairly critical about what makes the cut, at the end of the culling there is always that feeling of disappointment that there weren't more that made it through.

 

[Sam Posten]

Oh hell no, no way am I ever going to delete my rejects. That way lies madness. Every shot save those obviously OOF or with zero lit detail gets saved since my first short back in the aughts.

 

[Citizen87645]

I get that's your preference, but to what end?

 

[Carabimero]

I always use my gut and quickly pick out my best assets and let the rest go. I don't sweat it or overthink it. Am I ALWAYS right? No. But as long as I am right most of the time, my projects succeed.


I've never been happier since I started trusting my instincts, making mostly quick decisions, and living with them. If I make the wrong decision, and am faced with a limitation because of it, I've found my work is invariably improved because the limitation forced me to think creatively in a way I never would have if I'd had limitless assets staring me in the face.


Limitations, even self-imposed ones, nearly always make my work better. I have a 2TB external drive, another one off site to back it up, and I don't ever plan to get drives with a larger capacity. I like being lean. Once a project is finished, most of the discrete elements are deleted. I don't need them, and if it turns out later on that I do, I'll come up with something else, probably something better, inspired by the limitation.


Is this the best approach all the time? No. But it is the best approach NEARLY all the time, at least for me.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Oh hell no, no way am I ever going to delete my rejects. That way lies madness. Every shot save those obviously OOF or with zero lit detail gets saved since my first short back in the aughts.

Like Cameron, I am curious as to why you save everything. Personally, I do not see the point. If the shot doesn't work for me or I have better similar shots (I will often take multiple shots at different exposures or slightly different compositions), I see no reason for keeping the rejects around. I have yet to regret deleting anything.

 

[Carabimero]

For me it's a trap to save everything, because then my assets become "precious" and my ego starts taking over. It's one thing for my ego to be healthy: I have to believe in myself or no one else will. But when I start to think I have to keep everything I've ever shot, my sensibilities become as overburdened as my hard drive.


I have confidence in my ability to create under almost any circumstance. That is what is precious to me, accepting that I will never have the perfect circumstance to create.

 

[Sam Posten]

Because storage is cheap, everything is databased with accurate metadata and tags, and you never know when something you thought was insignificant becomes important

One sad example: a team mate of my nephew had a life threatening coma, his parents were desperate for any pics they could get of him in good times. I found a dozen that meant nothing to me but EVERYTHING to them in a matter of seconds. Worth a lifetime of storage right there. I think it was the story of Clinton meeting Lewinsky that set photographers digging through their archives in a mad dash that instilled this in me. You just never know.

I don't judge what others do but I will never delete anything. Of course my Lr database makes it supremely easy to pick out the keeps and to specify what's in my yearly books. It's not hard work to do that, once set up its super easy

 

[Carabimero]

I should make a distinction: a lot of my work requires me to create sound effects. I used a canned sound effect once in a film, and then heard the same sound on the radio, and was mortified. So I make all my own sound effects. None of these I will ever delete, because they have utility from project to project.


My problem with more and bigger drives is, if it's worth keeping, it's worth backing up, and I felt like I was spending all my time trying to backup my data rather than create new stuff.


There are certainly advantages to keeping everything, so I understand doing it, but for me, in the end, the payoff was so rarely worth it.

 

[Carabimero]

Here's a skill I am trying to improve: good housekeeping. This new movie has assets spanning eight decades. It includes pictures, film, postcards, letters, and objects that I must digitize.


If I don't keep my assets organized, I'll be sunk. What I must improve is my patience. I must spend as long as it takes organizing BEFORE I even set up my work file. And then I must take the time to set up my work file with the same organization--and MAINTAIN it for the life of the project.


I must also improve my discipline, because so many of the photos and much of the film require restoration. I can't fall into the trap of doing any restorative work UNTIL THE PICTURE IS LOCKED; that is, until AFTER I have my rough cut, my test screening, my fine cut, and my final cut. I don't want to spend hours and hours restoring assets that will ultimately get removed from the final version of the film. Once I have the picture locked, I'll restore only the assets that made it into the movie. Seems like common sense, and yet I am drawn to the illusion to make it perfect. NOW. That's the discipline. And it goes for sound mixing as well. Why mix and score scenes that will be cut? And yet I did it on my last picture, even though I knew better. And I probably wasted a week or two.


These are the skills I am trying to improve. If I can improve them, though it may seem like it's taking me forever to get started out of the gate, I will save months on the tail end. And I have to believe it will make the movie better, too.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Because storage is cheap, everything is databased with accurate metadata and tags, and you never know when something you thought was insignificant becomes important

One sad example: a team mate of my nephew had a life threatening coma, his parents were desperate for any pics they could get of him in good times. I found a dozen that meant nothing to me but EVERYTHING to them in a matter of seconds. Worth a lifetime of storage right there. I think it was the story of Clinton meeting Lewinsky that set photographers digging through their archives in a mad dash that instilled this in me. You just never know.

I don't judge what others do but I will never delete anything. Of course my Lr database makes it supremely easy to pick out the keeps and to specify what's in my yearly books. It's not hard work to do that, once set up its super easy

That's a nice story, Sam.


I do not shoot many people -- mostly family at gatherings. If I delete any of those shots, it will either be because of bad focus / exposure, or because I have multiple similar shots, and I will just pick the best one.


Where I really cull is shots from trips or zoo visits. When shooting wildlife, I take a lot of shots with the camera set at high speed continuous (either 6 or 10 frames per second, depending on which body I'm using). That will result in a lot of similar shots, but it is the best way to capture the best moment of wildlife in motion, since you never know what an animal is going to do until it does it. I will pick the best 1 or 2 shots in the sequence and delete the rest. Sometimes I delete them all if nothing stands out and I have better shots from other sequences of the same animal.


Landscape shooting is similar, just to a lesser extent. For example, if I am shooting a sunrise or sunset, I take a lot of shots as the light changes and then select the best ones to work with later. The rest go in the trash. Other times I may try different exposure settings for more difficult scenes or subjects -- one of the best benefits of digital over film!

 

[Citizen87645]

I'd like to get a better handle on using AI Servo and which AF area mode to use and when. I admit I haven't really ventured beyond single-point AF selection, so I need to explore the behavior of the AF expansion modes in conjunction with AI Servo and my fast-moving child. The Zone AF doesn't really seem to be useful to me, but I could be persuaded otherwise.

Any tips you guys can offer / techniques that you've found helpful?

Here's a basic overview: http://learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2014/eos7dmkii_zoneaf_afpt.shtml

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Do like Henri Cartier-Bresson?

_Man_