Photography depression?

[matthew_h]

I think I'm having a bit of photography depression at the moment. I'm lacking confidence in my own shooting, I'm hardly taking any shots at all and I am severely lacking motivation and more importantly inspiration.

I know it could be the weather/time of year as most of my subject matter up to date has been outside stuff. Bikes and cars etc. I just don't seem to be able to get a chance to go out and actually shoot anything. I also struggle to think of things to do and manage to talk myself out of going and doing stuff that I am not used to shooting. Out of my comfort zone you could say.

This is crap for my progression.

About the only shot I have taken recently is this one:



It was an experiment into longer exposures and water and generally I am happy with it, in fact I included it as one of my shots of the year, but I can't help but look at it and have a tinge of disappointment that it is not as good as I wish it was.

Surely I can't be the only one to go through periods like this. Can anyone suggest any things that might help me expand my horizons and/or help me get motivated again?

Apologies for the slightly morbid post

[poah]

quie like that. needs a warm up though.

I'm kinda going through a patch like that too but I thinks down to not shooting much recently.

[matthew_h]

Cheers Poah, how do I go about warming it up? My post processing skills are something I need to (and am trying to) improve.

BTW, happy birthday for the other day.

[LaSarthe+Back]

That's a nice shot! I must say I too am relatively inexperienced at PS, so can not help there.

There are times that the camera doesn't see the light of day for weeks at a time. I too get depressed over this issue, e.g. post a photo for critique, get no replies, and the obvious conclusion is "it must be guff" so you leave it.

New gear helps to cure the motivation problem!

I couldn't afford new gear until this month, so I bought an Ordnance Survey map for where I live, and looked there for places to go walkabout.

You'd be surprised how much stuff is actually around you when you look at a detailed map like OS.

Wishing you a good recovery!
Andy

[DanH]

matthew_h said:

Cheers Poah, how do I go about warming it up? My post processing skills are something I need to (and am trying to) improve.

BTW, happy birthday for the other day.

Could do with some simple post processing to boost the saturation etc and give it a bit of a lift. It's not hard so I think you'll be really pleased once you know how to do this (assuming you haven't already and I haven't misunderstood). Personally I use lightroom for this as its fairly quick and painless.

Might be worth trying with the sky cropped out too. I suspect its not helping.

E.g.



to :



Of course feel free to say so if you think I've butchered it Would benefit from having been done on higher res sample and not having to re-encode a jpeg. (fwiw I cropped, did an auto levels, pumped saturation a bit and upped sharpening a tad although this is the bit that really would have benefited from higher quality source pic).

Edited by DanH on Tuesday 8th January 23:43

[flat-planedCrank]

matthew_h said:

About the only shot I have taken recently is this one:

Nice shot
I agree it could use a slight boost in the saturation. Do you have photoshop (elements) / lightroom / etc.. ?



For the lack of motivation i'd watch some well-shot films, buy some good books / photography magazines - Read the tutorials, glare at the articles profiling people who are annoyingly talented (), and just get out there and try it !




Cheers.

Edited by flat-planedCrank on Wednesday 9th January 00:02

[stigmundfreud]

It happens to everyone whether it be their photography or other love/chore.

I hadn't taken any out door photos since early this year and was in a real glut with it - same for portraits as portraits bore the pants off me but its generally easier to get ok results! What helped me was I chatted to a photo friend of mine and we both went out = brilliant. Was a real boost just having someone else there doing the same thing, not having to worry about them getting bored and at the same time having company... try it!

[Andy M]

Every single photographer has, or will, go through a glut at some point - type "photographers block" into Google and you'll see a mountain of topics.

Why not get some feedback on your photos? This can help determine where you're going wrong, and which may be the right direction etc.

http://www.flickr.com

http://photo.net

http://www.smugmug.com

http://www.zooomr.com


And by the way, I think compositionally the shot you linked to was pretty good, it just needs better cropping (to bring the eye more to the foreground). Photographers often look for recurring themes in photos, and I counted 10+ triangles in that one photo alone.

A good article: http://www.morguefile.com/archive/classroom.php?le...

If you like landscape photography, maybe this will inspire: http://photo.net/photos/Jeff.Grant

[Famous Graham]

Or try something entirely new. Like that lightpainting from another thread the other day.

Or macro.

Or still life.

etc etc.

[matthew_h]

Thanks everyone. I didn't think I could be alone in feeling like this from time to time.

There are some good ideas and links here for me to look through so hopefully I can find some stuff in there to have a go at.

I've had a bit of a go at adjusting the colours of the shot and also tried a different crop to see how it works. What do you lot think?



(Alterations were done whilst on my crappy work PC so the colours might be a bit off)

[DanH]

One thing I've started to notice is why people put a border around their pics. The colours I pumped up in the one I had a quick go at look better on the dark grey lightroom background than they do against the white PH backdrop.

Going to have to get a tool to do this on lightroom export I think.

Anyway at least we agree about losing the sky

[Famous Graham]

DanH said:

Going to have to get a tool to do this on lightroom export I think.

I'm not sure that you can. If you do find something, let me know It's about all I use Photoshop for now.

[stigmundfreud]

DanH said:

One thing I've started to notice is why people put a border around their pics. The colours I pumped up in the one I had a quick go at look better on the dark grey lightroom background than they do against the white PH backdrop.

Going to have to get a tool to do this on lightroom export I think.

Anyway at least we agree about losing the sky

I have to say I had noticed, recently, an increase in people using frames and I suppose it makes sense. In the house you would choose the frame/mount to suit the image so I might start doing it on line too - to ensure consistency.

[DanH]

Famous Graham said:

DanH said:

Going to have to get a tool to do this on lightroom export I think.

I'm not sure that you can. If you do find something, let me know It's about all I use Photoshop for now.

Well you can do it on flickr :



Still not 100% about how it looks with the colours pumped as the detail looks bitty in the upper part of the image (really highlights the mouldy wet leaf litter!) but maybe thats due to upping sharpening on a low res img. I think it looks 100x better with the border though. I could see an argument that I overdid the colours

p.s. did find reference to a framing/border adding exporter for lightroom, but for mac users only.

Edited by DanH on Wednesday 9th January 11:01

[poah]

matthew_h said:

Cheers Poah, how do I go about warming it up? My post processing skills are something I need to (and am trying to) improve.

BTW, happy birthday for the other day.

use a plug in called velvia vision. works wonders even on its basic setting

[poah]

I gave it two goes of velvia vision, created a new layer to increase the midtones and used the rub out tool at 30% opacity over areas like the white water to reduce the effect. then cropped it.

[Andy M]

Is oversharpened due to Flickr applying its own sharpening.

Edited by Andy M on Wednesday 9th January 12:06

[matthew_h]

Poah, that velvia plug in really seems to have lifted the original, slightly lifeless grass to something much more vibrant. I'll have a look into that.

What have you done there Andy? Similar to Poah? You've also got much more vibrancy.

I think a good course of action for me, aswell as learning a lot more about the post processing side of things, is to go out and shoot more.

I've tired to avoid using too much PP as I like to get the shot in the camera but having seen what people are getting from that shot then maybe more time in the digital darkroom is justified and welcome.

[bramley]

Matt did you get my PM/email re Photoshop Actions? I have a Velvia and a Provia action too

[matthew_h]

Nope Dave, I can't pick up my personal email address at work since they blocked webmail etc.

Could you resend it to my work address:

matthew . hunt at jnpgroup . co . uk (obviously without spaces etc.

Cheers