A result of my involvement across three different groups of virtual photography enthusiasts within VRChat!
Pattern 1: evolve from the technical “how” to the artistic/storytelling “why” coexisting every shot.
Pattern 2: improve by checking out works by other photographers
Conclusions on research into feedback/improving turned into action items, beyond photowalks:
Dropping the experience labels. I saw someone say they took 1000s of photos in a year, but only 2-3 were “good” and that they’d be “successful” if it went up to 1 a week… woof. Instead, I think I like this idea of letting the work speak a bit better, at least personally!
Asking for feedback: not “do you like this?” but e.g. “what could make it scarier?” [src]
What narrowing adjectives to use? → per this stuff, land on ~3 values to convey!
Or as one r/photography poster said it: “I belong to a photo club where we have a weekly salon meeting. We get together and discuss about our images. This image went through 5 revisions before I am finally happy with where it is. By describing what my vision with the image is and then getting critiques as to where I am in getting that vision across helps me to make the image better."
Consider an education night or recurring challenges (doesn’t even have to be a contest). In particular, a show-and-tell of “I spent a weekend focused on X” can help you and them!
Discover and share whose works click with you for inspiration
“Talking about images, even non art photos, is a good way to advance your craft”
One person’s progression I found notable: online forums → free YouTube communities + content → paid online workshop paid offline workshop → independent photobook studies
Include...
Specific worlds named as such for this purpose, or just bringing an avatar with adjustable lighting systems to have folks use.
vrclist.com/world/54127
vrclist.com/world/357821
r/photography
r/photocritique
r/itookapicture
r/askphotography
r/begging_photography
r/photoclass20## (added per year, cf. r-photoclass.com)
/r/photography/comments/16d5az/what_is_something_you_wish_you_were_told_as_a/
/r/photography/comments/56w0l5/official_what_is_something_you_wish_you_were_told/
/r/photography/comments/csk4cw/what_do_you_wish_you_knew_when_you_were_first/
Historically, some see photography as reproducing what we see vs. as altering that reality to convey your interpretation of it (“making the scene a reflection of who you are and how you felt”)
“Initially shot more portraits and landscapes. Now I do more modern art, conceptual stuff”
“From photography history and studying the cultures around the subject.” (my Half-Price buys!)
“Use landscape photography to inform your street photography, use portrait photography to inform your event photography. (Study classical art too, while you're at it.)”
For landscapes, don’t forget to take in the experience’s views and beauty around you too!
For portraits, don’t forget to help people relax and have confidence when in front of the camera!
-- but vs. this critique: “What I've noticed from a lot of people who learn through YouTube is that they're missing some of the foundational stuff that you get in the first photography class or the early parts of a comprehensive book. I had a student come for a portrait lesson and he had a prism to add cool effects to his shots from a YouTube tutorial, but he had no idea that his camera had different focus modes or how to meter for specific parts of a frame. None of this is to say that there aren't amazing photographers who learned by watching YouTube videos, but I definitely recommend trying to learn from the ground up and take some time with the very basic aspects of photography before jumping into YouTube tutorials about specific techniques. That way, when the technique doesn't work the way you expect it to, you know why and how to fix it. I think it's also worth being aware of how many YouTube tutorials come from trends or just try to rebrand common techniques for the sake of marketing. I had a student try to tell me about the "Brenizer Technique" as if multi-shot panoramas to simulate a wide lens with a super-wide aperture were something he invented and not something people had already been doing forever back to the film days.”
(need to vet all still)
Udemy
LinkedIn Learning (prev. Lynda.com)
Creative Live
petapixel.com/2014/07/03/best-free-online-photography-courses-tutorials/
morguefile.com/classroom/
A. https://members.kelbyone.com/course/
2. Lightstalking: Locked Zoom, Mundane/Ugly Subjects, Alphabet, Water, Low/Special Lighting, Monochrome,
3. 30-day Breakdown: natural framing, still life, 3-shot essay, rule thirds, Starburst (vrcl), small f-stop (vrcl), connection (?), negative space, depth, fill the frame, landscape, symmetry, low light, backlighting, candid, leading lines, mood, silhouette, Self-portrait, reflection, bokeh, Monochrome, food, dramatic light, indoor natural light, portrait, street, minimal, patterns. (Also todo: how others overcome creative fatigue in pic-a-year challenges?)
6. Canva: Strangers, Gear limit, Self-portrait, Polaroid, Essay, Zine, Pinhole, 1-Subject, Joiners, GIFs, Cinemagraphs
+. 58's story: require participants to hold off on taking photos until after a time limit (maybe helper shader message).
+. Many at bottom: 3-shot photo essay, no processing or must-have processing, composition-aspect subfocuses, shoot street portraits with strangers until you get 5 no's as a reverse-psychology goal, swap your usual photography subgenre. Sum up the season, the week, or the month in an image. Focus on reflections. Pick 3-5 shots from archives you hadn't looked at for potential curation before. Capture an idea or an emotion, e.g. silence. "Grateful photography" project to capture moments, things, people, places you appreciate! "Day in the Life of" photography all day. Send a letter with a single person focus accompanied by a photo for it. "100 paces" challenge of taking a photo, then walking away 100 steps to take another, repeat 4-6 times.
Wherever photo essay ends up:
That book I have
Kuleshov effect from cinematography also true in photography
Wherever boring challenge ends up:
Work with boring subjects can be made to look amazing. Angles, lighting, composition… Looking at other photos to dissect how and why they were taken really helps in finding more options.
Wherever photo essay ends up:
That book I have
Kuleshov effect from cinematography also true in photography
Wherever boring challenge ends up:
Work with boring subjects can be made to look amazing. Angles, lighting, composition… Looking at other photos to dissect how and why they were taken really helps in finding more options.
Misc:
Weekly surf through r/photocritique, journaling your appraisals
Take 100 pictures of whatever interests you, then sort out the top but also the worst (say 5 each). Learn from both sets what to reinforce/fix, rinse and repeat.
a friend’s new profile picture, personal niche-blog images,
"I did an exercise in which I picked an object (a wooden chair in my case) and tried to go for photographing it for time. Meaning, my goal in this case was to spend 4 hours lighting and photographing this chair. I only made it 2.5, but there was a very clear difference between a shot I made at 30 mins in vs 2 hours in. Spending that much time looking at how lines in an object interact and how huge a difference perspective makes has allowed me to see those things more quickly whenever I put the camera to my eye now, and even before. My professor called it, "Learning to look""
"Throughout my life I've been fascinated with cityscapes and geometrical architecture photography, but never got around actually doing it. After almost 50 years of photographing things and people I finally started to consciously photograph architectural structures and failed quite miserably. After some time of disappointment I began to take pictures without having a camera with me. Wandered around in my - and other - cities, casually looking for geometrically interesting structures. I had no pressure to take a picture, and only if I found something I was convinced of, I returned with a camera. These turned out to be probably the first photographs in my life I am really happy with." (Maybe e.g. require attendees to NOT use the camera until a shader message drops?)
Let the lighting get imperfect: rain, overcast, unevenly dark, foggy, harsh, night!
Surfing on r/photocritique weekly to train your ability to articulate your likes/dislikes
Todo: look up how people handled creative fatigue in 365 Project or similar, e.g. “It was hard to come up with something day after day after day. I had to struggle to make things look interesting when I'd exhausted all the things that looked interesting at first glance in my area. I had a pretty good handle on the technical aspect, but artistically, all I knew was 'that looks cool to me, I'll try to capture that aspect in a photo'. After shooting a few photos a day for 365 days in a row, it really distilled what I liked to see in a photo and helped develop my artistic style."
Refresher: here
Frame-filling: with subject in portraits, or background patterns
Headroom, Third-safe Intersections, Framing/Leading
Visual Hierarchy for Points of Interest (gaze guiding)
Uncluttering background (via shallow focus, a dummy card-back)
Symmetry v. Asymmetry, Depth
(41b) Balance colors that complement the subject.
(48) "Composition and perspective have to be considered before you press the shutter, because you can't fix these in post. Move yourself around to change your perspective - side to side, up or down, closer or further. Pay attention to the background - some would even say START with the background and then find your subject, foreground, composition, etc." -- "I agree. I have now gotten to the point of: 1 find interesting subject and light 2 look at background and see if it's simple or interesting or if I can reposition to make it better 3 if so take it quick before it changes, if not walk away"
Guru: strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html
(29+86) Why study exposure 🔺️ settings: "Manipulating the quality of light, source and direction of light, intensity, color temperature (as well as for B&W) all will help you achieve the aesthetic [emotion, or mood] you are trying to create." – Don't just say it's important or to chase it; say to use it! Practice in different conditions!
(55) "I realized that not everything in the frame has to be well lit. Not lifting the shadows gets me a more dramatic mood, and also adds mystery." //Strobist page examples!
(94) "Once you learn the lighting part, your photographs start to look more [""professional"", i.e.] lively and have 3-d like depth which remarkably differentiates your photographs from others."
(94) Learning about what good flash use gives insight into non-flash shots too!
(99) Lighting, re: how to light + pose, <https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/8w83th/comment/e1thvev/> and thread <https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/8w83th/comment/e1thh7f/> and <https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/8w83th/comment/e1typ1j/> + [?] ||"All light is not created equal. For my work, slanting light works the best, so I'm simply not bothering to shoot during the height of the day."|| + <https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/8w83th/comment/e1tnobb/> +||"1) Recognising great light, good light, normal light, and terrible light. 2) Being able to shoot in any of the above types of light, whereas when I was starting out I assumed that "blue sky and sun" meant "good light" and anything else meant "put the camera away""|| + ||"two types of photography natural no artificial lights. Or using lights simulating sources of light key, fill and catch etc The key to photography is knowing your camera to the T and using/ shaping light to capture what you want. Also learn how to use Filters properly and do research on color theory. Last thing your camera lens is greatly affects your picture in many ways look into why."
Only worry about it after taking the photos–not during!
A “style” should amount to more than just your Lightroom settings.
Sometimes a shot just needs to be scrapped, not “saved” with overediting.
(52) Can improve ["most"?] photos: "Recovering shadow details and correcting white balance are common examples of that you can do in post editing. Most cameras default to JPEG, so teaching newbies how to switch to RAW and take advantage of it is a good idea. However, there’s no such thing as right or wrong in art, and if you like what you have taken there’s absolutely no reason why you must do further editing. But people get too caught up by the basic rules and stubbornly insist that only photos that follow the rules are good photos."
(57) It is a craft in itself: "Editing with intention. Not just pushing sliders back and forth to see what looks good. Looking at the raw, having a plan, executing the plan." + (59) "Editing is one aspect. For years I struggled with editing my raw files. I made several attempts and everytime I moved a slider it looked worse than before. About a year ago I started to watch lots of editing tutorials and finally it started to work out for me. Not saying I'm any good at it but it gets better.”