Learning from Photoblogging?
The photoblogging experience has thus far been a positive one for me overall as discussed in Why Do We Photoblog? Writing this article and some of the feedback on it and others - most notably Photoblog Quality and Themes - got me to thinking where have I really learned from feedback on photographs.
Though there have been several comments that have been specific to individual images, there has been a constant issue of late for me and that is one of depth of field.
Taking Control
On first obtaining my wonderful D70, most of my photography was on auto everything, shooting in jpeg and this produced tremendous results - indeed I felt if I was paying that much for an expensive computer with a camera attached to it, I had better use it! 
As time went on, my confidence grew and the urge to start fiddling with the controls crept in. At the present time I shoot RAW (more about that in a later article), use manual WB (yes I know this is not relevant when shooting RAW!), manual ISO and take partial control of exposure, normally through setting Aperture Priority.
All of this is just fine and I do indeed believe (perhaps mistakenly) that it has improved my photography. Following numerous comments on a variety of images (two of which you see in this post - click on them to see the original post and a larger version) many from Rock Kauser has demonstrated that far from me controlling the aperture, it is controlling me!
Out of Control
Most of my shots are taken at iso 200 largely due to the feeling that higher values will lead to quality problems, though my confidence has now extended to iso 400. Previously my camera was set to automatically increase iso to maintain a minimum shutter speed - now I have spurned this to be in charge of events. You can see this feature in use reflected in the EXIF data on some images - many from this week such as Corroded Container where a bug in Nikon’s software does not record the actual iso used for the shot when this feature kicks in.
The effect of this change of setting is that in practice my camera sits firmly on iso 200 and occasionally gets set to 400 for a time if shutter speed drops too low (often it stays there for a number of sessions even when it is not required because I forget to change it back, though I am getting better at this now). When shooting on miserable days which is often a necessity when one lives and photographs in UK the aperture needs to be wide open when shooting handheld. This has become something of a fixed setting for me and it has some wonderful effects of generating a lovely oof bokeh to separate my subject from its surroundings and make clear to the viewer what the image is about.
The Lesson
This has led to a number of photographs - generally close up or macro images - being taken with insufficient depth of field as Rock and others have pointed out to me.
Without my photoblog I would not have learned this.
Today’s Question
Where have you learned something about your photography or changed your behaviour or technique due to photoblogging? This might be from comments made on your blog, comments you have made on somebody else’s or perhaps something you have seen done on another blog.
September 15th, 2005 at 6:43 am
My “mentors,” although neither are aware of it have been Alec Long @ http://www.shutterandpupil.com/ and Anand @ http://blog.anands.net/ - both have provided LONG private conversations and lots of encouragement and information. Alec has provided the most technical information but Anand has provided the most learning (books, recommendations, programs etc). information. Both are super mentors ;p
I don’t get the type of feedback you’re seeming to get . . . which sort of makes me sad. Maybe I just need to say “damn it, give me real feedback today.”
September 15th, 2005 at 8:36 am
I have had correspondence by email and Flickr mail with a number of people who have helped me and encouraged me.
The learning point mentioned in this article is an exception to the rule as discussed in yesterday’s article which is why it is noteworthy enough for me to write this article.
September 15th, 2005 at 3:45 pm
Ian, not just to pat you on the back, but I’ve learned a lot from you. I took some photos of my blinds yesterday, and the corner of a table, hoping to see how well I could capture the texture, or adjust the depth of field. Could I make it sharp up close and blurry at the back? Normally that’s not my style of photography and I quickly get bored with images like that, but you made me think! I’ve also learned a lot from Dave Kapp. His street portraits are phenomenal. Although I’ve yet to actually TAKE any, I’ve found myself “seeing” these untaken photographs with a photographer’s eyes and filing them away in my “mental photo album,” hopefully for future use when I get the courage! There are so many more, but I’d use up all your comment space if I continued!
September 15th, 2005 at 5:42 pm
Jen - you should be careful - you really would not want to turn into me
Funilly enough I often look at scenes and think of other bloggers also - Sidney and David often take pictures I wish I had the confidence to take.
September 15th, 2005 at 9:20 pm
Ian, I can easily say that what I have taken from most of my fellow photobloggers is to have fun. I had fallen into a real rut where I seldom took my cameras out to play. I thought of them as the instruments of my trade. I shot for profit and not for fun.
About eighteen months ago a couple of friends named Gary Carter and Jason Staats started becoming immersed in photography. Jason purchased a digital SLR and Gary a Nikon 8300 (?). Both had a real passion for just shooting whatever they happened to come across. They were having fun and I was jealous because I used to do the same.
I started carrying around a little Nikon Coolpix 4300 and found that I enjoyed playing around with it. They weren’t anything but snapshots but I liked what I was doing. About the same time I started looking at photoblogs. I saw people posting pictures that were far from perfect, and in some cases not even good images. Of course I also saw some spectacular images.The funny thing was that I liked looking at the work of many of these photographers and it wasn’t necesarily the work of the best photographers that I enjoyed looking at the most. Some people just had a real passion for what they were doing and others just posted pictures for the shear pleasure of it. Flickr is a wonderful example of a photographic melting pot. There are extremely talented photographers posting images and there are horrendous photographers posting images. But it just didn’t matter if the pictures were good or bad, because for the most part that wasn’t the point.
I’ve found that I can accept less then what I see as perfect images from myself. It was very hard for me to post anything at first. I’m used to shooting hundreds of images to get that one “money” shot and what I show a client can make or break a deal. I cringed when I posted my first few dozen images because I knew they were not the best I was capable of. I knew if I went back and reshot the images I posted that I could do better.
Well, I still am far from comfortable posting most of the images I put on my sight. I struggle mightily to put some of them up. The image that will post tonight is a good example of this. It is another of my old door series. Several people had asked about seeing the door in black and white. I had shot about 100 images of the door using Kodak Plus-X 125 but I was not happy with the results. A few months ago I would not have posted one of them. Now I have the attitude of so what if they are not great art or photography - they are at least decently executed shots.
So, I’m now trying to be comfortable with showing my less then perfect and experimental work. I’m also for the most part enjoying myself. And I have shot several thousands of images that were shot for the shear hell of it.
September 16th, 2005 at 5:35 pm
You are something of a perfectionist and waaaay too hard on yourself - I suspect you are much kinder to others than you are to you
It is virtually impossible to keep up the standard of blogging material when one posts everyday - I also had some problems regarding quality prior to starting, but like a lot of things, once one has dived in, it works out somehow.