I hope your having a good day where ever you are in the world. Recently I have been doing several different genres of photography and they are typical of what I shoot this time of year. Things that include trips to a fall themed event, or rock climbing, in particular, bouldering, and low light stuff like I did with Phil and Ray the other night.
So there has not been some sort of overlying theme, but more to the point of Autumn Activities instead(which I guess is a theme, isnt it?). This year has been really a whirlwind too as it seems that work has been crazy this year and I am picking up amateur radio more so I don’t have as much time for making videos for my YouTube channel (that to be honest, no one really watched anyway and I have been more focused on my website blogs due to this revelation) So now, I have noticed a shift in my focus from making YouTube content to enjoying my hobbies of photography and amateur radio. This is big for me as I am now getting out and shooting more and the results are starting to accumulate. The bulk of my photos are terrible in my mind and never make it out of the initial culling, but some of them are gems that I like and will share. I think this is because I am actually shooting more so I am starting to see more around me. This only comes from getting out and shooting photos. No amount of research or watching videos on the internet will give you this skill, you just have to put in the time doing it and now I am doing just that.
Now that I am getting out to shoot more, I am also noticing something else. I am learning the gear better and noticing things about my camera and how I have it setup that are problems and need correcting and building out things like my user profiles so I can easily recall the settings for certain kinds of photography or lens setups I like to use regularly.
Another thing I have noticed is that I am getting more comfortable with photographing people. This has been a huge stumbling block for me, but over time I have come to the realization that most people just don’t care. The ones that do care will let you know and i just deescalate by deleting their image anyway as I don’t want to have photos of someone who isn’t happy with me taking the photo anyway. That turns into a win win in my book, I don’t go to extremes or let people inspect my equipment like letting them go through the memory card or anything, but if they ask I always delete the image. It is just how I operate.
I was talking not long ago with Phil about shooting in low light and he made a good point, he waits till winter to do his low light images as it gets dark earlier and he doesn’t have to stay up late to get cool night photos… There is some wisdom in this that I have learned over the summer as well. I did a bunch of low light photos then and he is right, I ended up not getting into bed till well after 11 on many days.
The results were awesome with the photos I got, but I did have to stay up really late to get them. Something else I noticed was that it is a very different mindset when you are gathering content for a YouTube video as opposed to just shooting for yourself and looking for the images that you want to capture instead of trying to collect content for a video. You see, with video content collection, you end up looking for specific images to highlight talking points in the video and not photos that are interesting or particularly good in any real way other than to showcase that specific talking point. When I go shoot now, I just look at my surroundings and make photos of what interests me. No cross platform thought process or video centric stuff. Just photos. This has been quite liberating since starting the channel back in 2017. I fell like a weight has been lifted from me and I am free to explore the world and document it without the burden of video content creation.
Let that sink in for a minute. Shoot for you, not the internet, not for Instagram, not for Vero, not for Facebook, but for YOU. If you will do this you will soon see that your photos will start getting better and you will enjoy photography.
Now get your camera out and go take a picture with it!