Tag: photography
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Should I Ask?
When it comes to street photography a lot of new photographers ask whether or not they should get permission from their subjects before shooting. And the answer is, of course, it depends. Asking permission will automatically kill any spontaneity and naturalness to the image. A lot of the best street photographers don’t. I just got…
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Will AI Ruin Photography?
All over FaceBook photography sites photographers’ hands are being wrung red and doom is predicted as artificial intelligence (AI) starts learning photography. So what do you think? Are you with doomsayers that artificial photography will ruin photography as we know it? Why even in my photography club (Oakville Camera Club) artificial intelligence is being used…
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What FB Gets Wrong
Photo by Marion West You see it everyday on FaceBook. Somebody, usually somebody new to photography, asks “what or what settings did you use to get that photo?” What they should have asked was “how did you see that photo!” Asking what settings or what camera tells you nothing about how the photographer saw the…
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The Photographer In Your Face
I talked about The Oakville Camera Club’s Exploration # 37 “Strangers Up Close And Personal” in my last post but there’s more! This teaching event is all about shooting street photography but with the twist that the photographer must make some sort of personal connection with the subject. So how do you go about walking…
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How Do I Get Better?
I see this plea daily on FaceBook. Somebody with a new digital camera or a new-to-them old film camera posts a bunch of really bad images and asks for advice on how to improve their photography. How bad could these images possible be? Well a lot of them are really out of focus. Some of…
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How Far Is Too Far?
I normally don’t do this preferring to use my own images but for teaching purposes i’m using an Ansel Adam’s image that includes the printing instructions he sent to his printer to create the final print on the right. So how far is too far when it comes to image manipulation? When it comes to…
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It’s Not The Camera
Another day, another guy lost on FaceBook when it comes to his camera. This time the post reads like it comes from a long-time photographer who is new to Olympus OM-1 (and this post could have been about any new digital camera) and his complaint that he couldn’t get a decently sharp image of bike…
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The Zone System
After 60 years of shooting pro and amateur I am still not sure I am the guy you should ask about the Zone System as described by master photographer Ansel Adams. Invented by Adams 80 years ago the Zone System is used in black and white photography as a relative quick way of determine the…
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How To Fail
I did not have the heart to reply to the guy on FaceBook who was attending a motor sport event soon and wanted anyone who had used his camera (Olympus OM-1) to share some pics and some settings. This is the perfect storm that will lead to frustration and failure. There is no useful information…
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Why So Expensive?
Newcomers often get dazzled by the amazing technology available for our shiny new digital cameras. When buying a new camera often the photographer’s first lens is the “kit” lens that came with the camera. These are relatively cheap slow zooms that actually change aperture as the move through their zoom range. This reduces construction costs…
StreetShooters 