Cat

If I'm correct, today should be my 365th blip, woo hoo! But shame on me for using a cat photo to get extra views, and it's not even a real cat...

To celebrate the big 3-6-5 I bought myself a little present today: a signed, limited edition Daido Moriyama book. It's called "auto-portrait" and it's a kind of "Where's Wally?" because Moriyama has included himself one way or another in all of the shots.

So, here's the final installment of my photography inspirations. Do you think I'm going to go serious or all slushy because it's my blip-birthday...

Part 9: Alfred Stieglitz, Equivalents

Part 10: The Blip Community and other photographers
The great thing about Blipfoto is that all in one place you can see the full range of photographic styles, subjects, and treatments, taken with the full range of cameras and lenses. Surfing through Blipfoto can be a real adventure through creativity!

When I look at other people's photos, whether on Blipfoto or elsewhere, I run through a little mental checklist of questions to try and figure the photo out. What time of day was the photo taken? where was the sun? how high was the camera off the ground? was the photo taken straight on or at an angle? can I guess the aperture, the speed, the processing, the meaning? By trying to answer these questions I try to learn how to approach certain types of shots and get an idea of what works with certain subjects and what doesn't.

I'm not saying that I try to work out how to copy other people's work, but instead by thinking about the photos I look at rather than just looking at them, I try to teach myself a series of top tips that I can apply when I'm out and about shooting.

So really inspiration and learning doesn't have to always come from the big names or from the famous books; it can come from any photo as long as you approach it correctly.



To finish this long post, here's some random stats from the titles of my blips for the past year: Man/Men in the title (64), Woman/Women (21), Bike (20), Train (13), Street (9), Cat (5), Pigeon (4), and Snake (1); and a sneak preview of (a very rough version of) my new website, which has some more shots from September and June of this year.

Big shouts out to every who has looked at, commented on, and supported my photography over the last year. It's much appreciated!