Sunset

What type of photographer am I?

Random shots, portraits? landscape? action? Nature? does it matter??

Looking through the yesterdays blips, I checked out a blip from Hope, a friend and fellow DH mountain biker and the person who introduced me to blipfoto.

I have always know Hope is a great photographer. I have visited her site on Flickr many times and used it for inspiration and as learning tool for my own efforts. However, yesterdays blip with a link to a slideshow of her work really did showcase just how good her photographs are!

This got me thinking (which I'm told frequently I tend to do way too much!).

What is it that makes a good photograph or indeed photographer. Why is it that some photographs on Blip have 10 views and others have 200 views. Why do some photographs on Flickr get awards and invites to post in selected groups and other never receive a view never mind a comment (that would be me then!). Is it just part of the politics that comes with an on-line community, where people develop an affinity with other users and are drawn to their daily journals or photostreams? When I started Blipfoto 3 weeks ago, this was my general belief. Not so much now though.

When I look at photographs from Hope and others of a similar standard there is something fundamentally attractive in the shot that I cant describe. Something that draws you in. A 2D image that has 3D emotions. Photographs that are almost tangible. I'm not sure this can be taught or indeed something you can learn. If it can, then I want to learn it.

I took up photography a couple of months ago and really did think it was pretty straight forward. At that time, someone told me to photograph the things I like. I'm beginning to think that this is the secret. Me, I like action photography. As a consequence my daily stuff is average and most probably always will be average (although that wont stop me trying!), but I do think I could, over time (and with practice), become reasonably good at some forms of action photography.



ps - sitting in the office today so no 'action' shot. Here's a sunset at my local park instead!