It's only been a few months since I started taking photography more serious and already I have found myself acting very peculiar. I can't watch a movie without analysing the photography. I can't sit near a beautiful woman with nice skin and good bone structure without thinking 'I'd love to photograph her'. I can't visit a site without framing just about every angle I see. Even dogs and cats have become more interesting. The worst one, though, is that I nearly bought a ticket to watch Burnley the other day, just for the fast moving targets! I have even been accused of being a voyeur when taking a pic of an unaware subject Somebody save me!
This applies to any art form you become more involved with. Analogous things have happened to me with respect to music.
Once you start to understand composition and why elements in pictures are there you then begin to realise just how good many pro photographers are and that there is so much more to getting a good shot than most people realise, if you try and analyse some of the camera work in TV programs like animal documentaries you begin to understand why it took them months of work to get the shots As is often said 'It's not about the looking, it's about the seeing'. Check out some of the videos by pro photographers, some of them are very revealing especially if you thought that pro photographers just go and get that perfect shot every time. This is a good video, consider that Art Wolfe allows around nine years to get enough good material for each of his books! You can never look at too many pictures from good photographers, it's a good way to explore the different types of photography and what appeals to you and makes you want to go out and shoot, have a look at these and the work of Joe Cornish my favourite landscape photographer, his work is epic. Good photography forum if you have not found it yet. Forgot to say that controlling what the background looks like is often as important as the main subject, which is why you need to see the picture as a whole, blurring the background using 'Bokeh' is a method often used.
You also start to notice small mistakes that get into things, too. Such as a slightly missed focus in a scene on a TV show.
Excellent post Umbra. thanks for your time and effort, and please accept my apologies for the late reply, had a mad couple of days so the PC kinda took a back seat. I just bought 12 MF lenses and a couple of adaptor rings today, so the next few weeks should be fun!
