Lesson 2: Photography Inspiration

[Maxine Douglas]

My initial inspiration came from a photograph a classmate took of me, years ago. At that time, I was in total amazement. Being accustomed to the typical snap shots, this one picture was different from any others I’ve seen. The subject (myself), stood out from the background, which resulted in what I thought, was an exceptional photograph. Although at that time, I had no idea why I liked the picture; looking back today, I realized what intrigued me the most, was the shallow depth of field seen in that photograph. Back then, the only thing I knew was that my classmate had used a 35mm SLR camera. Because of that experience, and my unsatisfactory results from using point and shoot cameras, my pursuit in photography as a hobby, developed.

When I had truly decided to learn photography, areas I find myself gravitating towards, include landscape, wildlife and possibly macro. Although I’ve seen many works of famous photographers, via the Internet, admittedly, I haven’t up until now given much thought to a specific artist.

Photographers, however, I believe I could perhaps learn a great deal from, include Greg Du Toit and Joe McDonald. Both these photographers specialize in wildlife photography.

[Duncan Rawlinson]

Hi Maxine,

Thanks for your assignment. It’s interesting that everyone has a moment when they realize there is a way more to this whole photography thing than first ‘meets the eye’ if you will.

Then it’s a slippery slope toward full blow photography addiction! 🙂

Seriously though I think you’ve found the thing that piqued your interest in photography but you may also want to look into learning more about the masters of photographer for inspiration.

There is always something you can learn from them.

The Masters of Photography

The idea of course is to not only learn to but to use that inspiration as fuel to improve your own photography and art.

One thing that’s fun to do is go to your local library or large bookstore and just peruse the photography section. Sometimes there is something magic about seeing actual prints.

Another suggestion would be to visit your local art gallery or just take a look at local photography events on meetup.com

All of this with the idea that the more you can soak up in terms of inspiration and knowledge the better off your own experience with photography will be. And thus, your images will be better.

I hope this helps and I look forward to seeing you on the next assignment.

[Author]

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