Stream of consciousness

Thoughts, truths and insights from the years presented in no particular order…

• Ideas and thoughts are like clouds: transient, yet substantial; sometimes well-defined, sometimes not
• A photograph isn’t a representation of an object or subject: it’s really the creator’s relationship to it
• Any given piece of hardware is only interesting because of what it enables you to do, not because of any inherent qualities of the hardware itself
• Photography is like any other language: profound things can be said, but a lot can also get lost in translation
• Sometimes, the silence and empty spaces can communicate as much as the filled parts
• Restrictions in perspective, hardware or something else can force you to focus on fully optimizing what you can get – or moving on. But when somebody else (i.e. your client) is calling the shots, restrictions are just…frustrating.
• The better your skill level, the harder it is to find a style and stick to it (and really make it yours): the paralysis of choice, again.
• The more experience you have, the less you shoot – because you know what the outcome is going to be, and if it isn’t better than what you’ve done before, there’s not much point. Yet this results in stagnation, forcing you back to eventually experimenting again and cycling through the low yield stages.
• Flaneuring: the more you plan, the worse the results. Creative stimulation comes from your unfiltered response to the unexpected.
• When you buy/bring a spare, chances are you won’t need it and will never use it.
• If you can imagine something and manage to resist the urge to move on, most of the time, it tends to happen.
• All successful photography must satisfy the end client, even if it isn’t obvious who that might be at time of capture
• Postprocessing isn’t going to make up for fundamental deficiencies in composition that were not addressed in the first place
• Good perspective use should require you to look hard to figure it out – if you read perspective before subject, then the lens is dominating over your subject
• Excessive bokeh is the crutch that negates context and makes every background look the same
• Never judge a photographer by their camera, but how they’re holding it and what they’re pointing it at
• Inspiration cannot be forced and often comes when least expected
• The more fluency you have in a creative medium, the less fixed things are but the higher the chances of a successful experiment
• Sometimes a change of environment is required to appreciate your existing environment
• Creativity is cross-disciplinary; medium is independent of the desire for expression
• Successful interpretation of an image is as dependent on the audience as the artist
• It is almost impossible to make a different interpretation of a cliche; and it is completely impossible not to be influenced by the work of others once you have seen it
• Almost all creative work is derivative, and all photography has to be derivative since it is dependent on physical objects that had to be in existence at the time of capture and therefore created by somebody else
• Photography competitions are pointless: all judging is relative and subjective. You don’t want to lose the rights to your best images, but entering your worst won’t win, either
• The line between ‘inspired by’ and ‘copy of’ is perilously thin. If in doubt, avoid and acknowledge
• Visualize the result before you press the button
• On a job, expect everything to go wrong and have a plan for it. You’ll usually be glad you did
• Pick the best tool for the job; attempting to do otherwise can result in some interesting results, but more often than not ends in frustration
• Stuff always breaks just after the warranty ends
• Sample variation is real. Quality control now is probably better than before, but so is our ability to differentiate and the internet’s ability to complain and blow things out of proportion. Just because it’s online and repeated doesn’t mean it’s true. Fake news is real
• Finally: if you as creator don’t know what the photo is about, you probably didn’t compose it right. MT

__________________

Visit the Teaching Store to up your photographic game – including workshop videos, and the individual Email School of Photography. You can also support the site by purchasing from B&H and Amazon – thanks!

We are also on Facebook and there is a curated reader Flickr pool.

Images and content copyright Ming Thein | mingthein.com 2012 onwards unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved