What do you take pictures of?
 

Seeing Sharon’s "Why do you take pictures" thread prompted me to ask the “what” question. Sometimes the "why" question can have different "what" answers. For example, in my local photographic club we have a regular set subject competition and I find this encourages & challenges me to go out and take picture with a particular brief – perhaps pictures that I would not otherwise take. I liken it to being given a commission.

For example one recent round the set subject was “Something Red” and those of you who have looked at the forum competition will have seen my entry.
But I also had these Attachment 269 Attachment 270 Attachment 271 other possibles before finally making my choice - so four very different “whats” for the same “why”.

Left to my own devices, by choice I enjoy taking close ups, sunsets, portraits, patterns, candids of people at parties & carnivals, landscapes (although the results often don’t look as stunning as the image I thought I saw) and pictures of my family.

I have done a quick analysis of members’ gallery posts.

http://www.our-space.pwp.blueyonder....ages/Chart.jpg

The yellow bars show the number of photos posted in a category as a percentage of the total photos posted, and the blue bars the number of comments in a category as a percentage of total comments, both against the left hand scale. The pinky/red bars show the average number of comments per photo in a category, against the right hand scale.

Perhaps not surprisingly with the number of BF members, (and birding generally means getting out into the countryside) rural landscapes & wildlife lead the way by a considerable margin. Although its interesting to note that the competition entries drew, relatively, much higher numbers of comments, with fun & abstract also provoking members to put fingers to keyboard. Is this representative of what people photograph? Or do members only post what they think others will want to see?

I love seeing different types images – it gives me ideas to go out & try . So what do you take photos of?

For me it's probably about 60% birds, 30% wildflowers with the remaining 10% a mix of rural landscapes, pets and wild mammals. Almost never take people.

Predominately birds and then butterflies in mid summer with the occasional landscape or "other" when something catches my eye. However as and when I find the cash for a (fast) DSLR/Lens I want to try people and in particular sport.

I would like to be more adventurous generally and I'm sure a WPF monthly competion with particular themes would help stimulate that - Please Andy :D

Hi Gidders

Found your article most enlighting.
At the Camera Club I go to we have NAMED competitions for example: Song Titles, Posts, Communication and Atmosphere.
They might sound a bit bizarre but it does make you think and use your imagination and photo skills to find a subject which fits these titles.
Regarding why do we post more comment for Landscapes and Wildlife, while Abstract and Still life are pretty low down the scale would this be because we are less familiar with the two latter subject, while Landscapes and Wildlife are represented in countless formats to us on a daily basis for example: Travel documentaries and World Wildlife and nature programmes on TV

Cheers
Dave

Most of my pictures are 'natural world' images, either landscapes or plants and insects (or digiscoped bird pics). I'm very much attracted to natural patterns and motifs, and to landscapes and weather, though I do feel somewhat restricted by my little cp4500! (saving the pennies for a dSLR...)

I have to say I find this forum really quite inspirational when it comes to subject matter. And I agree with Nigel and Dave- it would be great if future comps could be themed, it would certainly encourage me to be a bit more adventurous in my choice of subject matter!

Birds, dragonflies, butterflies and landscapes, although the latter are not easy, locally. Not only do I not live in a photogenic part of the country but, whenever you find an elevated spot from which to take a photo, there are always electricity pylons spoiling the scene!

Themed Competition?
 

How about this for an idea for a themed competition: -

Run over 10 rounds – 1/month with the theme being announced in the last week of the previous month so you don’t get much advance notice.

Themes to be chosen so that anyone with any equipment stands an equal chance, rather than favouring those with the budget for the latest dSLR or long fast lenses :rolleyes: Maybe members should suggest themes but the competition organiser decides and announces each month.

Entries must be shot in the month in question (evidenced by the camera exif data) so people must go out and shoot new photos rather than picking their best from previous.

Voted for by the members on the basis of if you could have a print of just one of the entries hanging on your wall, which would you choose. Points allocated to, say, the top 10 after votes have been cast eg 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 5, 4…

Find some sponsors to provide a small prize for each monthly winner and some really super prizes for the top 3/5 with the greatest number points at the end of the year!

Obviously people don’t have to enter every round but this might get us out of our comfort zones as the more rounds one enters, the more chance of scooping one of the star prizes at the end of the year.

Most of my photos are either portraits or motorsport-im tending to try more landscape recently.

This might cause problems on a world-wide website because you could never have any season-based categories, for instance. Also exif data would exclude anyone from scanning a film for their entry

Mainly birds, anything to do with nature and landscapes. I do find myself shooting more and more landscapes these days though? Maybe it's because they don't fly away just as you're about to press the shutter release, it's just a case of waiting for the right moment!

nirofo.

I did think of that, and at first, judging by the number of posts where there is no exif data, I thought that a lot of members were doing that. When I look more closely I notice that a lot of those posts have things like D70, or 20D, or CP4500 etc under equipment used, so why doesn't the exif show up. Is it because that they are using save for web to keep the file size down and this strips it out?

So here's a question - how many members are using film & scanning?

Must admit, didn't think of that but looking at the sort of themes Dave mentioned I would have thought we could have come up with 10 themes that didn't rely on the time of year and would challenge to go where we haven't gone before. Afterall, I guess we've all taken seasonal shots at some time or other :D

Mainly Landscapes and some wildlife. As a beginner I shy away from Portraits but look for anything unusual that is not people related. Quite Like architecture but this appears a bit more difficult.

It has been a huge learning curve and am enjoying it immensely. More disaapointments than succes but when I get an image I like the feeling is pretty good.

Tried some night shots Friday! Interesting. not too unhappy with the results. Would ike to include some light trails in the picture so will have to go out again sometime.

Nogbad

Not many scanning now, I should think, other than for digitising previous work.

I use 'save for web' which does indeed remove the exif data. It seems to appear better on-screen than a normally compressed jpeg at the same file-size.

One of the advantages of the competitions on the sister-website Birdforum is the inclusive nature which encourages everyone to join in. I think the more ambitious suggestions you're proposing might actually put off a lot of members. Some photo magazines use a similar format and I would imagine that a large number of readers never even consider entering, just leaving it to the dedicated few.

I must say that I have not yet made the decision to change from film to digital, not that I don't think digital is good enough, it's just that I don't see a reason to change my current camera gear (which cost me an arm and a leg) when I can do all I want and more from film! I religiously inspect my slides through a Nikon 10X loupe as soon as they come back from processing, any that are suspect are binned, any that I think are worth keeping I do a full scan of and save to disk. Once I've done this I am free to do anything I wish with the picture digitally, using Photoshop or any other photo manipulation software. From this point on the end result is no different to the pictures produced from a digital camera!

nirofo.

I'm not sure what is being proposed here is so different to BF - that has a different theme each month - albeit within a common genre - but thats because the forum is dedicated to birds. If this one is to be dedicated to photography then surely there should be scope to broaden the horizons.

That said I sure one could come up with themes which give lots of scope for people to think as widely or as comfortably as they wish. Single word themes such as Wood, People, Indoors, Night, Colour, Buildings are extremely unrestricting but perhaps offer some simple challenges to help us diversify.

As to Exif I think its useful to see for other people to learn from but for those using film or wishing to "Save for Web" there could be an option/requirement to include the basic elements in the description.

And for date - trust people's integrity - its not as if there's millions at stake.

Anything that stays still long enough..Really I take anything that catches my eye or I find interesting.I'm still very new to this and finding it a good challenge but a very steep learning curve..

For me 60% aviation, 20% landscapes, 20% other things.

I think the competition idea is a good idea. Im sure we can come up with enough themes to keep it going and incorporate everyone. I hope the themes will challenge people if they whant to be challenged but at the same time people can take simple ones as well.

Well Birdforum only have the occasional prize competition and even then they had to restrict it to members who had been joined for at least a month to keep those away who were only after the prize and had no other interest in the site. Most months the competition is just for 'fun' to encourage everyone to join in. If every month is a prize-winner with all of them counting up to the 'big' prize it could get too serious for some.

BF also don't restrict the entry to photos taken within the previous month. It would be a crying shame if you took that once-in-a-lifetime shot in one month only to have the appropriate category two months away!

I understand what Gidders is trying to suggest - as I indicated it's similar to what photo mags do with their 'Photographer of the Year' competitions and it's meant to get you out taking photos regularly so that you're always alert to possible opportunities.

With WPF's gallery, though, the better your photos the more compliments you're going to get, so the incentive is already there

Of course, WPF isn't anywhere near to the size of BF (yet;) ) so getting sponsors for all the rounds and the final might be a bit difficult, anyway - a 'Trolley Dash' around Warehouse Express or one of the bigger Jessops branches would make a nice top prize, though, wouldn't it!!

20% birds, 80% various (empty branches, empty sky, bird-free feeders etc.) ;)

Seriously, I currently shoot 90% birds, with the rest rural landscapes or wild animals. It used to be the other way round...

I would like the challenge of a themed competition that got me thinking and looking for subjects rather than automatically bolting on a telephoto lens and heading for a feeding station when I was lacking inspiration.

Exif data - I save jpg without, but would be happy (and will now) include it. I do think that seeing the settings and kit used on shots can be educational.

Cheers Mark.

I liked your excel table, but my first thought was maybe you have just answered what photographers do when the weathers poor in Tom Charles thread "Frustrated Photographer"!

Personally my preference is for wildlife but not exclusively.