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
Dodge_Viper1101.jpg Lilies0486.jpg FireBuckets0268.jpg 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?