You don't become an artist in a vacuum. If you want to be a good writer, you need to read. Likewise, if you want to be a good photographer, you need to spend time looking at other people's photos.
To that end, here are some pictures - one a day - that I pick out of flickr that I think are interesting in one way or another. You should try it to - that's why Flickr has that Explore menu option.
Jul 22
Photo by caleb.pierce.
Today’s picture comes out of the latest pics. I stumbled on a baseball set that I really liked, but the photographer disabled downloading so I couldn’t link directly to the picture. So we get the runner up instead. Still, this is a nice scene. The composition is pretty good, with the buildings right along the top third line in the picture. It’s also nice how the rocky cliffs recede into the distance and converge in the horizon.
Jul 21
Photo by: Hullboy2.
So I looked through the recent uploads to Flickr today, and it took a while to find something nice. On the first page, I saw a cool landscape picture, but I thought I’d look for something else… and then I waded through pages of mediocre junk before I saw piece. I love the composition, with the tree in the foreground and the little hill/peak in the back right. I think it would have been a better picture if it was taken a few minutes earlier in the sunset, so the sky was a little bit more colorful… but hey. You can’t control everything. If you could just re-wind the sun by 15 minutes any time you wanted to, we’d all have an easier time taking pictures outside.
Jul 20
Photo by: frantonial.
I tried something new today. Instead of looking through popular tags or the recent “Interesting” photos on Flickr, I just checked out the feed of recent uploads. According to Flickr, there were some 5,000 photos uploaded in the last minute. I hit reload a few times and skimmed through a few dozen pics. There was some junk, some random product photos, some party snapshots, and a few interesting shots. But this puppy was too cute to pass up…
I guess it’s a new version of dogs playing poker. I spent a few minutes looking through frantonial’s photostream, too, and saw the rest of this shoot. In the picture above, I was a bit disappointed by the lighting – I think the foreground and the table/chips are a bit under-exposed. But I’m thinking that’s cause the puppy was moving about, defying the un-moving nature of the lighting set up. The dog is just adorable, and I think this pic is my favorite from the shoot…
Jul 19
Nice pic. The bird is in crisp focus. No blur (other than the bokeh background). One of the comments mentions some panning, but I’m not sure I see it. This was clearly shot in some pretty harsh sun, and there was likely a very quick shutter speed – freezing the bird in motion and eliminating any possibility for panning. Too bad the sun is just not quite in the perfect position, and the bird’s head is in a shadow…
Jul 18
Photo by: Nurmanman.
Beautiful picture from the English countryside (Cumbria, to be precise). I really like the composition. The distant mountains kind of hang out in the back, separated from the foreground by the trees. The saturation in the foreground is also really nice. This reminds me of my own travels through England and Scotland… and makes me want to go back.
Jul 17
An eerie black and white image of an abandoned looking building.
Picture by izthistaken.
I found this picture while browsing through the “portraits” tag on Flickr. Not what I expected at all to be lumped in with portraits.
But cool nonetheless. The building is very rustic looking, nice subject. Looks kinda like the house is lit from the front, judging by how bright the exposure of the sky behind the house and the fact that the house is well exposed too. The edges kind of throw you off, though. Could be the light falling off, but looks more like vignetting applied in post processing.
Jul 16
Photo by vramak.
I wanted to look through some sports pictures today. Although this isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I started flicking through Flickr, it is too cool. Like a lot of people commented, the timing here is perfect. I like the color. Only thing that seems a bit odd is the pose. If the player is jumping like that, I’d assume he’s trying to do some kind of bicycle kick – which means that his foot should be coming up under the ball. Instead it looks like he’s kind of drop kicking the ball kung fu style…
Jul 15
Photo by Muddy Defender.
This is a nifty picture. Great balance between the ambient light and the lights. It’s definitely getting dark out, but the sky is still a nice light gray. The lights do a great job of making the jeep pop and creating some contrast between it and the darker ground behind it. It seems a bit odd that the jeep is so clean, though…
Jul 14
Photo by PrecisionPurple.
Since it is still really hot around Jersey, I decided to look through some winter photos on Flickr. This one stuck out. I like the way the tree in the foreground kind of frames the picture. Nice composition. You can really see where the light falls off underneath the tree, too.
Jul 13
Photo by Micah Camara.
Very cool picture. The quick shutter speed freezes the water in place. It’s nifty how the water splays out into a near perfect circle, too. Looks like a nice beach to hang out on, too. Nicer than the Jersey shore…
