How much has your photography changed?

Nostromo

Nostromo

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Dominic
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When I first took a proper interest in photography (6yrs ago), I used to take photos of everything, from flowers, too horses, too landscape and tried different things, like splash photography, popping water filled balloons etc, and I used to take my camera everywhere. How good those photos were is debatable, but I was happy with them at the time. Then I concentrated on macro/close up as it took my fancy, so my camera would come with me on dog walks and days out. Now my camera very rarely leaves the house, nearly all of my photos are some form of still life.
Which I'm not complaining about, it's just an observation really of how things change and develop over time. I think I've found my genre, it's something that I like, it's the creative element I like (not than other genres of photography don't require creativity). Creating an image in my head and trying to recreate it in "real life".
 
When I was first seriously interested in photography, my main subjects were industrial architecture and 'street'. Now it is more likely to be wildlife and derelict boats.
 
Similar to you guys, my first interests in photography was pretty much everything! I have a fascination with derelict cities - a bygone era if you will - however, this has now changed into mainly sport and people photography. I, like you op, do not photograph any other genre aside from those two.
 
More seriously, what I shoot hasn't altered much, nor has the way I 'see' pictures. What has changed is that I now think in a more project oriented way and (mostly) take photographs accordingly.
 
Gotta run fast if you wanna catch a purdy one...
 
My pf was very eclectic when I started, and, I guess, until about 3 years ago. Then I subconsciously made the move to only b&w. It was not a conscious move, and now I delibertely go out looking for subjects that will look good in b&w. About the only time I do colour any more is when I shoot live gigs.
(The colour images on my flickr pages are all old, from before the 'migration')
 
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How has my photography changed? Well, when I started down the slippery slope, I sometimes had to make 36 (OK, maybe 38 if I was careful and prepared to risk the first shot being 1/2 fogged and Kodak/Ilford had been generous!) shots last a month or 2 but at least doing my own D&P meant I could pick and choose what got P'd. Did give me the discipline to not machine gun (all the time - I can go like a Bren gun but don't often do so!) and get it pretty damn close in terms of exposure now I can shoot until the battery runs out.

Not shot much since covid struck but have started again, playing with a macro lens I got a while back.
 
When I started almost 50 years ago I would consider almost any genre but did not necessarily have the equipment or opportunity to tackle some. I was able to do travel, landscapes and architecture but was later able to add street photography, sport and studio photography. Studio photography could be portraits or still life. I have added more sports and nature in recent years as well as constructed creative images. Nature photography also includes Macro Photography. So, my photography has probably changed but gradually.

Dave
 
My photography has always followed whatever else I was interested in - I wasn't interested in photographer per se, only as much as it enabled me to record my other interests, which varied. Of course I followed the various trends and educated myself as to what other proponents of whatever genre was interesting to me, but for me the subjects were and are the hobby.
As a teenager, I photographed my friends, bands, festivals etc, because that's what I was doing at that time.
As I got into cycling and mountain-biking, I photographed that and even got some stuff published - and paid-for.

When I joined the Army I recorded all of that; colleagues, training, overseas deployments, Northern Ireland, etc. eventually transferring from the Infantry to being a full-time Army Photographer, covering the wars in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. At the same time I moonlighted doing weddings and other social events at discount prices for the lads in my Units. One of the side-gigs was doing Portraits at Mess functions and was incredibly lucrative, as most Garrisons had at least a dozen Messes - officers and SNCO's, Regiments, Corps and Garrisons - and we charged a small fortune to set up a booth and do on the spot printing. Christmas could easily earn me @£8-9k covering an entire District. The guys in London District probably earned twice that.
When I left the Army I tried my hand at social and wedding photography - for about three years - until I realised that despite being 'able' to do it, I wasn't motivated to continue because the subject didn't interest me in the slightest. Unlike Military weddings, there was far more work involved and unlike working with Military subjects, I found I had to be way more diplomatic, which wasn't really me.
Same with Sports - I covered a lot of Sports in the Army and using some of those images as collateral, picked up a gig as in-house photographer for a local 2nd Division League basketball team and covered all their games for a season, selling images to the local press and websites. It bored me to death after the first month.
Once you've shot one wedding (with attractive clients in a decent venue), you've shot them all. One decent match and you've seen them all.

The one thing that's remained constant though is women. Since I was 8 years old (and I remember the event that triggered my interest like it was yesterday), I've always found women to be utterly fascinating. So I've always photographed them.
When I was younger it was mostly portraits, or candids of my friends, then 'fashion' (today we'd call it 'lifestyle')... As I got older I managed to convince some to wear less clothing, wear no clothing at all or even to wear baby-oil and be quite rude, sometimes alone and sometimes with a second female.

So in one sense my photography has changed radically over the past 48 years; in another it's stayed exactly the same.
 
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I guess I'm interested in new things, new ideas, new techniques and not just in photography but in most things. There are some consistent themes in my photography but I enjoy pushing my own limits, probably far too far. It's no way to develop a consistent style, a body of work or even to perfect a technique but its what I enjoy and so yes my photography is always changing, to use that hackneyed phrase, change is the only constant for me.
 
like many I started out photographing anything, which meant mostly landscape, travel, people (candid/street). Since getting interested again a few years ago, my wish is to develop skill at wildlife (birds) and land/seascapes, but what has always turned me on is abstract industrial architecture in B&W. So I'm very much still on that journey. I find the projects of the 52, FPOTY and New Old film very useful in weeding out what I enjoy from what is for its own sake.
 
I studied photography at college many moons ago, but it was almost a means to an end.

By which I mean, I wanted to do a graphics course but because I hadn't done Art to A-level standard, I needed to take a year to do that. So to fill the rest of my week, I did A-level photography and Art History. I enjoyed it, but unlike a lot of people didn't really have an interest to keep me focused (pardon the pun).

I still haven't really been able to find my 'thing' which is why I've enjoyed doing the 52 week challenge over the last couple of years as it's varied. Or, it's as varied as you want it to be.

Mostly though, because I grew up with virtually no photos of me as a kid, a lot of what I do photograph are our friends gatherings. Birthday parties, weddings, holidays. In the course of doing that, I'll normally find something else to interest me.

A lot of it is just record stuff, with the occasional good shot that comes about accidentally.

But I enjoy it. And it keeps me off the heroin.
 
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I started out with fixed focus compacts and took pictures of anything and everything. Later when I had SLRs and RFs I mostly took pictures of cars and at music gigs and I suppose everyone takes holiday pictures and social do's. These days I mostly take pictures on days out and walks, holidays and family get togethers.

I tend to take a lot of pictures of flowers, leaves, scenes and anything that catches my eye when out and about and I play them as a slideshow. I spend a lot of time tied to the house looking after someone so a slideshow of a day or even just an hour out is a bit of a distraction and escape for me. Also my wife is from overseas so I also take a lot of pictures for her to send back to friends and family to show she's well and happy.
 
Kell said:
Mostly though, because I grew up with virtually no photos of me as a kid, a lot of what I do photograph are our friends gatherings. Birthday parties, weddings, holidays. In the course of doing that, I'll normally find something else to interest me.

A lot of it is just record stuff, with the occasional good shot that comes about accidentally.

But I enjoy it. And it keeps me off the heroin.
Click to expand...

It's like that with my parents. There are next to no pictures of them not so much as children as there's the odd school photo but other than those there's next to nothing as young adults as photography was an expensive thing back then.
 
This weekend we all got together and as I'm the one that takes most of the photos, I said it would be worthwhile to give other people copies of the stuff I've taken over the last 20 years, in case something happens to my hard drives.

Went to copy it across and there were 35,000+ photos. God knows how many others got binned in that time.
 
In 50 yrs since I got my first slr, not much change at all! All these were on film except the last ...

1970:
alders.jpg
1989:
beeches 1989.jpg
1994:
gleann bianasdale.jpg
1999:
oaks (llwydiarth).jpg
2004:
oak shadow.jpg
2010:
sweet chestnut.jpg
2019:
dusk light.jpg
 
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droj said:
In 50 yrs since I got my first slr, not much change at all! All these were on film except the last ...
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If you photographed the same tree once a year for the last 50 years, it would be art.

My photography is always changing slightly, which keeps it exciting.

My photography is always changing slightly, which keeps it exciting.

To be able to measure 'how much' it changes (in which time?), I cannot.
 
Mine has changed a little - relatively new to photography having only really owned an entry level amateur DSLR since late 2010. Now I own a medium format digital system.

I had a bridge camera for holiday snaps. Now I really just take landscape and the odd travel image. I've gone from, in dire need of tuition to workshop host.

From snaps like this

DSC_0813 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

To images like this

_IMG1439 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr
 
I’ve been taking snaps since my dad bought me a camera since I was a kid in the 80’s, but I’ve only done photography more seriously since the early / mid 2000’s, so I’ll use that as my starting point.
My photography has changed since then because I have changed. It started as recording and simple documenting of places and has gradually evolved into a form of more creative expression. If that sounds like a load of arty-[PLEASE DON'T TRY TO BYPASS THE SWEAR FILTER] then here’s what I mean.
The subject matter has remained the same, but my approach and intent has evolved. I’m now more interested in creating a body of work and smaller thematic projects. Most of my output is now black and white, so the raw file (or negative) is the starting point rather than the end point, and I’m now interpreting the scene rather than just producing a straight replica. And I’m more interested in the artefacts and outputs. I’ve had a couple of websites for nearly 15 years and while I still update these with work (as well as various social media stuff) I’m more interested in arguably more traditional media such as prints, self published book and, more recently, zines.
That’s what I love about doing this, I can explore and evolve in any direction I feel and - hopefully - constantly improve
 
I started by messing with a bridge camera at concerts/music festivals and just really enjoyed taking pictures. From there I bought my first dslr and got into landscapes, which from a more formal photography standpoint (actually learning some technical aspects and the process involved in it) was my first love and one i still revisit whenever possible. I have however, moved more towards people now with events and weddings. Some of that is necessity in order to fund what is essentially a very expensive hobby, but some of it has been a natural progression in wanting to keep getting better and learning. I am still very much on a steep learning curve with people shots, but i can see progress with each thing i do which is pretty satisfying
 
viewfromthenorth said:
If that sounds like a load of arty-b****x then here’s what I mean.
Click to expand...
I like artsy b****x.
One of the reasons i now concentrate on still life is because I can use light (nearly all ways artificial) to give the mood/feeling I want and I can use pp to enhance that feeling, to make it more "artsy b****x" ;) .
A lot of this stems from my parents and brothers. My dad is an artist (oil paintings) and sculptor, my mum was a sculptor and so is my brother, my other brother is also very good at art. Me, I'm rubbish at drawing, painting, sculpting. So I like to create artsy with photography.
 
I'm going round in circles, I get ideas for something different, artistic!, sleep on it, then it rains, and so I work on it some more in my head. When the time comes, out there, things are not quite as I imagined, no matter what lens. So I put it down to experience.

We never stop learning. But .... I look at my shots from 40 years ago, back in the days of no real understanding, and I was genius by nature. I framed some beautiful images without the knowledge.

So I've achieved little but had some fun along the way (hmmm one for the tombstone).
 
Like others on this thread, my photography has followed my life: snowboarding - motorsport - landscape/travel - kids.
 
When I started taking photography seriously I took lots of photographs of things. I'd see a thing and think, "That looks interesting" and I'd take a photo. It could have been a house, a tree, a post box, a person, a car, and so on. And for years my photography improved bit by bit. It took me a long time after I started concentrating on street photography to move from photographing things to thinking about composing scenes - not just in street but in all genres. I still take lots of photos of things but I'm slowly getting to where I want to be.
 
When I started using my dads Praktica L in 1977 I was a spotty teenager into train spotting, so I photographed trains and aircraft at the few air shows we went to. Added a bit of poor landscape/architecture as I went.
Left school worked in a photographic wholesaler, which lead to a ‘free’ 10 day holiday in Sweden, courtesy of Hasselblad (the 35mm film and processing cost me a fortune, the 120 Hasselblad provided and processed) Hasselblad used some of my transparencies at Photography At Work, quite a kick! At a 4 day, 5 star ‘training’trip to Guernsey I got ‘given’ a Bronica ETR-S by Introphoto the Bronica importers (I sold their kit, I got points to pay it off, I failed to sell enough, they faked it!)
Eventually sold my Canon AE-1’s and Bronica to buy an EOS 650. Carried on photographing whatever I felt like. In 2000 got asked to be the club photographer for a football league club, which amused me for a decade, then had to give it up as a new job with the ambulance service lead to 9 years of 24/7 shift work. During that 9 years my photography suffered, days off were spent recovering from disturbed sleep patterns and a new wife and three step children to consider, instead of just doing my own thing.
Since then I’ve reinvigorated my photography, now tending to combine my love of nature in wildlife photography, along with landscape.
I’m still not much more than a very average snapper, but it’s back to being fun!
 
It might help, Ed, if you think about what you're asking and ask another question, clearly.

lemo's post seems clear to me. a "motif" or a photo or pretty picture? All approaches are perhaps valid.
 
My style hasn't changed much over 55 years. I started out interested in what you might call reportage, taking pictures of anything and everything. I still do. Here's a time line from 1966 to now...

Pentacon FM 67-9006.JPG

RAF Black Hawk and Pilot.jpeg
Young couple at Swindon Mela CAN_4195.jpg
Wood stag on Paris Street pavement Exeter P1230802.jpg
Vulcan over Dawlish 8022.JPG
Anorak girl taking picture with phone Exmouth beach E-PL5 P9240027.jpg
 
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Ed Sutton said:
What does that mean? :thinking:
Click to expand...
This means that I am not looking for objects that are perhaps so interesting that they are worth photographing. On my walks on the mountain, in the city, in the village or in the countryside, I look for scenes that just need to be framed properly. It could simply be a shadow pattern, coloured areas, geometric shapes, etc.
It's mainly scenes that otherwise don't seem photogenic at all to most viewers or that only become interesting through framing.

In the beginning, for example, I photographed sights such as churches, castles, monuments etc. when I was travelling, as most people do.

The other day I was in Milan for the first time and, for example, the Duomo is not in any of my photos, although I have walked past it very often.

Probably these photos are very boring for most people and they were for me at some time too, but the attraction of photography for me is finding these scenes.


Graz
 
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