Which photographic genres or subjects interest you and why

[spudhead]

So as title why and how did you come to shoot the subjects and genres you do? So I came back to photography after along lay off, while the rug rats grew up. So I had always visited wildlife parks and took pictures of animals , Well that is pretty much a no no now! and obviously we don`t have large animals roaming free here in the UK as many of our members have where they live . So I started to take pictures of birds which I have only really done for a couple of 2 years or so and still learning, I also like taking shots when travelling and street, once again still learning. I quite like close up shots of insects in general not spiders so much!
So what interests you and what do like to take shots of and how did it come about? All welcome to share

 

[alexpler]

I've always been interested in travel and architecture photography. A couple of years ago on my trips to Venice and Athens I started enjoying street photography as well (with my phone at that time). As I discovered, the right human element could tell a story or enhance the atmosphere of a picture. And that's something that I embraced once I bought my camera. I can't tell you why I prefer these genres, I just do haha.

 

[Unframed Dave]

Wildlife, obviously. It's an interest without a camera, but the two together go hand in hand very well. I tried in my teens and twenties, but being an engineering apprentice and then a father meant that my finances were somewhat limited. I bought a centon 500 f8 mirror lens, which was as much use as lentils on a camera. I really came back to it, when my wife and I did a safari in South Africa, followed by Gaglapagos and then Antarctica. Haven't stopped since.

I love travel photography and having the early signs of dementia, it is a great way for me to bring holiday memories back to mind. I have forgotten entire trips abroad with my family until they show me their photos or I resurrect my own.

I would like to have a go at working with a model, nothing seedy, but with an edge towards glamour. Not sure how I'd cope, I turn to a blethering idiot around the unfeasibly attractive.

Landscape evades me, I just don't have the eye for it. I see barren everywhere where others see gold. I try now and again, but it always looks a bit meh!

Video doesn't interest me much, I don't dislike it, but am always left wondering what folks do with video? TV bores me rigid, so more of the same wouldn't help.

 

[spudhead]

Wildlife, obviously. It's an interest without a camera, but the two together go hand in hand very well. I tried in my teens and twenties, but being an engineering apprentice and then a father meant that my finances were somewhat limited. I bought a centon 500 f8 mirror lens, which was as much use as lentils on a camera. I really came back to it, when my wife and I did a safari in South Africa, followed by Gaglapagos and then Antarctica. Haven't stopped since.

I love travel photography and having the early signs of dementia, it is a great way for me to bring holiday memories back to mind. I have forgotten entire trips abroad with my family until they show me their photos or I resurrect my own.

I would like to have a go at working with a model, nothing seedy, but with an edge towards glamour. Not sure how I'd cope, I turn to a blethering idiot around the unfeasibly attractive.

Landscape evades me, I just don't have the eye for it. I see barren everywhere where others see gold. I try now and again, but it always looks a bit meh!

Video doesn't interest me much, I don't dislike it, but am always left wondering what folks do with video? TV bores me rigid, so more of the same wouldn't help.

Great reply Dave

 

[Brownie]

I've recounted this before. Sometime around 1967/68 I found a Brownie Jr. Special in our linen closet. Mom got me some film, and the first thing I ever shot was a train wreck at the local crossing. I recall thinking at the time that it was important to record this, and the photos would be neat. Maybe because of that I've always been more of an event or photojournalist/documentary type person. Air Shows, Vacations, museums, points of interest, etc.

As an adult I shot a lot of family, also published a book made with photos from a local photography event in the same vein as the "Day in the Life of..." series of coffee table books.

I'm not all that interested in sitting out in the woods waiting for wildlife or birds, but will dabble in it. I spent many, many hours doing so with a gun instead of a camera...the subjects were delicious. Street photography creeps me out, I feel like I'm invading people's lives. I'll mess with architecture some, but only in passing. I have gone for photo drives on our backroads around here many times, but after a while it's the same-old stuff.

I love fast and loud. Airplanes, snowmobiles, Hydroplanes, cars. As a kid I loved drag racing, built model cars, bought Hot Rod magazine, and followed the sports as well as one could with the media we had those days. Life took over and I had to be a husband and dad. Then several years ago I took my family to the track as spectators. I took my camera of course, and I saw those guys along the wall shooting right there in the thick of it. I remembered all those cool photos in the magazines of cars doing race car things up close and personal, and decided I had to get me some. I approached the track and obtained my first all-access media pass. I still love it, I love the people and friendships I've made out there. It's become as much about the camaraderie as the photography.

 

[iamdlewis]

The simple answer is stuff without people, though sports occasionally makes it in. I would say that wildlife, mostly birds for pretty obvious reasons, is 85% with Landscape and Macro splitting the majority of the rest.

Photography is a way to get me out of the house. Generally I have a type of photography I am going to do when I go out. I am generally willing to give any type of style a try.

 

[pointreyes]

Mainly close-up/macro. I no longer get much opportunity to leave the area close by my house due to other constraints (not health related).

Events that family members are in. This led to me becoming "the" photographer of the whole event.

Wildlife. One of the few things I get to do away from the house. Normally under the requirement that I keep my special needs daughter with me - limited to what I can see from the car. On some occasions, I will risk taking her on a walk with a small camera/lens - got one of my favorite shots last year that way.

Infrared. Tied to when I'm in the car for wildlife.

 

[Angus Cameron]

So as title why and how did you come to shoot the subjects and genres you do? So I came back to photography after along lay off, while the rug rats grew up. So I had always visited wildlife parks and took pictures of animals , Well that is pretty much a no no now! and obviously we don`t have large animals roaming free here in the UK as many of our members have where they live . So I started to take pictures of birds which I have only really done for a couple of 2 years or so and still learning, I also like taking shots when travelling and street, once again still learning. I quite like close up shots of insects in general not spiders so much!
So what interests you and what do like to take shots of and how did it come about? All welcome to share

Hi Spudhead, can I ask why visiting wildlife parks is a no no now?

 

[spudhead]

Hi Spudhead, can I ask why visiting wildlife parks is a no no now?

Not for me but a lot of people dont like images from wildlife parks, I personally have thousands of shots, look at zoo thread here Angus

 

[Brownie]

I love travel photography and having the early signs of dementia, it is a great way for me to bring holiday memories back to mind. I have forgotten entire trips abroad with my family until they show me their photos or I resurrect my own.

Respect. I wish you only the best.

 

[Brownie]

Not for me but a lot of people dont like images from wildlife parks, I personally have thousands of shots, look at zoo thread here Angus

If I shoot animals it's either going to be pets, backyard birds, or in a zoo. The recent owl/deer thread was an anomaly.

 

[Angus Cameron]

Not for me but a lot of people dont like images from wildlife parks, I personally have thousands of shots, look at zoo thread here Angus

Ah ok, thanks for explaining. I'll have a look at the Zoo thread.

 

[spudhead]

If I shoot animals it's either going to be pets, backyard birds, or in a zoo. The recent owl/deer thread was an anomaly.

Conservation parks play have played a part for years in saving animals and allowing people to see animals not normally seen by most in the wild, but on this forum we call it captive animals

 

[spudhead]

Ah ok, thanks for explaining. I'll have a look at the Zoo thread.

It is captive animals here I think Angus

 

[Landshark99]

As I have said in the past, I was a professional photographer for over 40 years, mainly shoot ads and publicity images for the entertainment industry( magazine coves, posters, outdoor billboards, online ads). This meant shooting lots of people mostly actors. Before this I wanted to be a street photographer, and have done that still including now. I like to shoot travel, landscapes, objects, nature and street, not so much portraits anymore. I have great respect for wildlife photography and at times take some images but do not have the desire to really spend the time taking them.

 

[DaveC Oz]

For many years my photography was family photo's, and was what I did instead of buying memento's. For several years, I crewed on ships, and photography was a way to preserve my travel memories, and to share them with friends and family. I have always enjoyed getting out in nature, and have been inspired by several brilliant, and very dedicated photographers. My photographic genre's tend to be many and varied. Landscapes/Seascapes are always in the mix, as are pets and family. I have ended up taking many, many more photo's of horse events than I normally would have, but that's what happens when your wife is deeply into horse riding. Lately, I have been trying to shoot astro-landscapes. It's a genre that I've admired photo's of for some time, but haven't really done much of until recently. I'm enjoying the combination of time spent quietly alone in nature, especially in places that are often fairly busy in daylight. The challenges to my skills, of often extreme low light, both in capturing and post. I also dabble in what I would label, opportunistic wildlife/bird photography, the camera comes with me on my travels and if I get the chance, I'll try for photo's of whatever I encounter.

 

[Ian S]

For a long time, other than the normal snapshot, I would only shoot underwater. This pretty much informed my decisions relating to gear. It suddenly dawned on me that my camera was spending most of the time in a cupboard (maybe only 1 or 2 dive trips a year). I have enjoyed branching out and I've now retired so have more time. I like faces so feel I would like to try street photography however not sure if I have the confidence to approach strangers yet. As attend a lot of music venues and I enjoy trying to capture images which illustrate the excitement of the performance. I'm also drawn to black and white images, I like the contrast between light and dark they bring.

 

[iain clyne]

I started doing general photography taking anything that caught my eye. I was 13 when I got into photography. I went form there into sports photography and that lead to me going pro and doing sports, press and a bit of wildlife. Now I do wildlife and a bit of sport.

 

[Uncle Kevriano]

When I started out, it was a mixture of landscape and zoo photography, because there wasn't the gear suited to true wildlife photography, or certainly not in budget anyway, big lenses were very expensive because big zooms didn't exist. Over the years I have moved on to wildlife more than anything else, which clearly is no surprise given my content here. I have dabbled in other things, racing cars etc, but have always returned to my favourite subject. Sports has never interested me.
I still like landscape though and have my 24mm with me whenever we are out, and I also enjoy Macro, but at the moment it's too much of a challenge as I can't kneel or bend low enough to be doing it out in the field. I do use it for mothing though.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

I guess I used to travel more, see more, and photograph more and different things. Now I seem to have settled into a niche, and become somewhat blind to the very photogenic ordinary things and people all around me.

I do like photographing people. I'd love to do street photography, but I'm in the too-shy club on this one. I live in a place where I am usually the only person with my skin colour in sight. Usually, I forget this, even if others don't, but if I went out there with my camera, I'd feel like a tourist and become very very self conscious. Well, my problem, and maybe I should just get over it!

So I'm sticking with my captive people . I have 98% been photographing Southern-Indian-Classical music concerts for the past five or seven years. Sometimes I feel like I take the same six or seven pictures thousands of times. But I don't: it's different every time. My wife asked me, "Some of these people you must have photographed a dozen times, do they still want more pics?" Well, they seem to!

 

[Brownie]

Sometimes I feel like I take the same six or seven pictures thousands of times. But I don't: it's different every time. My wife asked me, "Some of these people you must have photographed a dozen times, do they still want more pics?" Well, they seem to!

THIS ^^^

Same thing with racing. I probably have the same shot of the same car multiple times, yet they still want to see them. I had over a quarter million hits on my racing Flickr page from April thru January, 99.9% generated from fans and drivers/owners. I just sold two digital image files yesterday of a car I've photographed several times. One of the biggest challenges is finding something new, a different angle, a different view.

 

[Clix Pix]

I seem to go from one extreme to the other: closeups/macros on one hand and shots of wildlife with a long lens on the other hand (but again the aim is to get close to the subject, by zooming in as much as possible) and then at times also doing some judicious cropping on order to present him or her fairly close up in the final edited image......

With a macro lens on the camera I like to spend some time playing around, exploring the subject as closely as possible and discovering an interesting perspective on it. While most of the macro subjects don't move (I'm not big on shooting live insects and such), with shooting wildlife, especially birds in the water or on land, there are more challenges. They just won't hold stlll and pose nicely for me in the ways I would prefer! Sometimes I really luck out anyway, other times not so much.

I do shoot other subjects in other styles and genres, but really, the two that I've mentioned are where the camera and I seem to spend most of my time.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

With a macro lens on the camera I like to spend some time playing around, exploring the subject as closely as possible and discovering an interesting perspective on it.

I was watching a video the other day, about being able to see it before being able to photograph it, along with being able to get amazing pics in one's own garden or street. I really admire your ability to see into the small worlds and get something different and amazing.

 

[FowlersFreeTime]

I'm don't think I've found my niche, but I got into photography to take snapshots of friends & family, and interesting things on vacation. I post more commentary than photos on this site because you all inspire me, and actually have inspired me to try a few genres normally out of my comfort zone (like birds and macro). Cheers all.

 

[Jeff A]

For the sake of brevity, I'll say that I have been involved in photography for only 3 years. When I first started, some would ask me, "What kind of photography are you interested in?" and I just could not answer that question. Now, after 3 years, I'm finally formulating an answer. First of all, a good portion of what I shoot is a reflection of my interests. Aviation, of course, would be at the top of the list, because I am a retired Corporate pilot. I never have "gotten over" aircraft. Custom cars, performance cars would be right up there as well, as would motorcycle racing. I now have almost zero opportunity to photograph motorcycle road racing, so that is pretty much a dead issue. So, my personal interests are a good portion are what I shoot.

Beyond that, for the sake of photography itself, the first time I did a night shoot, I had a great time and love to see the night shots. I'm hoping to find new ways to accomplish this. My other desire is Landscape. My photography "Career" started in the era dominated by Covid and now I'm dealing with other health issues myself. To accomplish my goals, I need to get my ass out of this house and spend more time behind the camera. I'm working on it!

 

[evacguy]

I’ve been into photography for about two years now, got my A7iv with G 50 mm f2.8 lens in March 2022, and my GM 70-200mm f2.8 a few months later. I originally bought this kit to get back into astrophotography, which I started as a kid some 50 years ago (in the days of Kodak Tri-X and push processing) and pursued it through to a PhD in Astrophysics 40 years ago. Then my life took a turn, and I moved away from astrophysics.

Fast forward 38 years and I wanted to venture back into deep sky astrophotography, and started my journey with the Sony kit, as I also thought it would be fun to try my hand at terrestrial photography. The plan was I would start with some ‘simple’ astro, taking repeated short exposures and stacking in post and then graduate to longer duration repeat exposures using a tracker, telescope, dedicated astro-camera and specialist post processing software. I’m still on the first part of the astrophotography journey as life got in the way (again), but I discovered I also loved terrestrial photography – all of it.

I love all types of photography I’ve tried, landscape, architecture, wildlife, pets, flora, street, macro, cars, aircraft, food and drink, portraits, travel, night, and Black and White. I still consider myself a beginner though, I’m still even learning how to use my camera! I find all forms of photography I’ve tried interesting, challenging and enjoyable, and I also enjoy the post-processing, although still a lot to learn there to.

One of the things I love about photography is that it makes me look at the world differently, not through the eyes of a scientist or engineer, and I discover things that I never noticed before. There is a huge learning curve to work through though (which I enjoy) and I’m still in the foothills of this art (or is it science). One area I’d like to try is shooting a model, both indoors and outdoors, lots of interesting stuff to learn with that, including lighting. I'm also interested in trying video, but need to get a little more proficient at photography first.

 

[Ian S]

When I started out, it was a mixture of landscape and zoo photography, because there wasn't the gear suited to true wildlife photography, or certainly not in budget anyway, big lenses were very expensive because big zooms didn't exist. Over the years I have moved on to wildlife more than anything else, which clearly is no surprise given my content here. I have dabbled in other things, racing cars etc, but have always returned to my favourite subject. Sports has never interested me.
I still like landscape though and have my 24mm with me whenever we are out, and I also enjoy Macro, but at the moment it's too much of a challenge as I can't kneel or bend low enough to be doing it out in the field. I do use it for mothing though.

Im with you on the bending and kneeling situation it's not so much getting down it's the getting back up.

 

[Brownie]

Im with you on the bending and kneeling situation it's not so much getting down it's the getting back up.

This is why flippy screens are so nice. I can get on with about any screen, but find flippies more useful for low and high. It's about the only time I'll use a screen. No need to get on your belly!


DSC04336 by Shotglass Photo, on Flickr

 

[spudhead]

This is why flippy screens are so nice. I can get on with about any screen, but find flippies more useful for low and high. It's about the only time I'll use a screen. No need to get on your belly!


DSC04336 by Shotglass Photo, on Flickr

looks like a stupid reason to need to kneel down this truck don`t get to lets ruin my truck, car thing really

 

[evacguy]

This is why flippy screens are so nice. I can get on with about any screen, but find flippies more useful for low and high. It's about the only time I'll use a screen. No need to get on your belly!


DSC04336 by Shotglass Photo, on Flickr

I find the it difficult to use the flippy screen when the 70-200mm is fitted on my camera for really low shots (high is OK), only kneeling really works. No problems with the 50mm though in that attitude.