Yes, it's sad but true... I've lost my motivation to take photos. After moving from a much smaller town to back home in a larger city, I've found it difficult to find subjects of interest as I'm not really used to shooting in the urban landscape.

Does anyone have any ideas for urban photography that might be a muse for me? Little projects or itmes of interest to look for would be a great help!

yes Matt, I do. stop looking at the city as a city. break it up and strip it down. textures. patterns. shapes.
when you go to a rose bush, do you have to photograph the whole bush,or do you focus on one rose? take a look at my gallery, if you will. you'll find some examples of what i mean. feel free to PM me or email me to continue this any further.

I'm in the same sinking boat. Moving from a rainforest to trees I can hurdle. I need some prairie inspiration please:-)

buy yourself that 5D and take some bitchin' sharp pictures of small plants instead - go on you know you want to :-)

Rob is correct though - it shouldnt really matter what environment you are in - there will always be subjects that draw the attention. unless, like me, your having a bit of an apathy attack in which case you'd be better taking a step back for a while.

Another E.T. link: Stranger a Day....sounds like fun. Perfect for cities.

Have you tried fake looking HDR cityscapes?

have you ran to the middle of a crosswalk, set your camera on the ground, set the shutter speed for 30 seconds and wait for the cars to miss it? I dont advise doing this.

Or, get into B&W film photography? :) Most of the fun is just making the print (so my dad has brainwashed me to believe...rather sucessful if you ask me).

How about the people on the back streets? Or would that invite unwanted attention? I used to just wait in a quiet place and snap the unusual.

*´¨ )
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(¸.·´ (¸.·´ .·´
(´¸.·*´~`*·>The Art of Seeing

nice squiggly line

You make a good point Rob, to stop looking at the city as a city and to break it down into the basics. It seems as though I look for inspiring things but don't see anything (at least around my house anyway). I'll give what you suggested a try tomorrow (I still have a week before I start work to play around :D)

Haha, Phil I wish I had the $$$ for a 5D, but I think my problem is more apathy as you suggest or just not being able to see items of interest (perhaps that's a function of apathy as well).

Noah, I'm not too sure what you mean by HDR cityscapes, care to elaborate?

Kate, not too sure if I'm adventurous enough to go into the back streets with my camera, some of them are kinda sketchy. But I'll be working downtown now, so perhaps lunchtime will enable me to go exploring a bit :)

Thanks for the pdf link Keifer, gave it a quick glance and it looks like it'll be a good bedtime read :)


Thanks so much the comments and ideas everybody! I really do appreciate your help :)

sketchy streets? in canada?!? *gasp* no wayyyyy... where are you moving to "south central canada? ;-)

lol, I'm just sayin' some of the people I've seen while downtown are a little more on the sketchy side (not to say they'd actually do anything to me :) ).

south central Canada? Saskatchewan?

Haha, no no I'm in Alberta

Elaborating: Elaborated. *giggles*

HDR --> Basically take 2 or more pics and combine them to produce a higher dynamic range.

Haha, thanks for the link :) there's some nice photo's on there...

Although I didn't find an actual definition of HDR (but I get what you mean). I found this handy page of wikipedia that describes HDRI as High Dynamice Range Imaging (for those who were also wondering what it was).

HDR for dummies: take all the best bits from a dark exposure and all the best bits from a light exposure put them together and get an image with a mass of detail but a slightly flat contrast. ta-dah.

thank you Dr. Phil
signed,
a dummy:P

An example.

I believe photoshop CS2 can do HDR. You could also try this (scared me away when it asked for my home address). Photomatix is another one...it's not free though (well unless you like watermarks ontop of your image).

PS: Are you interested in photography again? =P

HDR is kinda interesting, but not too sure if it's for me. I don't really like altering a photo that much unless it's absolutely necessary. But I am going to make my way down to an old used photo equipment shop where I used to get my B&W stuff from to see what there is to see there. But along the way I plan to take some photos as it's in a slightly sketchy part of downtown.

I never really lost interest in photography itself, rather my surroundings as a subject. But with you're guys & gals help, that's been some what restored :)

Hopefully later tonight there'll be something new of mine put up from today's escapades!

ok ... let's cut to the chase .. upload NEW photos .. or .. change your name to

the member formerly known as CPG

if you want some city insperation, you might try looking through some of the shots on Daily Dose of Imagery. Its a daily photoblog done by a dude that resides in Toronto. While he does travel a bit most of his shots come from around Toronto. Lately he has been posting lots of stuff from his trip across the pond, as i think he said it is cold in toronto right now or something, so go back aways.

Hahaha, too funny Keifer... OK, OK, I caved and posted something from today's adventure!

Check out Lampy In The Sky With Diamonds and tell me what you think!

ooops, forgot to thank you Milo for the link! My bad! There's some really interesting shots on that site. I think I'm going to have to check back regularly to see the new ones he puts up!

Posted a couple more from the photo expedition... if you want to take a look and tell me what you think!

Bricka Bricka

Famous Five

I've been dealing with artistic apathy for a while, myself. My 60-mile commute through the swamplands of south Louisiana has come to an end, and I now ride a scooter 15 minutes to work. There's no room for my camera gear anymore, so unless I make a dedicated photography expedition I usually don't have my camera with me when the scenes present themselves. Also the post-Katrina landscape of my city leaves much to be desired. I've seen all the devastation that I can handle, and that's most of what there is here in New Orleans.

I think the most-missing photos here are people. I have grown slightly wary of taking candid people shots, since UK laws are verging on the insane as far as photographing people is concerned! Still, if you are able to - it gives others a real sense of your people, in their own environments - and I for one, would like to see more of this. Hermanlam's Far East shots have been very interesting, for example - but I can't remember when I last saw any UK or USA - or Canadian people shown here?? How about going down that route?

I know for myself that I'm not too interested (usually) in wall papers that have people in them, thus I don't post any with people in them even though I take alot of candids. Although, I guess I'm a little wary of Canadian FOIP laws as well as being courteous to my friends. But I do appreciate photos with people in them (either candid or portraits).

That's too bad about your commute time being changed Regmar. I feel kind of in a similar boat, as my mode of transportation to and from work doesn't allow me to bring my camera with me. Perhaps a regular photo expedition will have to be scheduled so that I can get some shots taken.

Have you heard of the person who takes photos of ppl sleeping on the bus (or in the city)? =P

Wow. What a great idea - photograping bus sleepers. I wonder how well that would work if the subject awakened and saw me looming over him with a tripod and camera. The shots would be really cool though, wouldn't they?

yeah...u reminded me..*hmm it's a little shady in here...let's use a flash* lol...

gotta time it right so that if the flash wakes them it's at a stop so that you can take off out the door!

the problem with people shots is that this site is dedicated to backgrounds and unless it's my family, I don't really want someone else (that I don't know) on my screen staring at me. I don't think people pics do well on this site for that reason.