Sekkle
Talk about your inspirations and influences.
Everything I do is 100% original and born of my own thoughts. Just kidding. I don't know too many specific photographers outside of SSP... Just whatever I can pick up at the library... Michael Eastman has a really cool book that I enjoyed looking at called
Vanishing America. I also like Zoe Strauss's book America though it's a little grittier than anything I do. I like looking at photojournalism, especially of war-torn or impoverished areas because of the emotion involved, but I can't name a specific photojournalist I like.
As far as photographers on SSP, several come to mind - I'll mention a few individually...
Kilgore Trout - I remember seeing the KTEU (or something like that) series he did in Europe a couple years ago before I was really into photography and I thought it was awesome how he captured more than just buildings, but also got so much of the city life in there.
HomeInMyShoes - The composition and color in his photos is among the best, if not the best on this site (in my opinion)... I also really like how he composes the photothreads themselves (borders, multiple pics on a line, etc). I tried something similar once or twice, but it's a lot of work getting everything to line up, so now I just throw a border on there and I'm done.
olga - excellent attention to composition, another candidate for best on SSP in that regard (again, in my opinion), though I haven't seen her around here in quite a while.
giallo - a master of night shots & urban scenes in general. If I'm ever half as good as this guy I'll be able to retire.
and
KingoftheHill for people shots - I sometimes get tired of doing streetshots/candid photos myself, but that guy is really a master at it.
There are lots more. I was going to just list people, but I kept thinking of more and didn't want to leave anyone out.
Thanks,
flar for giving me the opportunity to do this - he's definitely one of my favorite photographers on here - every thread of his is filled with solid photography.
Where have you not been that you want to photograph?
Tons of places, mostly overseas... Belfast and Glasgow would probably be my top two, followed closely by industrial cities in England, anywhere in Ireland, Scandinavian countries, Eastern Europe, India, southeast Asia, Africa, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. I've got a wife and son now, though, so travelling is more difficult than it might have been a few years ago. I'd also like to go back to a few places I've been but not since before I had a camera - Montreal, London, Rome, Baltimore, Philly, Boston.
Talk about your most popular (in your opinion) photothreads.
I've had a few that seem to have gone over pretty well. I don't know what I could say about any individual one... they're all pretty much the same, just different photos. Maybe you can tell the difference between a
recent one and
one from a year ago in terms of technical ability, or maybe not, I'm not sure. Actually, I was surprised that
the Utica one I did got as many replies as it did because it was not technically impressive at all, but then again most of the comments were probably about the city itself and not about the quality of the photos, which makes sense. I was also surprised that the "Portland Neighborhood Tour" series I did with my old point & shoot back in 07 and 08 was relatively well-received.
Talk about your photothreads that didn't get the response you wanted.
I am pretty happy with the responses I've gotten on pretty much all my photothreads. Thanks for the love SSP! I guess the
last two threads I've done have gotten fewer replies than some others I've done, but they're still relatively new, especially the one I posted last week - jury's still out on that one. And if I don't get anymore responses on either one I won't be disappointed.
And like I wrote in a "disclaimer" before one of my photothreads, I take lots of photos of scenes that many would consider ugly, and sometimes I get comments like "wow, looks like everything is covered in graffiti." I guess I should expect that, because not everyone wants to look at those types of scenes (understandably). So comments like those are not necessarily the response I want, but I do understand them.
Any tips or personal wisdom you'd like to pass on to others?
I feel a little weird giving out photography tips since I've only been doing this as a hobby for just under 2 years... I guess I'd say that shooting in RAW if you have the option is a good idea because you have a lot more control over the photo in post processing. And I always try to pay attention to composition... I have had many photos where I cut off a guy's feet or the top of a house or something and it always pisses me off that, if I had just thought about it for a couple seconds it could have been a better photo.
Who should we ask these questions of next?
Tough choice... I haven't had any interaction with the guy except for leaving him comments in his photothreads, but I'd like to hear from mr.John. I'm always impressed by the photos I see from him.