Frustration

hey warrior. you live in columbus and have nothing to shoot? bah!

my suggestion, and i only say this because i have been there before- stop looking for *the* shot. step back from it a bit and begin really takign in what is around you. cities are wonderful because they are always changing. not the buildings and monuments, but the other stuff- the people, the garbage, the shadows...shoot it all. the mundane can be beautiful.

you say that you need help with composition- go somewhere busy..anywhere with many textures, colors, angles..and just shoot. play with it. personally, my best images come after i think i got it.

i feel your pain, as probably most can, but the only way to get through the block is to shoot. shoot differently than you ever have- regardless of what you feel the outcome will be. the outcome isn't important. just shoot. you will see.

just my 2 cents.

Freeman Patterson's "Photography and the Art of Seeing" and "Photographing the World Around You"

He suggest several exercises you might enjoy.

My brother does this thing where he'll go out and only shoot things that are round. Or things that are yellow. Or things made of metal. Or things that are flat.

He gets some amazing shots doing that, and it forces him to really look and try to see things he may otherwise have missed...

I have to say, I am very impressed that you have seen every square foot of Columbus (210 sq miles) at every hour of the day and in every season. That is quite an accomplishment.

But seriously, it's too easy to assume that there are better subjects in places you haven't been. A lot of that comes from the fact that the new scenes are being seen with "new eyes". That is to say that you have no pre-conceived viewpoint or assumptions about things when you have never seen them before from any angle or at any time of the day. You examing them and walk around them, and explore them as a new discovery.
If you walked the same alley from North to South at daybreak every day, you'd see a few new things each time, and the variables like other people and various trash and such would change, but the lighting, shadows on the buildings, refelctions, etc. would all be similar day after day. If you did the same walk at the same time of day from South to North, you'd see entirely different lighting effects and backgrounds. If you then did it at late evening as well, you have four very different sets of conditions and view points for one block of alleyway. Multiply that by the number of seasons you have there, and you see what happens. "See" in B&W one day and then in color another. Take a wide angle one day and just a telephoto another. Pretty soon, those 210 sq miles represent tens of thousands of opportunities to see something eye-catching and to capture it in a photo. If you got a killer shot once a month, you'd probably be doing better than most of us.

I know how you feel - dont find anything special to lug my gear and shoot aroune me. I suggested this about Hong Kong - no airshows, no watersports, no vintage car rallies (ok, there was probably one I missed) etc ......and almost got beaten up

At some level, its about being able to drag yourself out to shoot without a specific idea - you can solve it either by just dragging yourself out and shooting anything or developing some specific ideas.

I am trying the first option this weekend, just getting out and walking around for 2-3 hrs trying to find 'stuff'.

Two things you can do to keep your interest levels high - buy stuff (forces you to use the investments ) or read more books/forums.

yea i think i definately need to get a couple books just to learn some basic technique. thanks for the help. it is making me start to think

LOL that reminds me of the "red light game" a friend and I play - if we're driving around to or from a shoot, any time we get stopped at a red light we have to take a picture. It's quite funny. We get some strange looks from other drivers But yeah, goofing around and having fun quite often produces interesting results.

Well, being from Ohio, I suggest that you stop looking for mountains?

Everywhere I go, I see things to shoot. Go visit a relative who lives a few hours away & leave the cam with them. Pretty soon you'll start seeing things to shoot & you'll wish that you still had it?
Or you could limit yourself in other ways. Years ago when I was typically shooting 40-60 rolls of 36 a day, I went to the zoo on the weekend with 1 roll of 20exp Tri-X & a long lens. It made me visualize & predict what might happen for each shot, but I still had to decide fast to shoot or not when/if something happened.
Try taking only a 128MB CF card & shooting RAW. See if that challenges you enough to make photography interesting again?

The best advice I can give is look up. All the time, look up. You spend all your time head forwards or head down and you've seen all that before - but just look up and things change a lot. I spend a lot of time wandering around looking up and, err, it can cause problems when you walk into people :-p but seriously it works.

Also, don't go out to "find that perfect shot" always be looking. sometimes I'll walk around my home town (I've lived there on and off 22 years) and I'll notice something I'd never ever seen before. It may sound sad but I usually carry an ixus everywhere with me so I don't miss something - but you can go back with your camera if you find something.

Don't feel down if you go out one day and shoot a few shots and dont feel inspired, it wont always happen. But if you find something you're into - you can use it to restore your passion. I do live music shooting friends bands, mountain bike race weekends. Just combine photography with the other things you love and you've a whole new world of things right there.

And the whole, see things from a different perspective thing? Read some philosophy books, you'll soon get the hang of that way of thinking!

Oh, and don't feel depressed 'cause you wind up deleting a lot of your shots.
I shot some crap this weekend, & probably (for sure) will again.
The thing is, shooting is a process for me. Someone once said that if you have an idea, write it down & that frees up your brain to come up with more. Same for pics. Shoot anything to start. Chimp. Move around. Shoot some more. Chimp some more. As ideas come to you, shoot them. Chimp. Move around. Shoot some more, Etc. I usually "plan" on throwing the first 80% away. It's the process that counts. When you know you have it "in the can", shoot some more. Sometimes it's that last shot that really does it!
With film & a new model, I'd shoot with 2 cams, one empty just to give them time to loosen up.

Try living in Peoria, Illinois! I definitely feel your pain, brother. There is very little to shoot here. You mentioned macro, if you have not shot macros I absolutely recommend it. It is like going to different planet looking at bugs and flowers through a macro lens.

Come winter in Oregon, I sometimes get that feeling, and so I work on some stuff in the studio. For example, I'm going to try a light painting exercise once the rains start here again.

In the summer, there's always something to shoot, but I like trying to find new locations and testing the light at various times of the day.

Mark

I think you said it best yourself....just have fun!!

Photograph people - make portraits. Try to capture expressions.

and then get frustrated cos no one will let you photograph them :P Always my problem...