Hi, Just wondering how do you guys keep yourself motivated in photography? The struggle is real though. Like, as for me . The real struggle was processing the photo's . After a half day of street photography, Got home and just lazy to edit the photo's. So basically, the photo you took looks uninteresting. The fun part was taking photo.
Motivation
- Thread starter Nor Mathias
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this is not just about photography, is the way how you live your life.
it is not about motivation.
you just need to make it a habit.
in life, we do many things on autopilot, do you notice that?
So, is brushing your teeth fun? putting on cloths interesting? feel excited going to work? if it is not, why you do it everyday?
if doing everything need some forms of motivation, you will just lie on the bed, and refuse to get up every morning.
and FYI, to cultivate a new habit, you need some self discipline to keep it sticks for at least 21 days.
it is not about motivation.
you just need to make it a habit.
in life, we do many things on autopilot, do you notice that?
So, is brushing your teeth fun? putting on cloths interesting? feel excited going to work? if it is not, why you do it everyday?
if doing everything need some forms of motivation, you will just lie on the bed, and refuse to get up every morning.
and FYI, to cultivate a new habit, you need some self discipline to keep it sticks for at least 21 days.
if life is too complicated.
you can just format the memory card after the outing. problem solved.
you can just format the memory card after the outing. problem solved.
Haha! Love the line!
Post-processing can be fun too. Search up and learn about new techniques of post processing and experiment!
thank you.
if you do a search on "will power", "motivation" and "habits" you will able to find many interesting info.
in short, to cultivate a new habit, is to tag along another existing habit, using it as a trigger, for an instant, if every time you come back from outing, just leave the bag aside than forget about it.
than the first habit you need to cultivate is to keep all your gears first before doing anything else, do this until it sticks.
the second habit to form is download the images right after the outing,
third habit is to prune the images as soon as possible, best is on the same day.
once these became habits, you won't feel boring, need any reminder or need to drag yourself to do these every time.
if you do a search on "will power", "motivation" and "habits" you will able to find many interesting info.
in short, to cultivate a new habit, is to tag along another existing habit, using it as a trigger, for an instant, if every time you come back from outing, just leave the bag aside than forget about it.
than the first habit you need to cultivate is to keep all your gears first before doing anything else, do this until it sticks.
the second habit to form is download the images right after the outing,
third habit is to prune the images as soon as possible, best is on the same day.
once these became habits, you won't feel boring, need any reminder or need to drag yourself to do these every time.
Reminds me of this haha:
Post processing is boring 99.9% of the time esp if you are a sucker for details. 1 landscape photo alone can take about 4-8 hours for me. But practise makes perfect and prepares you for the grand one (hopefully eventually).
One way for me is to engage in personal projects. for example in street photography, I engage in specific titles like
"Street - Cats" = only shoot stray cats
"Street - backstreets" = only backstreets
"Street - rusty" = only rusty stuff, etc, etc
another way is adding handicaps like :
Color failure : Only B/W allowed
Memory failure : Only 1Mb of pictures allowed, no raw only jpeg allowed
White Balance failure : e.x. Only Tungsten allowed
ISO failure : maximum ISO 400 allowed
Shutter failure : say only 36 shoots allowed before no shoot for the day.
Screen failure : no playback during shooting until you are back at home (usually coupled with other handicaps)
currently I am doing color failure and the challenge is making me scratch my head....
For amateur like me, participating in an event or having something interesting to shoot motivates me. naturally, when I get home, I will try to quickly download and open the files. Why? I would love to see the result of my hard work.
What is lacking here more outings and sharing of the photographs taken. This was not the case when I first joined CS some 5 years ago. What is still quite active is the sale section. As an amateur, PP is not something important to me. I would very happy if I could just use what I shoot direct from my camera. Maybe as a pro, then I may have to work on PP.
What is lacking here more outings and sharing of the photographs taken. This was not the case when I first joined CS some 5 years ago. What is still quite active is the sale section. As an amateur, PP is not something important to me. I would very happy if I could just use what I shoot direct from my camera. Maybe as a pro, then I may have to work on PP.
My passion or motivation for photography is when I back from oversea trip, I got nice result from my efforts. Like recent trip at uae, I firstly enjoy self driving plus it's on other side of the road and can have speed up to 140km/h.
Secondly, you saw things that hardly appears down here. When you are there, it's like a different world.
Btw, I more into time lapse, so, you can get unexpected outcome if you just snap and go. An example would be having display on the sail building and when view in time lapse, if lucky enough, can have nemo display.
As I travel solo, after months of planning, I got the results which I wanted. There are sure some issues with the local as I been classified as a professional due to tripod n dslr. But that's life, learn the hard way n next trip might be easier.
One most important thing, photo are for memories. I hardly go for event as everyone taking same thing. I rather find my own type of passion, like walking around for interesting happening.
Editing could be fun, you could learn more every time you run those editing programs. Learn from YouTube on how other do those effects, you might need it one day.
Carry on taking photos, cause you already spend $ on it. Cheers!
Secondly, you saw things that hardly appears down here. When you are there, it's like a different world.
Btw, I more into time lapse, so, you can get unexpected outcome if you just snap and go. An example would be having display on the sail building and when view in time lapse, if lucky enough, can have nemo display.
As I travel solo, after months of planning, I got the results which I wanted. There are sure some issues with the local as I been classified as a professional due to tripod n dslr. But that's life, learn the hard way n next trip might be easier.
One most important thing, photo are for memories. I hardly go for event as everyone taking same thing. I rather find my own type of passion, like walking around for interesting happening.
Editing could be fun, you could learn more every time you run those editing programs. Learn from YouTube on how other do those effects, you might need it one day.
Carry on taking photos, cause you already spend $ on it. Cheers!
1. Shoot JPG only and don't process picts
2. Find like minded kakis to 'one up' each other
3. Post more photos here to get motivation
4. Buck up yourself on how you want to move up in the hobby
2. Find like minded kakis to 'one up' each other
3. Post more photos here to get motivation
4. Buck up yourself on how you want to move up in the hobby
Learn new skills, explore new subjects, go to new places, read more books.
If your photos look uninteresting - there are many possible reasons, perhaps:
- composition is poor?
- choice of subject?
- wrong lighting?
- many many more possibilities.
Several responses seen are around choice of subject - if HDB is boring to you, go to town. If town is boring to you, go out of town. If things on land is uninteresting, take up scuba diving. If shooting woman is not fun, shoot kids, or find old persons, explore lighting to flatter skin tones on women, or to accentuate texture to reflect the path of the older persons.
But nothing will look interesting if one hasn't learned the basics of composition, lighting, aperture control, shutter speed control, perspective, bokeh, rendering, etc, and the list goes on. For what it's worth, I started shooting in 1978... and still learning...
Go to library and look up books on photography, and photography subject. Do you like shooting pretty women? Architecture? Landscape? Sports? Flowers? (or heaven forbids - big money lenses, camera and camera support system) Birds? Fish? Tokyo? Seoul? Iceland? Malaysia?
Or the final thing may be, photography is not for you.
If your photos look uninteresting - there are many possible reasons, perhaps:
- composition is poor?
- choice of subject?
- wrong lighting?
- many many more possibilities.
Several responses seen are around choice of subject - if HDB is boring to you, go to town. If town is boring to you, go out of town. If things on land is uninteresting, take up scuba diving. If shooting woman is not fun, shoot kids, or find old persons, explore lighting to flatter skin tones on women, or to accentuate texture to reflect the path of the older persons.
But nothing will look interesting if one hasn't learned the basics of composition, lighting, aperture control, shutter speed control, perspective, bokeh, rendering, etc, and the list goes on. For what it's worth, I started shooting in 1978... and still learning...
Go to library and look up books on photography, and photography subject. Do you like shooting pretty women? Architecture? Landscape? Sports? Flowers? (or heaven forbids - big money lenses, camera and camera support system) Birds? Fish? Tokyo? Seoul? Iceland? Malaysia?
Or the final thing may be, photography is not for you.
If something requires motivation to do and feels like a chore, it is 'work' and not a hobby.
Spending a long time in post processing to get the image just right and getting the kick out of doing so is the motivation. Once it begins to feel like a burden (oh no, got to do it and stare at the screen and making all those adjustments) then it becomes work and is only 'worth it' if there is a monetary reward at the end.
If you still like to take photographs, then follow the suggestions to just take jpgs and make do without post processing. Focus on composition and story telling. This is perfectly alright and don't let anyone say that this is not photography.
Spending a long time in post processing to get the image just right and getting the kick out of doing so is the motivation. Once it begins to feel like a burden (oh no, got to do it and stare at the screen and making all those adjustments) then it becomes work and is only 'worth it' if there is a monetary reward at the end.
If you still like to take photographs, then follow the suggestions to just take jpgs and make do without post processing. Focus on composition and story telling. This is perfectly alright and don't let anyone say that this is not photography.
Just bring ur camera with you all the time. You will be motivated to take photos once you are presented with opportunities. Another way is to explore the places where you seldom visit, I am sure this will keep motivate you to go out and shoot.
There are plenty of websites with plenty of ongoing photo contest. Prizes are only small but there are constantly different contest so you can go on and choose a contest and shoot for it. most of the time I use Photocrowd.com which has a rating system so you can see how you did as well and also see how people shoot
Really glad to see everyone has their own way to keep the photographiy spirit alive especially when everyone is working at the same time trying to craft a beauiful masterpiece
