TP: Your greatest regret in photography - the one

keith_h: thanks for the suggestion.. i know it, i know what has to be done. But getting to do it is another story and this is where i fail:) lol..

Edited by Turerkan - 27 May 2007 at 20:13

CTYankee wrote: Regrets ... I've had a few ... but then again, too few to mention ;) OK, I'll mention them anyway ! Lots of time wasted pursuing photography without a clue as to what I was doing good, bad or indifferent (the pre-internet years !) Using a Maxxum 7xi that I never bothered taking out of P mode because the interface was awful, using cheap Sigma zooms and cheap filters. Waiting for the price of the 7D to drop instead of buying one the day it came out ! Buying too much stuff in anticipation of one day needing it (and then never needing it) ... I used to do this with other hobbies as well and have since learned not to buy things until I actually do have a need for them ! Mostly, not having enough time in a week :) It seems that I squandered a lot of my time when I had it (even if I was shooting, I didn't know what I was doing) and now that I feel competent to go out and bring home shots I'd be proud of, I don't have a spare minute and instead shoot kids at birthday parties & picnics ! At 40, I'd happily spend my weekend days walking/driving around shooting anything & everything, but instead spend them with family and/or doing yard/house work. (Which is good in and of itself, don't get me wrong !)

My "failings" if I can call them that, mirrors your experiences in many similar ways. However, after reviewing your gallery, those "lost" years were not wasted, as nor were mine. Sure, you stagnated for many years with print film, but you you were learning all along. You developed over those years a good eye for an image capture and interesting compositions which is much more important than technical savvy. I suspect that when the digital age finally reached you, it freed you and allowed you to blossom with the new medium and it certainly shows in your gallery.

hocking that spotmatic that my father gave me many years ago, he nearly killed me when he found out.... <G>

wayne

I probably missed a good number of memories of the kids in the last few years before I got my 5D. I used to get so frustrated with film as the feedback wasn't fast enough to help and it was so laborious to get processing and printing done, not to mention the $$$$$. So my 7000i did some serious closet time for awhile.

I just wished I had bought the 600 f/4 before I got married, LOL!!

rjmccutchan wrote: ROTFLMAO!

Haha.
Sometimes I just cant understand you, professional abreviation fellows.

Not sure I have many regrets in life. Got to get things wrong sometime to learn. But for sure, in hindsight, knowing what I know and having done what I've done ... I would have made some different choices perhaps.

Photo:
Not taking a year off to go travelling. I had a chance to do this between jobs back in year 2000. I had the cash for a 1-2 year cheap travel period. Why didn't I do it. Photography was the reason I didn't do it. And it was the reason I wanted to do it. I blame FILM! That was the one thing that stopped me. What the hell was I going to do with my films, I shot pro slide film at the time. Where was I going to get new ones, how could I store them, where for developeing, where would I store them, how would I edit them, what would I do with them. Today is different. We have digital. And its doable now. And also something I am considering doing in a few years time. dSLR, 1-2 small prime lenses, laptop, DVD burner, CF cards, and a buddy in the UK to send DVDs to for off-site archive.

So, regret? Yeah, sort of - but it wasn't possible. Sure National Geographic can do it back in the film days, but they have support teams and staff to edit the images! Now, its possible. And has been on my list of things to have a darn good think about for about 6 months already.

Photo:
not being a dawn shooter. I've been a wildlife photographer for 20 years, almost to the day. 19 years, 11 months I guess. I started in the summer of 1987. But In all those year, I think I could count my wildlife dawn shoots on two hands? Just about. But in the more regular photo shooting times, I think 2004-2005 I was shooting dust up to 5-6 evenings a week in the May/Jun/Jul/Aug. And almost always at least 3x a week.

Again, not so much a regret, I'm proud of my images (need to get some on-line, but that is coming soon). I am in the process now, of moving to a dawn shoot idea. Next week is my trial. So, not a regret, but I think it could be better in dawn light? Dusk is easy, I can do it every day if I want to. Dawn, well, have to go to work in the morning!

Photo:
Yep, I'm with the 22club. Not getting out and shooting as much. have times when I'm not in the mood to shoot for a few days, then you get out with a camera and just see stuff to shoot.

Photo:
Taking photos of crap things. This one I've learnt from. If I go out to a new place to shoot, I sort of feel obliged to shoot something. Most of the time, there is something interesting to see and shoot. but sometimes if the light or location isn't up to it, er, I shoot some stuff anyway. Well, I used to. Now, I'll happily leave the camera in the bag and not shoot. If its crap, don't shoot it.

Kit:
no regrets, not even a tiny one.

Epsom:
they should regret making the bessa digital a L2000 camera. In a time when the Bessa film camera was about L300. If the digital was L600-700 then they would have sold one to me. So, they can have that regret.

Life:
Spending too much time with my ex-bird. Some of it was fun, but we ate and drank and did other things far too much. It killed my photo time. She was a bit peed off when I chose my photography instead of her. But I don't regret the decision. My photography is much better, so too is my waist line and liver.