Water Skiing

Can't tell the difference from a field here, but this is a lake and a skier, so it

must be water skiing. This is the first of my "Weakly" Photos. A project that I

am creating for myself to take more photos. Thanks for viewing and I

appreciate comments to help me improve. If you are undertaking similar photo

improvement projects to mine, let me know and I will give my honest opinion

on your photo. John.

John, I've been on a similar project for a while and going about it in a way fruitful to me - by confining targets, beating it to death, then repeating the process until I can squeeze no more from a chosen subject. Although the approach appears limiting, it's rather surprising how techniques learned can be universally applied.

I also set goals, so every outing is purposed to a particular area be it lighting, color, composition, or even how to take pictures of people wearing glasses while avoiding reflections. A typical outing with my Young-Lady project, for example, will yield at least 500 shots from which I spend time examining, reflecting, and planning how I might improve the next session.

This picture (to me) is tricky to take. I can't think of a perfect placement for the skier in the frame, and your shooting position made the top of his head just touch the horizon line making it an awkward view. If this is about the vastness of the landscape, I might have tried climbing higher and framed the lake occupying the bottom 2/3 to give more latitude in skier placement.

Given a choice, if this was your friend, I might have brought him much closer - perhaps with a half-body shot, skiing toward or away from you, with the landscape as a backdrop with sparing use of DoF.

Then again, maybe a B/W of this, as is, might look pretty nice. :-)

Wow Michael you have picked on my "weak" attempt to keep myself photographing on a regular basis. I was dissatisfied with my results and tried to force myself into taking photos and picking the best of what I considered "weak" photos each week.

Since that time I can count on one hand the number of times that I have made a specific attempt to go and capture photos in the right light and with any thought toward improving my technique, though I still love photography.

Setting up shots such as this has never been my forte. This is taken from a lake with no way to gain height advantage unless I wanted to ski in with a ladder on my back. Waiting till the subject was a bit further away would have created a separation from the shoreline as well.

Soon the desire to learn and improve will return and maybe some of these photos will be taken by a photographer again. Erstwhile I appreciate your posts and with all the space available on today's flash drives I always shoot the raw and jpg combination. I use the jpgs with a portable printer that I can put the flash drive into and get 4x6 photos in the field or on location.

John

Like they say, John, success breeds success. My modest achievements in early Young-Lady shots inspired me to work harder, and the self-imposed pressure to please my subject with pretty pictures further increased motivation. Working with people either as subjects or fellow shooters might be the dynamic you're missing - photography can be a lonely venture otherwise.

FIY, my D70 died while shooting my cousin's wedding last month, fortunately it was toward the end and I had brought two spare cameras. Nikon diagnosed it to be a known fault, repaired it for free, and replaced the shutter just for insurance. I always thought my camera had 10,000 cycles on the shutter but Nikon informed me it was 20,000, so now I'm essentially starting again with a new camera. My local Nikon service department also hinted the shutter life to be about 60K cycles.

:) At 500 shots per shoot you have about 3 months of use before it dies :)

I am glad you had back-up. I have film cameras as backup, but it has been a long time since they have seen any use. The digital is just too convenient to use.

Maybe I need a new digital as back up! Now that I think of it a D2X would really get the creative juices flowing again. A couple of new lenses would help too.

I'm glad that Nikon treated you well and that I have not needed their services for my D70.

John