Photography Is Hard!

I'm two months in to my D90 ownership, and I'm totally in love with this camera. What I'm not as excited about, however, are my pictures. I have zero creative vision. I can look at other pictures and go "ohh, that's a nice one", but there are very few of my own that elicit such praise. From me other others (in fact noone else has said that about any of my pictures, but then again only very few of them are online). I suppose I could whore around for comments and faves on flickr, but I'd rather have pictures that I'm really happy with myself, first. Then (if ever) get the recognition of others.

I think one of the reasons for my lack of creativity is this terrible city that I live in. Brussels has got to be the grayest, most boring, least interesting place on earth to live in. Shit, a hole in the ground probably has more things to look at. Don't get me wrong, I have a great life... ...I just wish I was living it elsewhere... =/

Anyway, drop by (flickr) and leave a comment, if you feel one is warranted. Or if you just want to cheer me up ;)

Nikon Owner

I am now a Nikon owner. I have wanted an SLR for a large portion of my life. When I was young, I couldn't afford one. When I got older, I could afford one, but couldn't really justify buying one. I still can't really justify buying one, but I did it anyway, and I love my new camera! It is absolutely wonderful. I bring it everywhere with me now. Ok, maybe not to work or to the grocery store, but pretty much everywhere else. I have created a photostream on flickr, hoping to showcase some of my work, and get some feedback on the pictures I take. Why don't you head on over and take a look?


I purchased a Nikon D90 with an 18-105mm lens. I really love the ergonomics of it. I was considering the d5000 for a while, but the d90 gave me access to more things without having to go through menus, so I decided to spend the extra money. It was totally worth it!

I've been learning a lot, too. I've been all over the net, hoovering up any information I can get my dirty little hands on. In particular, there's this group on flickr called Nikon Digital Learning Center, which has been a fountain of good stuff.

Anyway, I'm very happy taking pictures, and I hope you'll be happy looking at them.

What do you do with the pictures you take?

What do you do with the pictures you take? Say you go on vacation, or attend some event, or just take a walk somewhere and take some pictures. Provided that taking photos isn't actually what you do for a living, in which case I can fully imagine what you do with the pictures you take, what do you do with the pictures you take?
Do you view them often? Do you perform any post processing? Remove some red eyes, do some cropping, maybe enhance some of the colors? Do you keep an account on flickr or any other photo-sharing service? Picasa perhaps? Do you put your images online for the world to see, or do you keep them to yourself? Do you discard bad photographs and only keep the good, and if so, how do you determine what constitutes a "good" photograph?

I recently went on vacation to Portugal and Spain together with my girlfriend. We visited different cities, hung out on the beach, met some friends, and, of course, took some pictures. All in all we took around 450 pictures. Based on the adage that you might get one good picture per roll of 36 images (from the good old days, before the age of the digital camera), that leaves us with only a handful of "good" pictures. Should I keep only these, or transfer only these to a special album, perhaps? If I were to delete the others, I've lost any chance of ever changing my mind about a picture. If I keep them, I'm using up unnecessary space retaining things that I may never look at again. The questions about what to do with the pictures you take are, to me, endless. That's why I want to hear from you. What do you do with your pictures? Do you think that what you do, whatever it may be, justifies the resources you dedicate to taking the pictures.
In the case of carrying around a small point-and-shoot, or even taking pictures with your mobile phone, the resources spent are very small. If you carry around an SLR, potentially with multiple lenses, and do lots of post-processing, the resources spent are very large (if you can say call resources 'small' and 'large').

One of the reasons I ask is that I've always wanted an SLR. Even before the concept of digital cameras was something the common man new about, I've wanted a real camera. I've drooled over these things since my early teens, and yet I can't bring myself to buy one. Sure, they cost a bit, but that's not it. I have a hard time justifying to myself why I should own one. After all, I keep all my pictures, even the bad one, and do virtually no post processing. I look at my pictures often enough to know my collection by heart, but that's all I do. Last night, I asked myself: "what would I do with the pictures I take, if I had a great camera?". The answer was "nothing". This is the final nail in the coffin of my longing to own a real camera, I think. I could probably create a very nice looking smaller collection of "good" pictures based on the 10000 or so pictures I already have, but I don't. I don't sit down and spend the time and nurture my pictures to perfection. Probably because I know that virtually noone will ever see them. Granted, perfection is a goal in itself, but like any creator, I want an audience for the things I create. It's the same thing with software (which I'm considerably better at then photography). Without users, the light lit at the beginning of a project fades fast after the first 1.0 release. The same, I think, would happen after the "toy" period of purchasing a new camera.

Anyway, enough about my purchase anxiety. If you want to share what you do with your pictures with the rest of the world (read "my meager readership"), then please post a comment below. I would love to hear from you.