Hi Bob I rarely use shooting lists, not for my current type of work. I've noted that it's something stock photographers do regularly, though.
What got me out of my lurker's cave was your comment about "looking through the Magnum web site for inspiration and ideas". Looking at good work makes a lot of sense, of course, for improving your skills any sort of photography. I do it all the time. It did remind me of something that has bemused me of late. This is the question of visual plagiarism. I have a very good visual memory. I've looked at several exhibits at a local gallery recently that contained significant numbers of prints for which my first reaction was that I had seen the image before. In some cases I was even able to remember whos idea was being used. Cartier Bresson and Arnold Newman came to mind. Over the last ten years I've increasingly had a sense of "sameness" about images in mainstream photo publications. I find them quite repetitive, essentially reworkings of previously published material. I also find it increasingly difficult to distinguish editorial photos from the images used to promote equipment, which are generally visually arresting but not necessarily profound. BTW, my use of the term "visual plagiarism" refers to rather obvious reworking of others' ideas rather than direct copying. Is genuine originality disappearing from the photographic mainstream? What are the groups thoughts on this? Cheers John Poirier > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of > Bob W > Sent: June 12, 2008 1:49 PM > To: 'Pentax-Discuss Mail List' > Subject: Shooting plan > > > Hi, > > I've booked a week's holiday in Fez for Sept/Oct, just at the end of > Ramadan and in time for Eid al-Fitr. I had hoped to go for longer, and > to get there on the train, but I can't spare more than a week so I'm > flying there (I've paid extra to offset the CO2!). > > Anyway, I'm starting to make notes about what I'd like to photograph > while I'm there, and I wondered if other people do the same, or am I > just some sad no-life? > > When you go on a photo trip do you just wander around and leave the > photos to the will of Allah, or do you deliberately put yourself into > likely-looking situations? > > I normally put together a loose list of the type of shot I'd like, and > the places to go where I think it's likely, but I make sure I can > extemporise. So I don't usually get exactly what I wanted, but I do > tend to get good stuff. For instance, in Romania I wanted funerals, > and gypsy music. In the town where I expected to get good shots of > funerals, I got nothing. But in the village where I expected gypsy > music, I got a great funeral. > > At the moment I'm looking through the Magnum website for inspiration > and ideas. I have been to Morocco a few times before, although not to > Fez, so I know it's difficult to photograph there, probably more so > during Ramadan, but I'm quite excited about it. > > Bob -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
