rhythmworx

I don't find the Photo subforum 'competitive' and neither do I think it should be. However if we are photographers as a hobby, shouldn't we be striving to become as skilled as we can be?

Just as a golfer would try to improve his/her swing, chip shots or maybe his/her putting skills, a photographer should try to improve his/her techniques of composition, angle of view, framing, even post processing.

There are and have been some good photographers over my time here (they know who they are probably) and then we also have people who are newer to it and are still learning, which is fair enough, everyone has to start somewhere. Then we have the people who started as the latter and became the former.

2 people here have stood out in this regard over my time here, they know who they are, for those that don't, one has a big moustache and the other an ex mod.

The question is are you trying hard enough to evolve in your hobby?

Sharing images is fine, but wouldnt you be more pleased if when you shown someone a photograph it either inspired them or touched their heart in some way, that all the time spend on your hobby was for something worthy and is appreciated by others? Wouldn't that give you the fuel to seek to progress even further than you have already?

I think this article below is relevant to the current political state in the photo forum and so have decided to share it.

Seek Progress, Not Perfection in Your Photography...by Eric Kim

I just finished reading a new book titled: “Becoming Steve Jobs”, which is a new biography on the life of Steve Jobs. I also read the other (more famous) Walter Isaacson biography: “Steve Jobs”, and found this to be a great refresher to the life, work, and passion of Steve Jobs.

In “Becoming Steve Jobs”, one thing I found fascinating was how Steve Jobs was a practicing Buddhist. Although he could be a ruthless businessman, he balanced that with meditation, mindfulness, and Buddhist practices.

Is “perfection” a fruitless goal?

The first concept that struck me interesting was how in Buddhism there is no concept of “perfection.” You can constantly improve and head towards perfection, but you can never fully arrive there. As mentioned in the book: “Everything is in the process of becoming”.

I think this is a great concept to consider when it comes to our photography. We all seek to become the best versions of ourselves as photographers, but how do we know if we have truly “arrived” at our destination? To know we have truly achieved “success” in our photography, do we need to get a book published, do we need to have an exhibition, or do we need a certain amount of followers?

Not only that, but what is “perfection” when it comes to photography? Ultimately I think photography is (mostly) subjective. After all, we can never 100% control whether our viewers like or dislike our photographs. Each viewer takes his/her life experiences and personal philosophies into account when looking into a photograph. This ends up influencing how they judge a photograph.

Subjectivity and photography

For example, let’s say you made a really amazing street photograph of a person walking in a crowd. There are a lot of interesting hand gestures, colors, beautiful light, and no overlapping figures.

The viewer might think the photograph is uninteresting, because they prefer simpler photographs (with single-subjects). Or perhaps they aren’t educated in photography, so they wouldn’t know a “complex” composition if it hit them in the face.

But then again, who is to say that the viewer is “stupid”, “dumb”, or “uneducated?”

Let’s take another example: let’s say you make a really fascinating portrait of an indigenous woman in Africa. As foreigners, we all instinctively think that indigenous women in Africa are interesting subject matter. But if you showed the photograph to a native African person, they would think the photograph is boring and common-place (because the image isn’t novel to them).

What makes a “perfect” photograph?

So what makes a great (or perhaps) “perfect” photograph?

Part of it is composition. You want to compose a photograph well– meaning framing interesting subject-matter into the frame which contains strong emotions, gestures, or expressions. You don’t want to include distracting elements in your frame.

Another part of it is novelty. Photographs which are novel to us (which we haven’t seen before), generally tend to excite us. Novelty stimulates our sensory system, and causes us to crave more. We hate looking at the same boring, cliche thing over and over again.

But ultimately, there is no such thing as a “perfect” photograph. Why not? Because “perfection” isn’t an objective attribute we can measure. We can look at a photograph and determine the composition of the photograph, the main colors of a photograph, what is happening in the frame, the main subjects, the expressions and moods– but perfection? Forget about it.

Seeking “perfection” in your photography

So is seeking “perfection” in photography fruitless? In my opinion: yes and no.

In a sense, it is good to seek “perfection” in photography because it pushes us forward. It causes us to not become complacent with what we are doing. It inspires us to constantly reinvent ourselves, and to make every new photograph we make even better. This is kind of like the iPhone. It isn’t a perfect device, but every iteration becomes marginally better, and the ultimate goal is “perfection”.

But then again, you can never arrive at “perfection”. Even if one day you did arrive at “perfection”, that would be pretty depressing. You would have nothing to look forward to.

Apparently this happpens to a lot of people who suddenly earn a lot of money (or win the lottery). Their entire life was about struggling to stay alive, to pay the bills, to work hard for promotions, and to hustle hard. But once they suddenly get a huge amount of money dumped into their lap, they suddenly lose a sense of purpose or direction in their life.

Progress, not perfection

So how can we apply the concepts of “perfection” and the Buddhist notion of “the process of becoming” into our photography?

I think being overly-perfectionist is actually a huge detriment to our photography. Often perfectionists fall into “paralysis by analysis” – that they over-analyze scenes and situations so much that they end up not doing anything. For example, let’s say you want to pursue a photography project, and are a perfectionist. You might not have 100% of the puzzle-pieces in place, and you might end up not even starting your project. We know a lot of people like this– who have great ideas, but don’t execute.

I think rather than thinking about photography in terms of “perfection”, we should look at photography in terms of “progress”.

Progress is a much more encouraging trait. Progress is happiness. Progress means we are moving forward everyday. Progress means we are slowly becoming a better version of ourself.

My struggles with “perfection”

Personally, I don’t consider myself a “perfectionist”. Rather, I am a “satisficer”– I try to do things 80% well and just get it done. This is the philosophy I have when it comes to decision making (I don’t try to optimize and make the “best” decision, I just try to make “good enough” decisions and move on).

The same is with this blog. Nothing I write on this blog is perfect. I just like to write down my ideas, as it is a form of meditation for myself. Writing helps me explicate my thoughts. I also hope that some of the ideas on this blog are helpful to you, my dear reader.

However my big problem is this: I am more of a perfectionist in my photography. This stems from a feeling of self-criticism and a sense of self-doubt. I don’t want to put out my weak work– partly because I don’t want to spam people with so-so photographs. But I think a bigger part of it is that I always one to “one-up” myself. But this causes me to fall into “paralysis by analysis”, and I just never end up sharing anything.

So for myself, I am going to try to loosen up my perfectionist tendencies in photography, and focus on just making steady progress, and not being too self-critical, and to be more self-compassionate.

Compete against yourself

Don’t feel like you need to compete in your photography with anybody else. But still you can be competitive– against yourself.

Everyday seek to find progress in your photography and become the best photographer you can. Compete against yourself. Try to become a better photographer this year than you were last year. Seek to become “self-actualized” as a photographer, in which you are using your best abilities and skills to making images that please you.

Seek progress, not perfection.

Never stop learning

http://erickimphotography.com/blog/start-here/

Paint thinner is no explosive, a glue with an accellerant (no clue how to spell that) such as what is used for welding polyvinylychloride pipes is.

lost in LSD land

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/916492-explosion-reported-at-hua-lamphong-station/page-3#entry10737709

The answer is here, now <deleted> and go back to sleep lock this <deleted> click bait thread and <deleted> off back to your own sad existence.

Glue in a bottle left by the man in green, cig in, top on BOOM!

^^^ I have to add, that shot of your grandson is diamond

I fail to see how an optical unit can suddenly stop a camera working, unless you smashed it.

I suggest taking it to another shop for a second opinion.

Does it turn on, any menu visible, what are the symptoms?

Is it an E18 lens error? http://www.e18error.com/

This fixl ist might be worth trying http://www.e18error.com/repair.html

This will tell you all you need to know, enter your phone, and then country and it will list the bands used for each carrier

https://www.frequencycheck.com/models

Safari is a terrible browser IMO, I ditched it and switched to firefox, with the adblock plus plugin.

You could try this https://www.macissues.com/2015/06/22/how-to-fully-reset-safari-on-your-mac/

Maybe removing it from icloud might help, I never really use that so don;t know.

Edit:- ah I see you got it solved

JVC/Taiyo Yuden

http://www.finerimage.com.au/Products/Media/ArchivalDVDCD.php

"I expected that but even putting an old Win 7 copy disk in the CD ROM wouldn't start the OS."

What do you mean by a win 7 copy disk?

Is it a copy of windows 7 you copied in a cd/dvd burning program and have you successfully used this dvd to install before now?

They have facial recognition systems in place now I believe, could be wrong though

@ Jimmy

" Your Name ... Daily life in Thailand and what I see"

I disagree Jimmy <Your Name> <Create a unique title that suits you>

The only thing I can think of is using a lee filter system, I know they do 100mm filters but once its in the holder I guess some of that will be lost due to the holder itself.

Never used it so not sure, might be worth researching though.

You go stiff and start to smell nearly as bad as someone on Khao San Road

Trim anyone?

Monitor tools?

Samsung EVO 850 should last and has a warranty for 5 years at writing 80Gb a day

Pro version 10 year warranty, not sure on the writing specs of that

Interesting website here theres a few tips in there and some great macro images.

https://beingmark.com/macro-illustrated/

Same old same old, different year

WD will not touch your drive, if it faulty and under guarantee they will replace it and you lose all your data.

Did you run the chkdsk /r on it yet?

Dude you were quick to throw it in the fridge.

did you try this solution for the same problem?

Hi ,

I faced this issue and tried a lot.......Find out one solution.......I hope it ll work for you.....Do give me a reply if it works.

Just follow the followoing steps :

1. Go to start button on windows.

2. Type "cmd" and right click on "cmd" and click "Run as Administrator"

3. C:\Windows\system32>

4. Now type : chkdsk <Your hard disk letter>: /f

For e.g If my hard disk is named "f" then just type ---------- chkdsk f: /f

Try it out...I guess it will work.

542 people found this helpful

-----------------------

Or any other of the solutions in this 9 page thread?

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vista-update/you-need-to-format-the-disk-in-drive-j-before-you/4e153784-3217-4425-9c39-48030af82a13?page=9

Your suggestion might help BUT ONLY IF THE HARD DISK IS RECOGNISED BY THE OPERATING SYSTEM !

Yes and it is recognized by the OS, hence the prompt to format drive K.

I use it on Linux running android in a virtual machine, the only problem I get is occasionally the sound will start stuttering or the stream drops out and I have to retap the screen to try again. Been using it only a few days and tried 3 different versions of android.

Just a few hours ago I installed 5.1.0 API22 for the Nexus 5 and its been more stable than 4.4.4 for S5 or 6.0.0 for the nexus 5x.

I'm not familiar too much with android boxes, do you have a screen timeout setting in settings?

Dude you were quick to throw it in the fridge.

did you try this solution for the same problem?

Hi ,

I faced this issue and tried a lot.......Find out one solution.......I hope it ll work for you.....Do give me a reply if it works.

Just follow the followoing steps :

1. Go to start button on windows.

2. Type "cmd" and right click on "cmd" and click "Run as Administrator"

3. C:\Windows\system32>

4. Now type : chkdsk <Your hard disk letter>: /f

For e.g If my hard disk is named "f" then just type ---------- chkdsk f: /f

Try it out...I guess it will work.

542 people found this helpful

-----------------------

Or any other of the solutions in this 9 page thread?

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vista-update/you-need-to-format-the-disk-in-drive-j-before-you/4e153784-3217-4425-9c39-48030af82a13?page=9