as a right eye shooter I'm with Geert in saying this doesn't really work for me... for low light I go with what I think Scott Kelby refers to as the 'death grip', meaning wrapping the strap round your arm several times to strengthen your grip before shooting (also useful for me given my propensity to drop things!).... but thanks very much for sharing.. I've been bouncing around various video tutorials from the same guy for the past half hour or so having followed your link.. cheers!

a fascinating topic you've raised here Tunde, and some great thoughts expressed.. very interesting story bout the ice cream cones!

I think a distinction should be made partly in who the photos are taken for.... a professional in a certain sector will need to have something to make their approach unique, employable, and capable of generating enough interest/income to make it a worthwhile ongoing career... in essence their livelihood depends on being able to produce something which will satisfy the demands of the market... in such circumstances the primary concern must surely be to produce technical excellence which 'meets the brief', rather than satisfying any personal, emotional motives.... an example of such a sector which springs to mind would be something like advertising or stock photography... but for continued recognition and success the photographer in most cases would probably need to develop a style identifiable as theirs, and in part that has to come from the photographer's own individual view of the task/ the world which surrounds them...

I don't want to get too deeply into this as some aspects raised overlap with some of the discussions I intend to make in my dissertation, so I'll probably ramble on for several boring pages... but!.... consider a landscape by contrast.... there is such a sense of universality and also nationality embedded in the landscape that it can be a very emotive subject, and to have the greatest impact one might argue it is the duty of the photographer to convey as best they can the emotions they experienced while capturing the scene.... it reminds me of a very simple piece of advice I heard when starting out - take pictures of that which interests/moves you, and with sufficient technique you should be able to convey the interest which spurred you to take the picture on to your audience.

Certain other kinds of photography (I'm thinking street/sport/wildlife photography here) rely on a sense of timing, and arguably test the photographer's reactions more than their considered artistic planning. I'd say they also rely more on solid technique, as there is little to time to think about it when the moment counts. Just look at the work of Cartier-Bresson for example.... some have controversially referred to his photos as 'snapshots', but through his masterful technique, sense of composition, and eye for the 'decisive moment', many of these 'snapshots' have stood the test of time as profound works of art..

Not wanting to go on too much here, I'll leave you with the notion that some of the world's most famous and revered works of art came out of times of extreme emotion for the artists concerned...

such an amazing chain of events, and not too shabby camera work either... in the space of that film I'd probably have shot a few hundred frames, just to be sure of getting something to show for such a sight.. thanks so much for sharing the link =)

=) I think I do remember one of your attempts... really like the last one of the ones in the link you provided, nice work! you may well have inspired me to have a go sometime sooner rather than later, just gotta find the right piccy..

cool link Kort, thanks! will have to try the photoshop method sometime..

very nice selection thanks to the staff to putting it together and for including one of mine... like auntietk a few of these really caught my eye last week..

oh, and I forgot to mention one more thing in favour of the ND grad method however... for a good hdr exposure range you'd ideally need at least 3 bracketed exposures of the same scene with the same settings, and of course this means that you'll be needing the objects to remain stationary in the scene while shooting, or the exposures won't blend tidily.... with an ND grad filter you're less likely to have to shoot more than 1 exposure so movement within the scene will be easier to avoid... maybe something to consider if you're planning on heading some windy places!

hi Shaun, well although I personally haven't had any hands-on experience with ND grad filters I would recommend going the photomatix route for a number of reasons..

1. you don't have to carry extra filters around with you, messing about fitting and adjusting them when you could be taking shots (admittedly for a good HDR you have to take your time to bracket the exposures etc but you don't have to carry the software round)
2. grads can silhouette objects which rise above the horizon where you set the gradation, as obviously the transition will run straight and not take into consideration any objects it may darken, contrary to your wishes. hdr obviously manages to sidestep this issue
3. if you've shot in RAW and appear to have lost some of the highlights, Photomatix and other similar tonemapping software will allow you to recover some of those 'blown' highlights (up to 2 stops overexposed I think) by working on a single RAW to create a 'pseudo-hdr' image
4. it is possible to maintain a natural look with HDR, but with the potential for creating all kinds of looks with the software it's quite often tempting to have a play around.... my advice is if you do go for Photomatix and want to maintain a natural look, stick with the highest level (5) of light smoothing available, and tweak the other settings until you have it how you'd like it.

of course this is all possible in photoshop but requires (imo) a decent understanding of channel masking and layer masks, and the various blend modes needed to create a tidy result. dedicated software like Photomatix will get you there quicker and with a little care an attention, just as naturally...

it's not something I've consciously ever set out to do, and my cat tends to be a bit lazy and more motivated by easy food than sport or jumping around!! having said that, I took a snap many many years ago on my first pocket digital camera and it's probably still the nearest to a kitty 'action' shot I have.....  neither of these animals are still with us, and yet despite the totally evil expression on Polly (the cat's) face (it's the eyes!) they actually didn't mind one another too much.... well, that is, as long as Flora (the dog) wasn't trying to play when kitty was taking a nap... that's when the fireworks happened! technically a bit of a crappy shot but its all in the content ;)

Adam

I'm kinda surprised you haven't had this honour before, your photography and particularly your portraits are stunning and as a follower of your work I reckon you've come along quite a bit this past year... very well deserved mention for a great gallery, congrats!

that's a very good point.. now I come to think of it, when I was using a 512mb card it could only hold about 45 Canon raw files... with my current 4 gig one I can squeeze nearly 400 on there, or over 1200 top-quality jpegs..... I guess from my point of view an 8gig one would be useful if I decided to start shooting raw+jpeg together but I've tried that before and it just led to extra hours sifting through.... fair enough you can't view the raw files on a computer which doesn't have the format supported but nowadays I shoot raw exclusively and just use bridge to browse...
but yeah, looks like a good deal ;)

some smart shopping =)
what's your experience like with 8gig cards? I'm hesitant to go over 4gb for fear of filling a card and losing everything as I've heard they're more susceptible to corruption.... could just be one of those things you hear which kind of fades out over time as manufacturers iron out teething problems..

a very interesting topic and read... for me my gallery here represents the best of what I was doing at a given time, and sometimes when I've taken a bunch of shots of a particular place I might upload a small series but generally I either only upload the ones I'm in some way proud of, or which are there for friends, or which are new ideas and experiments I haven't tried before and can look back on if I decide to try something again in the future..

I agree with 'camera' I'm less likely to delete an image if someone has made it a part of their favourites collection, but it doesn't really sway my decision if it's only 1.. and again I don't automatically delete images without any favourites as it's probably there for a reason... see, I'm a bit of a lazy ass getting around to finishing building my website so for the meantime a gallery like this is a useful place to be able to direct people to if they want to know what kind of photography I do... so I guess I try to keep it as streamlined as possible, and there's a core structure of images which I'll never delete....

regarding talk of other sites, I find I'm more likely to post conceptual or 'half-baked' ideas in my gallery here as I know if I ask for it many of you will kindly give me honest feedback... over on DeviantArt (where my volume of views is higher, but feedback lower) I tend to only post those ones I think are maybe more commercial and 'finished' ideas.....   cheers for starting this Bruce, nice to know people's opinions too

Adam

hahahaa!... well on second thoughts I might pass and go with some champage instead... XD

haha! love the last bit - 'trust us'..... based on their off the bat recommendation to go and drink a gourmet treat of weasel-stomach is that? very trustworthy type..! ....maybe i'll feed a few coffee beans to the cat and see how we go from there..
=)