It would be nice to sell a print or two, but for now it has to be for the love of it. I like doing anything even remotely creative - painting, sketching, woodworking,  but photography is the thing that I really have the bug for.

Even though I'm a 'pro' gardener I don't count gardening among my hobbies, it's my job and love it but at the end of the day it's just my job. I guess if I turned into a pro photographer I'd stop shooting images for fun and take up gardening. :)

Andy

I find it depends very much on the subject. For landscapes I use matrix metering, and bracket a few shots either way. This works pretty well for virtually all shots but if I'm still not happy I'll switch to manual (99.9% of the time I use aperture priority) and set shutter speed by guess work, lol.
For flowers and anything else that only needs a focal point correctly exposed I tend to spot meter and again bracket a few shots. I (nearly) always shoot in RAW so making a few tweaks to the exposure afterwards isn't a big problem.

Andy

Congrats to everyone for such a great set of images. There's so many talented photographers here on RR and I've been picked too, lol. :biggrin:

Just to add to my earlier comment, I see pressing the shutter as just the start of the process of creating a good image. Although I do try to get as much right in camera as possible - composition, exposure etc.  I'm not always trying to capture the scene in front of me but the one in my head - if that makes any sense, lol.

Hmm... I can't think that I would ever alter the foreground I just tend to look around until I find something that I can use to try and add depth and lead the eye into the picture. If I can't find anything at all (which is quite rare, you just have to use your imagination sometimes and get a little creative) then I'll move on to another location.
Sometimes I'll swap the sky for something a little more dramatic but I don't do this often as it has to look 100% natural.

That really is a great shot but unfortunately views like this are becoming increasingly rare due to the huge increase in light pollution. Here in the UK, even in rural areas similar to where I live, it's impossible to escape the ghastly glow of streetlights.

I can't think what it could be  - way too early in the morning, lol - but I had the same problem with IE after an update it really used to annoy me (to put it mildly!) that's why I changed to Firefox and I've never had any problems, or used IE since.  Hope you can get it sorted Kort :)

Andy

I only really print stuff that I intend to frame so virtually everything gets done at 8" x 10" or slightly bigger. I've only recently started to print my own shots and now I when shooting I try to allow for cropping when composing shots as resizing the image, to say 8 x 10, too often leads to distortion.
Although, like you, I have many great shots that are 'oddly' cropped to make the best composition and these will need to have mounts cut and at the moment I can't be bothered with that, lol :)

Andy

Firefox for me too, beats IE anytime :)

I used to do lots of postwork on my images but these days I seem to be doing less and less so I'm either getting a better photographer just getting more lazy, lol.

I always shoot in RAW, unless I'm just taking 'snapshots' then it's jpeg, so my typical workflow is...

Import RAW files into Bibble
Tweak exposure, colour balance etc.
Remove any noise and sharpen.
Save as jpeg
If I think it needs anything else eg. cloning out of anything unsightly it goes into Photoshop for that.

But on the whole I try to keep postwork to a minimum.

• Andy

I've had this a couple of times but if I leave the upload page and then come back to it and try again it works just fine. I don't think it is a browser problem, although I agree with valerie - IE sucks you should be using Firefox, lol.

Yep, I got the same mail. Wasn't interested so just deleted it. :)

That's some impulse! lol.
I'd love a setup like that but I have to convince my wife first that I don't just want one but need one. :lol:

Congratulations! A fantastic gallery that never fails to  amaze. :thumbupboth:

I like to think I'm a pretty good photographer and I would also consider myself an artist, of sorts lol! But I certainly don't think I am elitist and I don't think anyone else, who I know here on RR, is either.
If I see a picture that I think is rubbish I just ignore it, but if I think I can offer something useful then I'll say so. I, for one, certainly don't mean to cause offence but if you don't want criticism then just ask for non-critical comments when you upload.
There are people here on RR of all ages and abilities and that cannot be anything other than a good thing. By looking at those artists who are better than me and trying to see what it is they are doing different I feel I've become a better photographer - just take a look at my early work, lol!
Maybe it isn't quite right that some images that are of poor quality get loads of comments and the really great shots get few, but no matter how much it annoys me life's too short to get all bitchy about it. So lets all just relax folks and get back to posting some really good images that we can all criticise.  :biggrin: