Five Reasons Why The Pictures I Take Suck

Classic example right here

Hi, it’s me, Limejuiceboy. And in a short two months I’m going to Europe on a seventeen day adventure. It will the second time within two years that I will skip across the pond. And as I gear up for my jaunt through cities and countryside both old and new, I am taking inventory of the things that on my last trip worked and the things that didn’t work. Good maps this time? Check and packed. American toilet paper? Not necessary, tossed aside. A clue about photography? Apparently not a one.

Okay, so that is a bit harsh. But not really. As I was going through my pictures I realized that the same errors keep popping up, regardless of what or where they are taken. So let me take you through all the things that make my pictures full of errors and scream for me to take a photography class.

1) Misuse of Camera Settings

This is a no-brainer. Sure, I read the instruction booklet and played around with the settings, but when it comes time to snap that shot, I rarely change the setting from ‘normal’. Nighttime setting? Flower setting? Landscape setting? What the hell are those? The dial never gets turned.

2) The Washed Effect

Look at the picture below.

That’s Switzerland, at the base of the Alps, Gimmelwald to be exact. You can see the Washed Effect coming from the top, infiltrating down to make this picture far from capturing the beauty that I was witnessing. Yeah, happens all the time to me. Now, I was hoping for a good reason for this, that I’m taking pictures of new places during the kind of weather we all hope for when on vacation…a nice, sunny day so we can walk around and enjoy the outdoor beauty. Still, there must be a cure for this, right? Well, obviously I haven’t found one and it gets worse. All my pictures look like they are taken at high noon. Even when the sun has set the Washed Effect is still there, that bothersome light coming in from the top and making the picture look like it faded after 100 years in a musty basement. I actually want there to be cloudy days, even rain, when I have my camera ready. Still, I’m not sure that would completely solve this issue. I have pictures when there is this kind of weather and yup! the Washed Effect still manages to be there! And when I take pictures at night? It’s usually all a blur.

3) The Tilt

Do you see it?

In the previous picture of the Alps and this one of Salzburg, close to all my pictures list to the left. *$%*@! It must be the way I am holding the camera. Has to be. From here on out, I should be constantly aware of this issue, don’t you think? I mean, hold the camera level, moron! Maybe I should travel with a tripod.

4) Uninteresting Subjects

Okay, so this isn’t the best example of Uninteresting Subjects, so you could say I somewhat have a winner here. But I don’t. With this shot of a small town in southern France, we still have the Washed Effect and the Tilt. Maybe the picture at the very beginning of this post is a better example, the one of a bridge in Paris, with Les Invalides, Napoleon’s tomb, in the background. What’s wrong with both of these? It’s not that interesting. Sure, it was cool when I was there, but in a picture it just looks like a busy street or a small alleyway. I seem to never focus on one thing. Is “less is better” a phrase in the world of photography? Probably. Obviously I don’t follow that rule. Which leads me to…

5) Clutter

Washed Effect? Check. Tilt? Subtle, but yes, still there. Clutter? Oh yeah! Once again, less is better, I assume, because in this picture, there’s still too much stuff going on. And most of my pictures are like that. There isn’t one thing that I aim the lens at. Instead I want to capture the entire surroundings as much as I can. It doesn’t work that way. I know that now. The question is, can I fix it?

Realizing the faults, the numerous faults, in my photos gives me hope that because I have now seen them, I can go about correcting them. Out of the hundreds and hundreds of photos that I have, I do come across a gem every once in a while. But even then, I feel as though it could be better. And with a new camera coming my way shortly, maybe I should look into photography classes, because obviously I need to.

-AnselAdamsboy