Well, here we are! Day 30 of Photo Fight 3.
Today is not so much a proper Photo Fight round as it is a chance to hear from our two combatant photographers as they reflect on what it’s like to shoot an image every day for a month. Not just to shoot, but to submit it for public viewing and scrutiny.
For that willingness to be subjected to constant critique from strangers, I want to thank and congratulate James and Nathan for being willing to take this chance and for successfully coming to the end of it.
Before we get on to self-portraits and reflections, a couple of notes on results and voting! Tomorrow, the 31st, is the proper last day of Photo Fight 3. Which is to say, all results from these last several rounds will be posted. So please vote for the next 24 hours on all the still-open polls! Tomorrow afternoon I will make the final announcement and we’ll bring this puppy to an official close.
Enough from me! On to the Photo Fighters!
———
Nathan
Digital photography makes it possible to try a lot of different things without consideration for the cost of developing film. During the photo fight, I learned that taking lots of different photos was key for finding the right photo to submit.
This was the first time that I had ever done photography in an artistic capacity, and as I went further in the photo fight, I discovered how complex photography can be.
I learned a lot about different styles of photography (abstract, negative space, etc.), and I saw how photographers could use them to express different feelings or ideas. Because photography deals with objects that exist in the real world (as opposed to images manipulated in Photoshop), real photography involves being ready for scenes to appear and actively seeking good scenes to capture. As it is said, a picture is worth a thousand cliches.
——–
James
Taking pictures as an art form was an entirely new experience for me. I’d obviously taken pictures in the way many people had, for family vacations and of friends at special events, but I had never attempted to convey anything beyond ‘Hey, remember when we all did this thing together?’ It was a growing experience for me.
I ‘signed up’ for this contest almost by accident; I wrote a message to one of the admins (who write those oh-so-hilarious introductions to each vote) to let them know that I appreciated the site. The next thing I knew, I was finding opponents and competing.
Thirty days later, I learned a lot. I took some pictures I’m proud of, some that I felt were just last-minute gotta-hit-the-deadline pictures, and at least a few that are somewhere between the two. Sometimes my eyes were more capable then my lens, but other times the picture came out better than I expected. One way or the other, pictures are powerful methods of communication.
PHOTO FIGHT 