Kinda funny, I find myself moving in the opposite direction

If your goal is to show people something they haven't seen before the G Master telephoto is the last thing you want. If anything out of his photos I like the wide shot from the mountaintop better because it's lively and has people in it. One of the boring things about the average social photo stream is that it is either (a) selfies or (b) bugs and flowers and landscape and empty cityscapes.

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caseyohara 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> I like the wide shot from the mountaintop better because it's lively and has people in it

Agreed. And strongly related to your other comment about selfies/bugs/flowers/boring landscapes…

One of the best pieces of advice for leveling up from novice snapshots to compelling photographs is: take photos about things, not photos of things.

Purposefully including people in the frame goes a long way to make photos more interesting because it instantly attaches a narrative.

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PaulHoule 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

I've been through this with sports, the hierarchy is

(1) good portraits

(2) photos that show players in opposition to each other

(3) photos that tell a story

Developing the habit to do (1) consistently is important because photos like that are still usable. If you just chase the action in most sports the ball is between you and a player and you get a lot of shots of people's behinds so looking for the places where people are open is foundational.

(3) is tough because a play involves a number of events that don't usually appear in one frame except for a few shots in a game like:

https://mastodon.social/@UP8/114849463914827733

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relaxing 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Alright, so continue the exercise. In the image in the article, what is the narrative for the people in the foreground? We can’t see where they are coming from or where they are, and their actions don’t seem well defined.

Then in the middle there is a train station(?) where the narrative is also absent or muddled. The people arrived by train to do what?

I would argue the tight shot of the mountain and house is the best capture, because it tells a story of a beautiful place where someone lives.

	▲	actuallyalys 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I like the mountain and house myself. The wide shot isn’t a bad photo but it is pretty cluttered and the parts don’t really work together like you say. I think there likely are ways to effectively include the people, by getting to a angle where you can isolate a couple of them and include the mountain. I suspect you could also get a good shot with the wide angle by moving closer to the people, although this would emphasize the people more than the mountain.

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bix6 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Interesting I find the telescoping shots to be unique because the phones can do macro, wide, and mid range well but the tele is still weak compared to a proper camera.

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relaxing 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Ironically the first thing I notice on your photostream is an empty cityscape. Here’s a tip: ultra wide angle is useful for pulling you in close to an object that’s in the foreground. If you leave the center empty, as with the shot of the storefronts, you’ve made another boring image (only with widely diverging lines.)

I went through a phase of shooting everything at 10mm too. It’s a novelty that wears out fast if you’re not respecting rules of good composition.

Author is correct, the wide shot of the mountains cape is too busy and lacks a story. Despite lacking people, the tight shot is a stronger image.

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mcdeltat 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Interesting, different tastes I guess. I find the wide mountaintop shot to be pretty lackluster compositionally because everything is oddly spaced out and half of it is empty (sky). I often have this problem when shooting wide angle - because of the perspective distortion, the high density centre area is small and the edges are super low density.

I would agree with the author that telephoto makes it easier to get a clean composition... Walking around with a 35mm I end up taking almost no shots.

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AlecSchueler 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Gives me Google Street View vibes but with old pixel art palettes.