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What have you missed?


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Just noticed on the "Have you found" thread this morning sales of pictures of detached bungalows.  I live in a detached bungalow.  I live in a line of detached bungalows (no sympathy please!). Just up the road is a row of other bungalows.  Do I have any photos of these on Alamy..........NO.  Have I ever considered taking photos of them (until today)...NO!

 

Everywhere I go I "see" photos....some artistic, some everyday stock type images but it is amazing how one can miss the obvious. It's as if my brain filters the mass of visual information hitting me into potential photos (which is generally good and I think I have an eye for an image), but sometimes has a big blind spot on subjects that stare you in the face.

 

What's the most obvious thing you have missed?

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Guest Mark Pedley

What's the most obvious thing you have missed?

 

Can't answer that yet because I've missed it.

 

D26AN4.jpg

 

One day, I was walking home, and tripped over a cow. It was easy to miss (quite obvious really) since it was lying low, trying not to be seen. It may have been stalking someone. I walked back a few paces, then took a photograph. Ha, gotcha! Just after that, I fell in the duck pond (also obvious!)..

 

Seriously, I think the most obvious was a shot of my mom with her rollers in. Was visiting for tea. Finally, it occurred to me to shoot the photograph (a shot from behind.....I do care about my mom!). It has sold 4 times on alamy within a short peiod (3 national UK newspapers, one educational book). Oh, after the rollers shot, I shot a pair of tights hanging on the washing line. The South Africans needed this picture in an educational text book (what do they teach down there?).

 

Another one was a piece of barbed wire. Just a simple piece of barbed wire I have passed ("walked by", that is, not "passed"  as in.. ) many times. I shot it against a blue sky. It is now on a cover of a Japanese CD (also alamy).

 

Loads of stuff. Could go crazy shooting it all. Not attempting to do so.

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Just bought the kids an ice-cream.  Did I get a photo?  Nope.  Parcel from Amazon the other day [doh!].  One I've just thought of though: a side light's blown on the rear of the car: so there's the car with only one sidelight operating; the shop where I buy the bulb; the new bulb itself (packed, unpacked); fitting the bulb; frustrated man not being able to access the fitting point; angry man realising he's bought the wrong part; injured man with bleeding scratched fingers after struggling to retrive bulb; and policeman stopping car with faulty rear light on the way back to parts shop.  Then there's the fine, the court case, et al.  When you come to think about it, the possibilities are endless... :)

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The nice and the not so nice - one of the first sales through Alamy was of fly tipping at the edge of a park. Think different angles, backgrounds and points of view that you can get from one subject and milk it:

 

  1. only the rubbish against the grass and tarmac. 
  2. showing the rubbish at the edge of the park.
  3. showing the rubbish with what looks like the gates of a council depot in the background
  4. showing the rubbish with the back view of a mother and child passing by.
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One of my missions this summer is to record our park full of ash trees. They're over a century old and if ash dieback ever gets hold of them, it would be a calamity for our green space. Remind me in September if I've missed doing so.

 

Rgds,

Richard. 

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Guest geogphotos

I missed out of photos to the Trobriand islands, Papua New Guinea, in 2000 when both my cameras failed to work on an island where you couldn't even buy a postage stamp.

 

The very few I have from the Trobes are distinctly 'atmospheric' because I couldn't focus just jam the lens onto the front of the camera and try to keep out light.  

 

But it gets worse. I had a couple of weeks stop-over in the Philippines on the way home. I spent a few hundred £ on a new film SLR from a camera shop and rushed off to use it  just assuming that being brand new it would work. It didn't. I paid for dozens of rolls of film to be developed when I came home and not one came out.

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  • 8 months later...

Years ago, I was driving down a single track road just above St Aldelm's Head in Dorset, where tiny St Catherine's chapel sits all alone. There was a great mass of sea mist all around the headland, hiding it from view. The sea was sparkling and the whole thing was backlit to magical effect. I stopped the car and, as I watched, a hole opened up in the mist and the sunlight fell like a spotlight on the white chapel.

 

It was the most stunning sight I've ever seen. I half-expected the Angel Gabriel to appear out of the mist.

 

Could have lived off that shot for years - if only I'd had my camera with me. :(

 

But I'm still very glad to have seen it. :)

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Just noticed on the "Have you found" thread this morning sales of pictures of detached bungalows.  I live in a detached bungalow.  I live in a line of detached bungalows (no sympathy please!). Just up the road is a row of other bungalows.  Do I have any photos of these on Alamy..........NO.  Have I ever considered taking photos of them (until today)...NO!

 

Everywhere I go I "see" photos....some artistic, some everyday stock type images but it is amazing how one can miss the obvious. It's as if my brain filters the mass of visual information hitting me into potential photos (which is generally good and I think I have an eye for an image), but sometimes has a big blind spot on subjects that stare you in the face.

 

 

Sold a photo of our  house - twice  :)

 

What have I missed, too numerous to mention.

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One day in the morning, my man told me to take a photo of window (at attick). It was winter, snow and frost on glass and drops of water inside... beautiful abstract. This is the best selling of my photos (series) The highest price I got (net) was $70 for that!, lol :D

 

 

..., but sometimes has a big blind spot on subjects that stare you in the face.

 

 

There's one good trick for that problem :) Take a small mirror to your hand and watch the world up side down. Everything around looks so different like you are in new place ...

Who says only women can use pocket mirror? :P

 

If you're affraid of using mirror, use your LCD in camera. It reflects ;) (but people can ask why you are so sad still watching down :P )

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I used to travel a lot for my work as a management consultant and have seen some wonderful pictures from the car. Unfortunately I always struggled to switch into my photography mind when I was involved with other work.

 

As of 2014 I have put that behind me and I will now devote myself full time to photography (and writing). I now always have a camera in the car but I will still miss stuff, possibly more than I will ever take.

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I wouldn't know where to begin when it comes to counting all the photo ops I've missed. Probably most of them deserved to be missed (good rationalization anyway).

 

For some reason this old song came to mind after reading this thread. Perhaps it has something to do with the recent "$ return per image" discussions.

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2 great opportunities over the last month that totally escaped me.

 

First was unloading and stacking of the firewood back in November. Lots of good opportunities there.

 

2 weeks ago, a flat tire in the driveway in the cold and snow. I watched my son change the tire (I was teaching him how) yet never thought to go get my camera and take some shots.

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Kids are off limits nowadays. It's a shame, but there it is. 

 

Most weeks I walk a few dogs for the shelter around the corner. So many abandoned pit bulls, there are. Are they dangerous? None that I've met are. They are very strong and tend to pull me along, but they are sweet and gentle and friendly to all the walkers. There's another secrete plus in NYC: other people's dogs. No walking, no dog food, no vet's bills, but I can get a little doggie kiss from them if the situation is right. For various reasons, I can't have a dog myself.  :(

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I have several ideas for pictures including my kids, who are 14 and 12. Both girls, so there's a wealth of opportunity for me. They don't live with me as their mother and I divorced a few years ago, however, I find that in the weekends they stay with me, I'm forever being a taxi driver rather than a photographer. Very frustrating. 

 

Most other ideas fall flat on their face due to poor lighting, conditions with the weather or something else getting in the way. Not to mention coming up with a concept that hasn't been done before. Couple that with there already being 40m images on here and you're faffing about in a dizzy spin. 

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