[Leica] PAW Lessons so far

["Marshall, C.R." <C.R.Marshall@uwsp.edu>]

PAW Lessons so far.

Month 1 has passed, and already the Photo a Week has been a great learning
experience.  

1. Keep your camera with you. Early in the month I missed two photos by not
having a camera with me.  Now I have a camera with me all of the time.

2. Failure teaches the most.  In 5 weeks I have shot around 450 frames of
TriX and have posted 15 photos.  I have learned a great deal from those that
will never see the light of day.  

3. I don't have a clue about street photography (see point 2).  Probably 80
or 100 of the worst failures were my first attempts in this area.  They are
uniformly bad enough to not require public comment.

4. If you take enough pictures, there will be at least one to post.  It may
not be very good, but it will at least be the best of a bad lot.

5. Your results may vary.  In looking at the other PAWs, I see people post 2
or 3 great photos, and then toss in a real dud.  Other people's duds inspire
me to keep working and posting. I like my Week 2 and 5 pictures best so far.
I am not sure what I was thinking with week 4, other than the overwhelming
effect of looking at a number of even worde shots (see point 3).

6. Your results may not vary.  Some of the people on the list manage to post
consistently excellent work.  Amazingly excellent work.  These people
inspire me even more.

7. Opinions vary.  If memory serves me, someone suggested that the young
woman looking at the camera in Gilbert Plantinga's
http://homepage.mac.com/~gilplant/picaweek/wk4.html made the picture a near
miss rather than a hit.  For me, if all of the people had been watching the
event, it would have been just an additional picture in a photo essay on the
event that we don't see.  This one person connected to the photographer is
what I think makes this a strong photo.

8. I can't edit.  Most of the positive comments I have received have been on
my alternates.

9. Positive feedback also helps.  About half of my PAW's are printed out and
tacked up in my office.  I have, for the first time in my life been asked
for prints by people who are not in the picture and were not there when it
was taken. 

10. The print looks better than the web page. Prints on my old Epson Photo
700 consistently look better than the posted version.

11. I will eventually need to learn more about PhotoShop. The darkroom (wet
or digital) is an integral step on the process. Getting control of this will
help.

12. Learn and have no regrets. When I post a photo, I generally think that
it is at lease ok. It is week 5, and I think my main week 5 picture is one
of my best yet. On the other hand, in just 5 weeks, I already have pictures
posted that I would be happy to remove from public view.  

Thanks,
C.R. Marshall
cmarshal@uwsp.edu
http://my.voyager.net/~cmarshal/pow2001.htm