Jhon bosch Street Photo with flash

[brill64]

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Nice to hear your response (and efforts to write it in English, which was very clear).

 

I would second the comment that Steve made above which is that you should take steps to review very carefully your large volume of photos and reduce it to no more than 50-75.  

 

How do you do this in the most objective way?  

 

I find that the best way to get the most objective input from the world at larger is to:

 

1.  not follow anyone on flickr

2.  not collect any "favorites"

3.  not make any comments on other peoples' photos

 

This may seem anti-social and counterintuitive in terms of marketing your collection and attracting positive attention and energy.  But it is the only way to get peoples' honest and objective opinions about your photos.  Anyone whom you follow or whose photos you "fav" or comment on will invariably feel obliged to do the same for you just for the sake of being nice.  But this is not helpful information for you if you really want to know if and to what extent your photos have broad public appeal.  If you establish yourself as someone who doesn't reciprocate, then receiving followers, favorites and comments from people will be as close to the truth as you can get to knowing how publicly "interesting" your photos are and which ones are the 'goals' and which are not as interesting as you might have thought.

 

The next thing you should do is join as many photo groups as possible (and I mean hundreds) that contain photos and members of similar tastes as your photos, provided the groups have a sufficient number of members (I usually will look for over a thousand, but if the genre is specific enough (such as flash street photography) I will lower the threshold to, say 500).  In your case, you would want to join all the groups relating to Leica (and the types of lens you use), B&W photography, street photography, contrast, portraiture, fashion, beauty, city life - provided they have sufficiently high number of members.

 

I would then suggest that you submit your photos to these groups and wait for feedback - and in your case it should come in a big way.  After about 3-4 weeks of having your photos in these groups, your strongest photos will clearly emerge above the rest.  I would choose a threshold # of favorites (such as 30-50) and remove all photos that receive favorites less than this amount (after the 3-4 week period).  It may take a good 3-4 weeks for the photos to be comprehensively viewed by the flickr community, so I wouldn't draw any conclusions regarding your photos until after this period of time.  If you see that, after following the process outlined above, you have more than 75 photos that have more than 30-50, favorites, I would increase the threshold so that you are left with no more than 75.  (And as you add more photos, you should look to remove photos from your existing collection that are relatively weak in terms of positive feedback)

 

And no matter what do not give in to the temptation to return what might instinctively seem to be an act of kind by following someone who chooses to follow you or add someone's photos to your favorites collection who has done the same to you.  What people are doing should not be viewed as an act of kindness, but rather a keen interest in keeping up with your work and showing off your photos to their friends and followers.  You should embrace this and stick to your rule of not following anyone or collecting any favorites.  An exception that I make is to respond to any favorable comments made on my photos with a short and simple "thank you."  No need to explain how the shot was taken, or what the conditions were, or what you ate for breakfast and how that affected your mood that day.  You get me?

 

This entire process may take several months.  But these are the secret ingredients that will get you what you want.

 

I am happy to provide my comprehensive input on all of your photos if you would like to engage me on a consultation basis.  I don't think this will be necessary if you follow the steps that I have outlined above.

 

Feliz Navidad and best of luck,

Adam Miller

mental note to self : no comment.

[the warrior]

I use a V750 Pro scan.

 

I'm a little tired of digital photography, every shot I think the same way, however I can look at the screen and see what I've done, somehow when I shot the MP then have a surprise in spite of doing things slowly, I have the certainty that everything is well done but to open the tank white rabbit out of the hat as if to make the great magic.

 

These photographs are pure luck.

 

In this reel trix 400 I have six photographs that I like a little.

 

 

[the warrior]

Here are parts of three photographs.

 

I like the film but also out for a walk to the MMonochrom sometimes.

 

[the warrior]

The best lens for me is the Summilux 50mm ASPH Pre-E46, now I have the Black Paint, and I started out as brass under the black paint, I love this.

I had the Noc f1 and f0,95 but eventually I sold, but Lux 50mm ASPH Pre-E46 are my dream.

For film I can not find anything better in CCD MMonochrom I see here the best, these lenses have thought and light original Leica before P. Karbe.

Peter Karbe is a great designer but for me it is too rough with light, New Leica lenses have lost their way, only seek perfection, but perfection is not based only on the sharpness, it is my opinion.

Now one more sharpness and every perfect world we seek, but imperfect imperfection is the way to be a good artist who plays with light.

I've had three 50mm ASPH, finally have sold all.

I keep only the 21mm ASPH but for other reasons.

[the warrior]

"The Minister" read the newspaper in the Puerta del Sol in Madrid.

 

 

OH ... but if this is "The Minister" 

 

Leica Monochrom + Noctilux f0,95 - Madrid 2015

 

[robert blu]

Photos, suggestions and comments in this thread are all very interesting, thanks to you all

robert

[Guest]

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Jhon - I saw this thread only today — as I wrote in another thread, I like much of our work. First, on Adam's advice on flickr in post #8 above: although I agree with his advice, I'm pessimistic about getting useful input from flickr followers. I have the same philosophy as Adam in that I don't "follow" anyone. Incidentally, I have more followers than you only because I used to participate actively in photo forums and posted some links to downloads of a few (unpublished) book projects. Nevertheless, I generally find that my most “popular” pictures on flickr usually are not the one I think are the best. Out of all my flickr followers there are only a handful whose judgment coincides with my own. My feeling is that one has to keep on judging ones own pictures oneself. Eventually, you may meet someone whose input will be valuable — a matter of chance. A year ago I met a photo editor, whose (instantaneous) judgment I found invaluable. 

 

My own use of flickr is as a photo diary — in which I “try things out” — that I update regularly, continually pruning so that there are no more than 150 pictures on the site. However, I don’t use it as a compendium of what I think as my best work. Rather, I organize my work into “essays” and book projects. Eventually, I may set up my own website but have not felt ready to do that. One of my photo essays is to be published in a couple of weeks on a well known website — and I’ll try to figure out what to do after that.

 

...I'm a little tired of digital photography, every shot I think the same way, however I can look at the screen and see what I've done, somehow when I shot the MP then have a surprise in spite of doing things slowly, I have the certainty that everything is well done but to open the tank white rabbit out of the hat as if to make the great magic...These photographs are pure luck...

 

Jörg Colberg has written, Art without a trace of chance, a trace of an accident isn’t art. No artistic risk, no art. You might be interested in the whole article: 

 

http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/extended/archives/photography_after_photography/

 

The current article, in the following link, on Colberg's website is also interesting — it discusses whether a photograph has to be "about something," which, in my view, is highly relevant in view of the obsessive way that so many photographers feel that an image, or a series of images, has to "tell a story," that it has to be a narrative. Look at Ralph Gibson's books: he links his picture in a poetic way, not in terms of a narrative.

 

http://cphmag.com/aboutness/

 

 

As I've written in another couple of thread here, I've been shooting with the M9-P and MM and, after shooting Tri-X with my M6 last month for the first time in ten years, I'm deciding whether to sell the two digital Leicas and shoot only film. You may be interested in the following thread on this:

 

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=155090

 

 

I recently sold my 28mm, now I have the 21mm ASPH, I feel more comfortable here...

 

I like both the Summicron-28 and the Elmarit-21 ASPH. Here is a picture with the 21mm and the MM:

Bangkok

 

 

[A miller]

Jhon - I saw this thread only today — as I wrote in another thread, I like much of our work. First, on Adam's advice on flickr in post #8 above: although I agree with his advice, I'm pessimistic about getting useful input from flickr followers. I have the same philosophy as Adam in that I don't "follow" anyone. Incidentally, I have more followers than you only because I used to participate actively in photo forums and posted some links to downloads of a few (unpublished) book projects. Nevertheless, I generally find that my most “popular” pictures on flickr usually are not the one I think are the best. Out of all my flickr followers there are only a handful whose judgment coincides with my own. My feeling is that one has to keep on judging ones own pictures oneself. Eventually, you may meet someone whose input will be valuable — a matter of chance. A year ago I met a photo editor, whose (instantaneous) judgment I found invaluable. 

 

My own use of flickr is as a photo diary — in which I “try things out” — that I update regularly, continually pruning so that there are no more than 150 pictures on the site. However, I don’t use it as a compendium of what I think as my best work. Rather, I organize my work into “essays” and book projects. Eventually, I may set up my own website but have not felt ready to do that. One of my photo essays is to be published in a couple of weeks on a well known website — and I’ll try to figure out what to do after that.

 

 

 

Jörg Colberg has written, Art without a trace of chance, a trace of an accident isn’t art. No artistic risk, no art. You might be interested in the whole article: 

 

http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/extended/archives/photography_after_photography/

 

The current article, in the following link, on Colberg's website is also interesting — it discusses whether a photograph has to be "about something," which, in my view, is highly relevant in view of the obsessive way that so many photographers feel that an image, or a series of images, has to "tell a story," that it has to be a narrative. Look at Ralph Gibson's books: he links his picture in a poetic way, not in terms of a narrative.

 

http://cphmag.com/aboutness/

 

 

As I've written in another couple of thread here, I've been shooting with the M9-P and MM and, after shooting Tri-X with my M6 last month for the first time in ten years, I'm deciding whether to sell the two digital Leicas and shoot only film. You may be interested in the following thread on this:

 

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=155090

 

 

 

 

 

 

I like both the Summicron-28 and the Elmarit-21 ASPH. Here is a picture with the 21mm and the MM:

Bangkok

To be clear on my view of the utility of flickr: if the photo is sufficiently broadly sydicated and obtained sufficient views, it can be helpful at helping the photographer identify the extent of any emotional attachment that s/he has to a given photo. Having one's own judgment about his or her photos is great (and necessary), but his/her emotional attachment can cloud this judgment.

 

As for the situation in which a certain critical mass of people have different judgments about a photo than the photographer, that is a very common phenomenon. There are lots of cases in which a photographer's/artist's best selling or most highly acclaimed photograph or artwork is not the one that the photographer/artist thinks is his/her best.