Some photographers concentrate on (nude) models, others prefer flowers, or, b&w scenes, ... Fortunately here in Ipernity people are very multi-faceted, transforming even rust into art. Brilliant!
So, how do i work? Sometimes i have an idea and i succeed (with very modest means) to realise the idea, e.g. in the photo "Fun at the laundromat" (right). But usually i walk somewhere and i notice something that catches my eye, a repetition, something abstract, funny, ... well, like most of us, i suppose.
Before the digital era, i used
colour film for 2 reasons: 1° cheaper in purchase
and development. I never developed the negatives myself fearing to screw up. So when i got my negatives from a shop, i magnified the colour (!) negatives on plain b&w photo paper. An anecdote about my way of working is that a photography-student from an academy swore to me that this was impossible, while i am a complete autodidact! But i was always quite happy with the result and even had the impression that colour film somehow caught more detail than pure b&w film. Of course, i know this is a very disputable matter and secondly, much depends on the lamps used in the magnifier. The other advantage was that when i thought i'd want a colour version, i could simply take my negatives to the shop and order a poster size colour photo, though here i wasn't always happy with the colours, but i simply didn't have the required equipment for colour, like a temperature stabiliser etc.
I started photography about 15 years ago and i never forgot my first time in the dark room: it was at a friend's place and i stayed for hours there just by myself, after a brief introduction as to how it works. Afterwards i was really surprised to learn how much time had passed. After my son's birth i really didn't have time, so i had to stop everything, but now, 5 years later, i discovered the Ipernity-spot of my good friend
Paul Peeraerts, and the photography virus caught me again, even stronger than before! I still lack time though, that's why i use a quite simple digital camera, but i still respect the principles of classic photography. That is: i don't use Photoshop or similar, but the easy but excellent Irfanview, which allows browsing photos very quickly, resize, adjust contrast and saturation, gamma-correction and cropping. These features i use on a regular basis. In only 1 photo so far i used a soft-filter to improve the result, but it's a pure exception. (Irfanview allows filters, but you have to download the plugins seperately and i don't use them.) One other thing i tried some times is b&w-with-a-smudge-of-colour. Only after someone advised it to me, i thought by myself "okay, this can be done perfectly in the darkroom - if you have the proper equipment - so why not try it?". This is not possible with Irfanview, so i used a program similar to Photoshop, though simpler: Serif Photoplus (because i have a free version), even though i can use Photoshop very well.
So, this is how i work. I hope you liked the story and please, tell me yours! And about how you feel about digital vs. classic photography.
Lode.