Have you read Lignum Draco’s “Just for fun” — the best of his worst candid street photography?
Embarrassedly, I admit that his worst is far better than my best. I think it’s my arms. Maybe I should get a pair of steady artificial arms. I honestly don’t think it’s my camera. Could it be… being a photographer means you should stop enjoying wine? Hmm… I don’t know, but to be honest, I am getting to the point that I don’t really need to know. (By the way, one thing on my bucket list is to be able to follow someone like Lignum for a half day photo shooting. That will be my next workshop, I guess.)
Maybe you have sensed (or not) that I have sort of given up becoming a “photographer”. No, I am not giving up because I don’t want to put in efforts to learn. It’s just that there are too many good photographers around (Yes, I am talking about you, you and you.) and I enjoy seeing your photos more than seeing my own. Of course, this doesn’t mean I will stop photographing. To the contrary, I will continue taking photos and asking questions, but I will focus more on “storytelling”, and catching some emotional moments.
With that big statement (an excuse?) written in black and white, I would like to share with you some street photographs I managed to take in Taiwan. All in a hurry except that sleeping man.
1. I was riding a train to Kaohsiung City in southern Taiwan and this girl sat across the aisle from me. I heard a conversation between her two feet. 😉
2. There wasn’t any eye contact between the nun and the two women. I wonder if it was out of respect or people just don’t know how to say hi to someone who is somewhat different from them.
3. Ali mountain train station was very crowded. I was happy to see this woman walk away from her friends. I almost can read her mind from her face expression! “I feel exactly the same,” I would like to say to her.
4. He looked so comfortable. I wanted to wake him up. “Hey, it’s my turn now!”
5. I save this to the last. This photo haunts me.
Hope you enjoy these photos. I do have a question… I usually save my photos in low-quality before posting on my blog because I don’t like long “loading” time. Do you guys do the same? Thanks in advance!
HHC Blog 
Best for last!
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Happy Holidays, Hien. I like the photo but it makes me sad. Helen
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Helen You have made the leap Now you are findind YOUR unique vision Once w stop comparing our work woth others then we move forward. We then stop trying to match ourselves to the expectations and standards of others (an impossibility as we woll never be satisfied) and begin creating real art. Congratulations
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Thank you, Paul. You don’t know how much I appreciate your comment. (Maybe you do, since I have appreciated your advice since day 1!) I am so lucky to have someone like you to be one of my mentors. Happy Holidays! Helen
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You too Helen I think you should be very pleased with these photos and the stories they tell. We are very fortunate that the people we photograph share these moments with us
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I agree. I wish I could talk to that old lady on my last photo, but I was a passenger in a car, driving by. I want to tell you that even though I tried to laugh at the matter, I sort of having a feeling of failure at the same time. Your comment brought my spirit up again. Thank you! Helen
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Yes always I post in low quality Easier fastsr and safer too
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Thanks, Paul. It’s nice to know. 😉 Helen
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Helen–I love what you said and I love Paul’s response and I love the captions for each of your photographs. Especially the first one: ‘I heard a conversation between her two feet.’ Oh my gosh–yes! That is exactly what I see. I once chatted a blogger about getting a ‘big’ camera and another blogger/photographer scolded me (in a nice way!) and said, “Lois, don’t go there!” and I knew exactly what he meant. I will always enjoy your posts and your photos because they will always be different than mine. I love seeing everything everyone has. ❤
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Oh, Lois, I have a feeling that I am spoiled by all of you. Paul’s comment brought my spirit up again and you are such a wonderful friend whom I always can count on when I feel down. I am so blessed! Thank you! Helen
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Hi Helen,
Welcome home. These photos are fabulous fun. And you should only take photos when you are having fun. 🙂 Talk to you later my friend.
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Thank you, Cee. I totally agree. Talk to you soon. Helen
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Don’t put yourself down, these are wonderful photos. They all tell a story, which is why the last one haunts you.
Yes, all my photos are low quality too, because high quality takes too long to load and invites being stolen. Plus being on a free WordPress account, I have a 3GB data limit. After 2 years, I’m at 10% of my limit. so I can go own for about 7-8 more years before I have to close. 🙂
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I agree…Helen’s images are excellent and most importantly tell a story abuot the people she is photographing…I agree about the small size Remember that most people view images on tabllets or phones or small screens on laptops. There is no need for extremely high resolution
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Thanks, Paul. What you said in your first comment makes a lot of sense to me. I am happy and ready to take more photo now 😉 Thanks. Helen
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Thanks, Lignum. I wasn’t putting myself down; I just think it’s time for me to lower my expectation (at least for now) so I can enjoy other people’s photos and my own photos. I remember when I use Nikon D100, one out of 100 (maybe), I would get an extremely sharp photo and that made me so happy. I am not sure I have gotten one like that with D7000 yet.
Paul is right that finding my own vision and stop comparing with others is a good thing. I am happy.
I was wondering if the free WordPress has a limitation on space. Now I know. 😉 What if we delete the old photo, do we recover the space? I wonder.
I do like to try a one on one workshop one of these days.
Thanks. Helen
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The higher MP cameras catch a lot of people out, but mainly because their older lenses are not good enough for the new technology. It’s important to find your own style.
I can delete an old photo from the media library and regain space,but then that post is lost. Maybe the free space limitation will increase in the future.
One day, we’ll see what happens. Although i do stop for tea/coffee and cake regularly when shooting. 🙂
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Thanks, again!
I wonder how long I should keep my post. (I am thinking out loud here.) In my case, I think, I probably can take some posts down after a while since I don’t see anyone go back to read my old ones. Yours is different. That’s a nice problem to have. Ha.
Yes, who knows. I always want to visit NZ one of these days. And that will be close enough, I think. Helen
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I would be very proud of any one of these images! I especially like the dancing feet. Posting anything online in super high quality is a bit of a waste, I believe. Save those high quality images for printing, where you need every bit of data you can get. Digital is kind to photography.
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Thank you so much! These are 5 out of 1000 😉 I am not discouraged. I am happier after I lowered my expectation. Ha.
I was ready to reply and side-tracked to Dying Man’s Daily Journal, which I found at your blog. Wow. Now I feel heavy at heart, but at the same time I determine to treasure every moment I have. Thanks. Love,Helen
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What’s amazing, Helen, is that Bill has been at it for something like 9 years! Can you imagine being told you’re about to die, and then living on and on? He’s got a great attitude and maybe that’s what keeps him ticking.
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That is amazing. That’s what I thought when I read the blog, but I wasn’t sure. I am happy!!! Thanks for letting me know. Have a wonderful evening. Helen
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Each of the photos you posted tell their own story. I enjoy looking at your photos and would be disappointed if you stopped shooting. Maybe we all aren’t meant to be professional level photographers (I also lack many skills) but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a story to tell through our photographs. Your story and your photos are unique to you. No one else can tell the story you have in your heart and no one else can see exactly what you see.
Thanks for sharing yourself with all of us!!
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Hello, Tree. I agree every word you said. I think I probably didn’t say it right. What I meant was I am giving up trying to shoot like a professional. I used to think technical side should be easier to learn (compare with your creative side.) But after trying so many things and still couldn’t shoot as good as I like to, I give up. From now on, I just want to shoot like me and enjoy it 😉
Thank you so much! You are a wonderful friend! Helen
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This makes me happy!!
Although I too want to learn more technical shooting, i think sharing our hearts and creativity with others is so much more important.
Each time we share a creative piece of writing or creative photo we put a little piece of ourselves out into the world!!
You have a gift of creativity! I’m so glad you will continue to share it!!
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This is the best piece of advice!
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Yes, teacher. Thank you so much! I know it now! Helen
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Thank you Paul!
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Tree, What you said makes a lot of sense to me. Thank you for enlightening me! Helen
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I always believe if we want to view the best photos, we can always go NG. I like our blog community, because each is doing their best to share and connect, most importantly, we support each other. 🙂 You certain do more than many of us, Helen. I love all of your shots! I’m missing your recent posts from my reader. I may need to resubscribe.
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Amy, I agree with you. This is such a wonderful blog community. You don’t know how many times I had tears in my eyes when I read people’s comment. And I am not a crying baby. 😉 Thank you for your big support. It really means a lot to me. If I didn’t say it enough, it was because I couldn’t find any words to describe it. Helen
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Me too…
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Hey, these are great photos! Don’t give it up ! Comparisons will always make you feel smaller than you really are. If all birds sang the same song, it would be boring 🙂 Nice to meet you anyway.
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Thanks, Steve. With so many wonderful and kind photographers around, giving it up is impossible. 😉 I am grateful. I am almost ready to post a follow-up. Still writing it in my head – you do that too, right? Have a great day! Helen
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I have lots of posts in my head; most of which don’t get written I’m afraid Helen! You are surely more motivated than I in this regard 🙂 I really should post them though. Perhaps tonight 🙂 I must also thank you for the blog follow. I find it difficult to trumpet myself or ‘get out there’, so I’m always gratified to discuss things with others such as yourself 🙂
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Steve, me too, I have a hard time to go out to let people know me. I did a poor job in marketing my YA novel. I don’t even mention it, which is not good, I know. I just have a hard time doing it.
But I found this photographing community amazing. They make me feel so comfortable and welcome. I would suggest you to start with some photo challenging (for example, Cee at ceenphotography.com, has several.) That’s how I started. Hope this helps. Helen
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Oh, and I make sure all of the photos I blog are no longer than 800 or 900 pixels on the longest side and reduce them to 72dpi (they’ll always look fine on a computer screen).
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Thanks. This helps. I usually save it as “medium” quality in Photoshop Element, and other than file size gets smaller, I have no idea what it really does. Helen
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Hmm..it’s been a while since I’ve used Elements. Is there an option in the file menut to ‘Save for Web”? That might provide some further options. I often use a free image viewer called Faststone. It actually has the facility for you to specify quality, the length of the longestr side in pixels, and even place a discreet watermark. Quite handy. I find I don’t use Photoshop much at all. I usually use Lightroom for photo editing if needed.
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Element does allow you to set image size so I can set the longer side 800 pixel, for example. But I haven’t figure out how to reduce to 72dpi. I am sure if I google, I can find it. Thanks. Helen
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The dpi value only relates to the quality of a printed photo. You could set it at 3dpi and it will always look the same on a computer screen. It’s very useful for limiting the printability of a photo if you really don’t want someone else printing it out. There’s never a surefire way of stopping photo theft of course (plenty of horrible stories in legal circles abound, and you needn’t even be a professional or someone wanting to make money from your work to get into strife), but some small simple techniques help to discourage.
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Thanks, Steve. I haven’t spent time to figure out how to set dpi yet ;-( I will do that as soon as I am finish typing here. Let’s talk about your writing 😉 Didn’t you say you would post some of them? I didn’t see any yet… do I miss it? I did more writing on my Chinese blog, but so far not many people visited it yet. I found out most of my Chinese friends don’t read (care) blog. Sad. Helen
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Well, if you need any help, please just let me know Helen! Oh, I actually have a fair few drafted/WIP short stories hanging about on my hard drive. Creative writing was always something I was best at, but I’ve never pursued it. For some reason, I’d rather paint, or use a camera, or make music! Anything but write, it would seem. I applaud your YA publication, as I know that it requires a lot of dedication and personal motivation to get that far. You surely must have fine commitment to the form and genre Helen 🙂 The internet is a funny place isn’t it? In some ways it helps us to have a voice in the wilderness, and in other ways it’s so vast that our voice often gets lost and is ignored. I don’t know what to think sometimes. In some ways, I preferred the world pre-internet. Now we all have to be self marketers if we want our creative voice to be heard. But what if we are simply not good self marleters? What if it was never our strong point? What if we struggle with attention?
What do you think?
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I don’t know, Steve. I think if you start talking like the way you talked to me (I am so honored and feel lucky), many people will respond to you, just like all my friends you have seen here. Music – I don’t know anything, even though I dreamed that one day I can compose or at least write a country song (every writer know about broken heart more or less ;-), but that day seems very far away. Painting — that’s my next project, as soon as I have learned enough about photographing and videotaping. I guess we all have our priorities.
I like Internet though. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to meet so many nice photographers (since I am shy). But I am struggling to get my Chinese blog going. It seems like most of my Chinese friends don’t care reading blogs. They prefer FB. Well, as long as I get practice writing Chinese, I guess it’s ok with me.
I don’t think you have any problem to get readers or make friends. You can start by reading their blogs and post a comment just like you did here. I thought you are wonderful. Anyone would love to be your friend. Helen
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Well, that’s very kind of you to say Helen. I guess we will see 🙂 I actually think photographing and painting are closely related. That’s how I became interested anyway. The internet can always be good for meeting people. The hope is to meet people that also want to talk back to you! I think I’ve found that in you, so I thank you for that!
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You are so right Steve. It is frustrating when one is not a marketing type I’m trying to believe that as vast as the net is that if my work is meant to be seen then it will, akes me sad though I see so much that is not good that is proclaimed as good simply because it is marketed well while genuinely good work is ignored Don’t be discouraged An artist has a responsibility to put her or his work out there Then it’s on its own
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And how to find an audience? I like your attitude though. The one thing we have control over is the art, so we should focus on that before anything else! Do it for oneself first!
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Paul is right. (He is always right!) But I think it also depends on how much do you need $. If you need $ for living, then I think even if you don’t like marketing, you just have to learn to like it and learn to do a good job. Right? Not sure. I always thought it would be nice to hire someone and give him or her some % of earning. But I don’t know if that’s possible.
Helen
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The need for money would always drive self marketing further, especially if we want to do it for a living! There are a number of science exoeriments that prive that on e art is linked to money, the art suffers and becomes rushed. So, how to retain artistic integrity?
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Well, I was a computer programmer for many years and I always told my customer that I could only deliver a good job that was possibly been done within the time frame they gave me. 😉 Same with artist, I am sure. Helen
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Oh, I wish I had those programming skills!
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These are wonderful photos!! 🙂 By the way, welcome back! I feel the same way about the last photo. In regards to the photos, I do the same thing more now but in the previous years I didn’t. I wish I had though.
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Thank you so much! I am so glad that I am not alone 😉 I thought it’s just me. Thank you so much for your support. Helen
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😉
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Beautiful capture, Helen… each image tell a story.
I just loved the first images and the sentence “I heard a conversation between her two feet.” so imaginative… 🙂
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Thank you, Sreejith. It’s interesting that we all attracted by different things, and that is good 😉 Helen
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Very interesting photos. You must have had a great time in Taiwan then? 🙂
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Suyash, I had a great time in Taiwan. Met 9 classmates, friends that I haven’t seen or talked to for 40 years. Time flies. Can’t wait to go back again. Thanks for your visiting. Helen
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Wow. Thats stupendous, Helen. Meeting friends and classmates is always a special occasion of bonding, and that too after 40 yrs. OMG, cannot imagine, how amazing time you must have had.
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