Self pimping blog posts are nice, but I love to put some information in it for beginners like me.
What I've learnt after 100 approved submissions:- To select only my best work, which seams banal but at the end of the day it's what really pushed me over 50% acceptance rate (this month I'm around 85%). I tend to be very picky with my self so I try to submit only the images that I really thing are of good quality and show "something" in my mind.
- Have fun. Another banal tip right? Yes, but if I wasn't having fun I wouldn't walk around shooting. I'm still in the reactive stage: I don't always have a clear idea of what I want to shoot (but sometimes it happens) so I walk around and shoot what I like. At times I see something very interesting, take few shots, look at them at home and then go back to that location with an idea in mind. The wood sculptures series is an example of this approach.
- Isolation. I dont have a studio, it's one of the next things I want to learn, but I still like to try to isolate some objects now and then. How? I shoot them against the sky (bright clouds, even better), spot metering on the object, some good overexposure and a bit of levelling at home. There you are with a nice isolated object. It doesn't always work, but when it does it's great fun.
I'm a beginner, don't forget it, and take these tips as a sort of "thinking loud" about what I've been doing in the last four months. Hope it still helps.
Surrey is beautiful. Have fun!
