Bored with my own shots.

Mozziephotography

Mozziephotography

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Stephen
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Yes
I've been asked to cover a local 10k run which has a LARGE number of competitors. There are 2 other photographers in attendance. I'm at that stage when I've become a bit bored with my own images from this type of event, is there anything I can do to ring the changes? Apart from saying no to the organiser.
https://www.stevefrithphotography.com/running
 
mossienet said:
I've been asked to cover a local 10k run which has a LARGE number of competitors. There are 2 other photographers in attendance. I'm at that stage when I've become a bit bored with my own images from this type of event, is there anything I can do to ring the changes? Apart from saying no to the organiser.
https://www.stevefrithphotography.com/running
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You obviously don't need the money or you'd say yes, so say no thanks.
 
@twist It's only one of 2 events I have ever received money for. And it's not much of a fee either. £100 last time for 4,000 images to work on. Never kept money for myself. Raised £14,000 through donations (for my images) for malarianomore and raising monies for the local mountain rescue team … around £2750 so far. No, I'm not rich … just a boring OAP with too much time on his hands. :banana:
@petersmart Just bored with the same style. As @twist rightly says, "Just say no"
 
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Nothing to do suggest, but when I saw your post I read it as "Bored with my own shorts". Caused some amusement here :)
 
mossienet said:
@twist It's only one of 2 events I have ever received money for. Never kept money for myself. Raised £14,000 through donations for malarianomore and raising monies for the local mountain rescue team … around £2750 so far. No, I'm not rich … just a boring OAP with too much time on his hands. :banana:
@petersmart Just bored with the same style. As @twist rightly says, "Just say no"
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You're doing such a good deed though (now we have the whole picture), the images are excellent, you clearly don't need the money. Not sure you can change much of the style..... You're doing a good thing though, perhaps look for other types of photography where you can support other charities?

Do you have much else in your calendar to keep you busy or is it a decent day out helping Vs telly?
 
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@mossienet I shoot a lot of junior parkruns and I often find myself falling into a set of tried-and-tested patterns that I know are going to work, also because the event is usually over in 30 minutes and I'm trying to capture as many runners as possible. To mix it up, I often try to incorporate something unique to the season in my shots (flowers, snow) or more recently I've tried to get more panning shots because they give a bigger sense of drama and movement if executed successfully. I find it's easier to think about new angles and new ways to frame when I'm at home reviewing existing shots and also by looking at other people's work. Not sure if that helps but that's my two cents...
 
@mossienet The other interesting about runners is that very often they pick up each other's rhythm and you get symmetry between two runners running in close proximity. I only really notice this afterwards when reviewing shots but those are often good pictures so I try to maximise the opportunity of capturing them.

A good example is this one:

20170820_094358_071 by Maarten D'Haese, on Flickr
 
@maarten.dhaese Yep, I've noticed that with a few runners. Nice one. I think that it's the pressure of including as many people as possible that creates "boredom". I've come back from a shoot and found some shots that I'm really happy with on all sorts of levels. But, because I'm trying to raise funds for charity, I feel that I have to include the images that haven't really worked.
 
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twist said:
You're doing such a good deed though (now we have the whole picture), the images are excellent, you clearly don't need the money. Not sure you can change much of the style..... You're doing a good thing though, perhaps look for other types of photography where you can support other charities?

Do you have much else in your calendar to keep you busy or is it a decent day out helping Vs telly?
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This is the problem. Apart from holidays, due to family situation, I'm restricted to a diet of local races and places. If I had a better "diet" of events and places I could get to, I think that I'd be happier with the sports side.
 
Hi Stephen. If your bored your bored. Can't really help you with that other than to say photograph something else that gives you a buzz. The sports stuff obviously did as going from your site the images are really good.


Gaz
 
Do you know what your real problem is? You have never properly rewarded yourself for the past efforts you made. So, giving it away practically free once more would have no allure to anyone. Buddy, you got to put money in your pocket that anyone else would demand for the services. Stop letting yourself down. If they are coming to you once more then maybe it is because they know they have a sucker to take advantage of. Stop this behavior. If you are not going to respect yourself and get what you deserve then it is time to sell you camera, buy a point and shoot, and then go shoot flowers. Good luck.
 
Not trying to be rude here but when i initialy looked at your shots they just said running shots ...Maybe singling out runners that seem to have that personality,or qurkiness or just something different than the rest thats what i did when i covered some local park fun runs..I took myself away from the other photographers who basicaly concentrated on the start and finish i moved around looking for something different and in doing so it kept my inrest in the subjects ..It worked for me and i was nearly always happy at the end result and i always managed to get my shots in the local paper..(y)
 
You may already be doing this, so my comments may not help at all (sorry if so)

First, I would suggest upping the amount of alternative types of photography you do, particularly around the time of running events, maybe even try some sort of photography genre you do not find appealing at first glance.

I have lately come across a couple of YouTube posters who film themselves going out and doing landscape photography. I am not a particular fan of landscape photography, for example I would never buy a calendar of landscape views. However being a bit bored I thought why not go out and try it for an afternoon, nothing to loose. So off I went. It was actually (for me, maybe not for others) hard to get well framed / composed images. In fact I have gone out a few times now (local micro views not mountains) just because I find it more challenging than I expected and trying to improve is interesting and challenging - even though I do not love this area of photography for itself. I will never be a committed 'Landscape Photographer' as frankly I dont care enough, but I am enjoying doing something different and it is challenging my skill set and improving it, and I can apply some of that learning to other areas of photography.

Other possible challenges worth a try are macro photography, photographing anything as if you are trying to sell it etc. There does not have to be personal appeal in a subject, just something very different to your usual or something that needs a different skill set. Then do your photography/post processing mixed in with the time you spend doing the running stuff, so that you can add in variety.

The other thing I would do is sit somewhere nice (garden, pub) and make a playful list of stuff, something like

Higher, lower, diagonal, curving, light against dark, abstract, crowd, small detail, fast shutter, slow shutter, feet etc

Then in moments when not doing your standard running shots, try to get in ones that incorporate stuff from your playful list.
 
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From the runs I’ve done I’ve never seen images to this high standard or level of creativity. I’d love to see images like these. I get your bored with them (I can relate) but I promise you the people in the pictures will be delighted with them. The fact your raising money for charity along the way is a real credit to you.
 
Just re read your posts and wonder if you are restricting yourself too much by thinking

mossienet said:
If I had a better "diet" of events and places I could get to
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the trick is perhaps to change what and how you photograph, which might reduce the need to go to more places? I wonder if you have sort of shut yourself into a box thoughtwise and in style and subject. I can understand that, as immediately around where I live (half a mile or so) is fairly devoid of classic photographic subjects. If I cant go out for some reason, then I can spend some time, say photographing a pile of table forks. Its actually really hard to arrange stuff and light it (window or created) in a way that works. It can be much more engaging and educational that one would first expect. I sometimes ask people to randomly name something, then try to photograph whatever it is in some unusual way. Last one was 'tomato' related. I ended up taking some cherry tomatoes out with me to shoot in quirky places. Was fun :)

Great stuff on the charity front by the way - well done, you have done to much to help folks.

If you like helping charity, the local wildlife trusts and cats/dogs homes are often looking for photographers which would be a big and broad change of subject. The wildlife people often share lifts too if that helps you get about and discover places you never knew were there.
 
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Really appreciate the time and trouble you've taken to respond to this thread. It has given me food for thought. I do need to balance sport and "other" stuff. Off to Yorkshire Sculpture Park next week and a trip to Grindleford, there are some amazing silver birch trees in a quarry. Well worth a visit. Put the camera away this morning and joined in a race that I sometimes photograph. One of our running club members was murdered on the Trans Pennine Trail a couple of weeks ago. He never missed this race. Had a steady run round and told myself to put things into perspective.
Thanks again for your positive and "creative" thoughts.
 
My 2p...

Your photos are great :)

But as the subject is pretty much the same all the time and especially on the day of each run I can see how 'samey' they have to be and why you feel bored - but your photos are great

So - pretend you've hit the wall (like in a Marathon) and just push on through it, its worth the extra effort, especially for the runners :)

Dave
 
mossienet said:
One of our running club members was murdered on the Trans Pennine Trail a couple of weeks ago.
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So very sorry to hear this. Thats just awful. I tend to think it would be safer out in such places than in a town etc. I guess not.
 
Morning out around Padley Gorge and a couple of visits to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Really enjoyed being somewhere different and trying out different techniques.
 
Perhaps the other thing you could do is create a series from your archive of the 5/10/15 images [maybe in monochrome] that you like best and maybe print them - not huge - maybe mount them. Aim for as much variety as you can to avoid repetition in this set. This might spark some new ideas - are there places on the route where they group together? At the start, could you get out ahead of the pack and get the stampede towards you? [I did this with a bunch of hounds once - fortunately they decided not to go through me and on the beach in Tynemouth for the Boxing day run into the water]. Perhaps look for one runner helping out another runner who is injured? What about the officials / volunteers / bystanders? Go abstract - ND filter - slow the motion right down as an experiment, from very low down.

Anyway, I agree too - bravo for raising that money for charity - the people in the shots will be absolutely delighted to have evidence of their days.
 
mossienet said:
@twist It's only one of 2 events I have ever received money for. And it's not much of a fee either. £100 last time for 4,000 images to work on. Never kept money for myself. Raised £14,000 through donations (for my images) for malarianomore and raising monies for the local mountain rescue team … around £2750 so far. No, I'm not rich … just a boring OAP with too much time on his hands. :banana:
@petersmart Just bored with the same style. As @twist rightly says, "Just say no"
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You could do some FREE football photography, But you may get flogged, after they have finished with the horse they have been flogging on another thread...LOL


DIVERSIFY a little with your subject matter, maybe a few cycle races? Just a thought. What about Horse trials they can end up in some fabulous images as well as Horse and rider shots after events? I think the answere is broaden your subject matter...
 
@LASTOLITE Thanks for that. Had a good morning out on the moors on Sunday. Bit of quick fire landscape photography, snapping runners at 2 different location as well as fell running to boot. Great morning and pleased with the results
 
mossienet said:
@LASTOLITE Thanks for that. Had a good morning out on the moors on Sunday. Bit of quick fire landscape photography, snapping runners at 2 different location as well as fell running to boot. Great morning and pleased with the results
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Nice one, I am taking my own advise and having a go at some Landscape stuff, maybe a little wildlife too...
 
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