how do you make boring stuff look, like ... interesting ?

[Down Under]

In a few short paragraphs (odd for me, but yes)...

Make big prints. Make sure they are good prints. There is nothing worse than a bad print. Nobody will want to see it.

Write good captions. A well-written caption will often "save" a bad print. Information is everything!!

Shoot only black-and-white. It's an art form now. Absolutely anything, everything shot in B&W is "art". Trust me on this.

Have absolutely nothing to do with HDR. It's long past. If it ever was. Not to the intelligent.

Don't oversharpen. This gives anything you print/post the classic "amateur" look.

Avoid anything to do with bullsh*t. Too many exhibitions are made up of photographers (and curators) who forget this.

There are probably many other points. I will post them as (and if) I remember them. Others are most welcome to pitch in.

PS I have learned more from this thread, than almost any other I've read in all my time here. Kudos!!

 

[Pieter12]

How about, if you see something you consider a boring subject, don't shoot it. Not taking a bad picture is just as important as taking a good one.

 

[scheimfluger_77]

I am not pretending that my shot is interesting but it seems that fire hydrants are the star of this thread, and what do you know, I was printing one as I was reading this thread... serendipity.

View attachment 263450

Now here is a perfect example of the OP’s “dilemma”. The star of the photo—is not—the fire hydrant, it’s the girl behind it. At first I thought her hair was a rooster perched on top of the hydrant… but no, it’s the unseen human behind the ‘subject’. I take many photos that I look at and wonder what it was I saw. Perhaps the trick is to step back and analyze what provoked an emotional response, and then use technique (as a starting point) to emphasize your subject. Boring is in the eye of the beholder and as nice as it is to have others “oo & aha” over our work, I suspect that in the end the only valid opinion is our own.

 

[MurrayMinchin]

So, there I was, sitting in our vehicle in a sweltering hot shopping mall parking lot, pouting, wanting to photograph up some beautiful creek while my wife went shopping.

To be fair, we had done a bunch of hikes during the holiday we were on and she never complains when I romp off into the bush, so I'd be an idiot to not just shut up and wait while she wandered around the mall for a couple hours.

Then it hit me...I should photograph mall parking lots while she shops. Duh!! Lots of uninteresting things to flex your creative/compositional muscles with.

This is a digi-snap enroute to some as yet undetermined alternative process print:

 

[MurrayMinchin]

Has anybody mentioned patience?

We hovered our boat just off these rocks watching an eagle rip into a dead seal pup. Pretty boring stuff, really. Entrails being pulled and blood on beak photos, etc. Eagles are a dime a dozen around here, so nothing locals would consider exciting.

We almost departed because wind & currents made it difficult to keep our boat close enough to photograph...then other eagles started showing up. If we'd left the scene, we would have missed when things started to heat up (baby seal at bottom right)

 

[eli griggs]

I like your thoughts!

Cheers.

 

[snusmumriken]

Take a look at Martin Parr's 'Remote Scottish Postboxes'; or anything by Peter Mitchell.

 

[snusmumriken]

I was looking for a print I made of a telephone pole with a strand of fox tail sepia toned... left a print of an old girlfriend on the desk. My wife walked in and asked who is that?

That’s one way to make a boring print interesting.

Was it a nude? Do you need a fire hydrant?