The actual post is here.

My response, follows:

I loved this thread… in fact it’s what made me get off my ass and start posting here after a mini break. Both the reminder that we’re halfway through the year and Raul / Kaden’s long list of accomplishments conspired to kick me into gear.

As for me, here were my original goals:

* Shoot more with Medium Format
* Take fewer pictures
* Take better pictures
* Finally get around to entering some competitions (and winning a few)
* Continue to write on this blog and expand Lost In Focus

I’ll go through them quickly:

* Shoot more with Medium Format
Yes! This worked out great .It seems such a trivial goal now but moving to film was a big deal for me, and then stepping up to MF (losing portability, flexibility and 25 shots per roll) was even harder. Once I did it though, I’ve not looked back. 35mm film has now become “point and shoot” – i love medium format. I originally started out with the Hasselblad that i had in my collection, and soon ended up purchasing a Pentax 67ii. Since I bought that, I can honestly (really, truly) say that I’ve not had a desire to buy another camera since. It is without question the best camera I’ve ever shot with and will never ever sell it (more likely, i’ll buy another one for backup). The great thing about medium format is that when I scan the negatives in my fairly low end Epson v700 at 3200 DPI, i get a huge, sharp, awesome 50 megapixel file. This allows me to crop at will or not crop and know that I’ll be able to print the size of a house should the occasion ever call for it.

* Take fewer pictures
This is working out well too. If I ignore the shots I take for dog rehoming / charity (which are mostly digital for convenience sake), then I’ve probably taken about 300 – 500 shots this year so far. This is about 10x less than I would normally have taken. For example, on my yellowstone trip I took about 150 images over 5 days. The two other photographers who had a 5D Mark II and a D3 between them, took roughly 3,000 each. But the point of this goal was not to shoot less often – but to shoot more deliberately. It was a means unto an end, rather than the end itself. The point was that I was supposed to be shooting better images. So – this brings me to my next goal

* Take better pictures
This is an interesting one and I can’t say right now whether i’ve accomplished this or not. I will say I’m taking better pictures more often – the benefit of slowing down and becoming more deliberate is definitely helping and I’m surprised to find that my keeper rate is increasing every time I put a new roll of film in the camera. I never expected that. I’ll also think that I’m on track to surpass my images from last year. But it’s still only halfway through 2010 and I have more travel and a lot more shooting to do yet. So the jury’s still out but things are looking good. Below is probably my favourite picture so far this year:

* Finally get around to entering some competitions (and winning a few)
OK so i ended up entering only one contest – the Sony World Photography Awards and I got an honorable mention. However, I’m going to change this goal. I always wonder why I never can motivate myself to enter more competitions and I think, deep down, it’s because I really don’t care. Instead I’m going to change this goal to another – and its related much more to the philosophical aspects of photography and what it means to and does for my life. I need more space to expand on this though so I’ll save that for my next post.

* Continue to write on this blog and expand Lost In Focus
Well, Lost in focus has definitely been expanding and doing great – with the addition of 4 new member this year (including Kaden who I now wonder how this site ever lived without :), and also some guest postings. I cant’ really take any credit here though as it’s you guys who keep doing the amazing things. I do want to write more about photography though and need to spend more time on this goal. It might not be till towards the end of the year but hopefully it’ll be worth the wait.

OK that’s all for now. Great idea Kaden posting this topic.

Dear Lawrence Ripsher,

Thank you for entering into The Sony World Photography Awards. The Honorary Judging Committee for this year’s Awards have been exceptionally impressed with the vast amount of high quality images entered as well as the outstanding amount of entries from photographers around the world.

From a total of 43,745 photographs entered into the amateur competition alone, it was certainly a difficult decision for all our esteemed judges to narrow the many excellent entries down to this shortlist and we thank you for your hard work and commitment to capturing and submitting some amazing images.

Unfortunately your submitted works have not been short-listed this year. However, due to the excellent standard of some of the images it was felt that certain images, whilst not being short-listed, should be commended.

I am delighted to inform you that your work has been selected for commendation. Only 40 images in each of the 9 Amateur categories have been selected for this special commendation, thus this is a tremendous achievement.

The commended images will appear on the website in due course and most importantly, will also be featured in the official 2010 Sony World Photography Awards Winner’s Book.

…

Once again thank you for entering into the competition. Good luck in your photography this year and we look forward to reviewing your best image of 2010 in next year’s competition.

With kind regards,

Astrid Merget

Creative Director – World Photography Organisation

It’s been about a year since I made the last major improvements to that site and this time round I thought it’d be a good idea to solicit ideas from everyone (and not just current LIF members) for imrpovements… If you were not limited by imagination or time, how would you like to see this site improved? Suggestions can be anything really. To give some ideas, they might include:

• Features requests (I have one from Scott – email notifcations for threads he’s commented on)
• Ideas for the format / design of the site (although if you suggest a banner, you’re automatically agreeing to design it :)
• Suggestions for content (e.g. articles, news, favourite photographers, guest writers)
• Ideas on how (and if) to involve a broader community (something around Facebook?)
• Or maybe even just talking about the things you love, like or hate about this site

Put your thinking caps on folks! I can’t commit to taking everything on – this is more idea solicitation currently – but I’ll take in every suggestion, figure out what’s possible (or not) and try to come up with a plan to add another layer of polish. You can contribute to thread over on the site.

It’s true.

I think about my case. If I go on a week long trip, I can easily produce 20 – 50 good images – these will be shots that have high technical merit, some good artistic qualities, and I’d feel comfortable sharing on this blog, or on some other photo sharing site. Now lets say I do a half dozen of those trips per year – that’s at least 120 images. Combine that with other personal projects, shoots, etc and I’m easily up to 200.

So, 200 good shots in a year. Definitely possible – regular in fact -and bear in mind my standard of quality is high. But anyway what’s the point. Who the hell is ever going to sit there while I hit “next” on 200 shots and when you consider that this is 2,000 photographs over a decade… well, that comment holds even more true.

So here’s a simpler way to tell what kind of year you’ve had with your photography – pick your top 5 shots.

That’s it – it sounds simple, but it’s actually very difficult. If you do it properly you’ll struggle. You’ll struggle because you won’t know what shots are your best or your best will differ from other people’s favourites, you won’t want to lose those other random 50 that you liked so much earlier in the year, you’ll secretly mourn the fact that you can’t hide behind the vast quantity of OK shots, you’ll wonder if all you ever took was OK shots. That’s what will happen if you do it properly. And then when you’re finished and you’ve chosen correctly, you’ll have what represents the quality of the photos you took for the year. If you feel good about those give five shots then your year was a success – it’s that simple. Do this and your photography will improve as at the end of each year you’ll have to be brutally honest with yourself. Do this for the next 10 years and within those 50 images you’ll have a shot at a collection you never dreamed of.

I’ll be going through this process myself over this week. I’d love to hear from you if you’re doing the same and where you landed. I wish the original photographer and all of you the very best for 2010.

In the meantime, here’s the shots I landed on when I did this last year – my favourite 3 of 2008.

Sumo street photo. Taken with a Hasselblad 500CM

Undercard fight at the final of The Contender Asia in Singapore Stadium

Akuri, 5D Mark II

On the 8th Dec, The Guardian ran a story about a chuch photographer getting stopped under terrorism powers:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/dec/08/police-search-photographer-terrorism-powers

On the 9th Dec, The Independent wrote about Police searching a photographer using anti-terror laws:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-search-photographer-using-antiterrorism-laws-1836683.html

And at the end of last month, there was a BBC photographer who spoke on UK television about his run in with the law:

I’ve heard reports of friends who still live in London about how photographer is getting harder and harder in London, but it’s starting to make major news for the first time (at least, the first time I’ve heard it). I hate reading articles like this. Street photographer can be a wonderfully artistic, rewarding and noble pursuit… but given the latest trend it would not surprise me at all to see photography completely “banned” in large sections of London. Now, part of me understands the intent of those laws – but they’re v poorly thought through. There at a dozen different arguments showing why they’ll be either completely ineffective or pointless (e.g. you can’t stop digital cameras with 21x zooms, terrorists aren’t the ones using tripods and L lenses, etc etc).

As for me, in the couple of times I’ve been back to the UK since I left a few years back, I’ve not been stopped. I did take some of my favourite street photography there however. A couple of examples:

Trafalgar Square, London  2006. Nikon D200 + 18-200mm zoom

South Bank, London 2006. Nikon D200 + 18-200mm zoom

Outside the National Portrait Gallery, London  2006. Nikon D200 + 18-200mm zoom

Despite not getting stopped in London, I do have an amusing tale about how I managed to get pulled over by two army vehicles and a dozen soldiers with assault rifles while photographing in Singapore, but that’s for another time (to skip to the end though, I survived without any scars and also without any pictures).

Although I don’t live in London / UK anymore, I’ll be following with interest to see how this develops. It’ll also be interesting to hear from any photographers living there to see if the sorts of stories above are isolated incidents or becoming more frequent.

Of course, there is an additional twist of irony to all this in that despite the UK’s clampdown on street photography, it remains one of the most recorded countries in the world. It’s estimated that there are more than 4 million CCTV cameras in the UK, one for every dozen or so people (dubious maths apparently provide this number – but it’s mighty impressive nonetheless).

Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned professional who just happens to be stuck in a slump, my best advice to get things going again is to pick a project. The idea of a project can be extremely simple – even just a single word (e.g. “happiness” or “rain”). Once you’ve chosen it, shoot that, and nothing else, for a month. A project has the effect of constraining what and how you shoot and as a result, those constraints force you to innovate. As a photographer all the distractions of daily life can sometimes stop us from seeing clearly – a more limited field of view helps solve that. Sometimes too much choice can be a bad thing.

For me – photo projects have been a huge part of my development. I’ve made no secret about the day my photography became serious – it was when I saw Chuck Inglefield’s Urban Melancholy project. After that, I realised what photography truly could offer and I stopped randomly shooting everything around me and decided to choose a simple abstract theme to improve my skills. My first project was “Negative Space” – a photographic technique that I still enjoy using today. For a month, I mounted a prime lens to my D70 and only shot subjects to which that description would apply. The images overall were among the better ones I had shot to that point but more importantly it taught how me how to compose properly. Also, a couple of shots from that original project still rank among my favourites:

Following Negative Space, I started a photo documentary project called “Modern City Living” . My idea was to capture street scenes of Singapore (my home at the time) in a slightly creative way – the aim being to reflect the densely populated nature of a city and what that meant for its inhabitants. This was also the project where I learned how to use Photoshop properly. A couple of images from that project follow:

When I look back on the images as whole, there are many things that I’d do differently now – but again, the point here was progression.

After Modern City Living, my photography veered into two directions simultaneously. One was finding and gaining access to abandoned buildings in Singapore – the other was shooting portraiture (usually in the same locations). For some time, this combination became my “calling card” and a style for which I became known. Many of the locations have since become inaccessible / torn down / replaced with condominiums. A small sample follows – you can see a larger collection of my shots from these sits here.

Following that, then became my beginnings into “Narrative Photography” which I’ve already written about extensively on this site.

And that was the end for photo projects for me for some time. After that I did mostly commercial work (where the subjects / themes were chosen for me) and my photography veered off in a number of different directions. However I still consider the photo project to be an incredibly simple yet powerful tool for building a body of work and skills. For me, it was during those formative  projects where I obtained a grounding in technique, composition, etc.

The concept of the photo project is not a new one either. Go to any decent photo book store and you’ll see many of the titles are extremely simple themes. Random examples (which I happened to see in the library at my last visit) include:

• Workers: An Archaeology of the Industrial Age by the legendary Sebastiao Salgado (this book is incredible)
• Ellen Von Unwerth: Couples- by one of my favourite photographers (more on this one in a later post)
• People I Sleep With (people and their pets)
• Men Before 10 AM Too (simple concept – nice idea)

When choosing a photo project of your own, you can choose something broad (e.g. “family”) or something very narrow (e.g. “families eating fast food”). I personally prefer the latter as it’s there that the constraints are at their greatest and as a result, you often find the most creative ideas.  Anyway, if this concept is new (or even if you knew it already but it serves as a reminder) – I hope you’ll find it gives you a new idea of how to get things going. Feel free to comment below for any ideas of projects that you might shoot next.

For me, I'm using it in a very limited fashion only. I did think it might be a fun / useful exercise trying to pick my best / favourite 30 shots from my past 5 years and posting there. It turned out to be a much harder exercise than I imagined. In any case, thought I'd share on here also. For better or for worst, here is my current selection of my best shots. Click on the link or screen grab to see the list.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ripsher/sets/72157622606224462/

It’s been an interesting journey. when i started i just wanted to take pretty pictures. Then of course I met Chuck and his Urban Melancholy series and all that changed. After that I wanted my photography to mean something. I got pretty good at that and took an obvious next step of thinking “maybe I can get really good at this”. Things improved. I was getting lots of pats on the back, seeing the world differently and able to either create or critique images with ease. The motivation was flowing for a while but then things got a bit stale – i needed a new challenge.

Next came along some commercial gigs. I had lots of friends asking me to take pictures of their family / wedding / etc. I tried that. Hated it. Decided I’d only do probono work. Then came the really interesting commercial work – The Contender Asia. In a couple of years I’d gone from shooting pictures of flowers to in my living room to being the official photographer in what was probably the best photo job in Singapore for 2007. This opened lots of doors. I could write to event organisers and get access – like when I shot Federer vs Sampras or Sharapova in Malaysia. The first time was really exciting – sitting alongside associated press, reuters, etc. The second time I felt like i’d been here before. Maybe i get bored easily. But what about getting published – this a dream for me when i started. Well, after the Contender series hit the streets, my photography ended up getting into 50+ different newspapers / magazines, etc. The thrill soon wore off.

The money from The Contender Season 4, which followed in 2008, was pretty good. But this time we didn’t publish the photos. Turns out that I have a entire career worth of boxing images that will possibly never see the light of day. That thought would have killed me 5 years ago. Now I barely think about it.

What happened? Did i stop caring about photography or just stop caring about how others saw my work? Did I achieve the goals I set out to achieve too quickly? Did I not set the bar them high enough and i’m stopping way short? Or am i heaping too much praise on myself, I just got lucky a few times and i’m off base in my critique of myself? I’ve been asking myself these quesitons for the past year or so – in the hope that the answer will bring me newfound motivation and direction.

Well the answer came to me in an unexpected form the other day. Ume, one of our beloved dogs who you’ve seen in so many countless images with Akuri, passed away last Friday. We are devasted and shocked. She was far more than a dog to us – an integral part of our family whose daily presence lit up our lives. Her passing happened frighteningly quickly over a traumatic period of a month or so. This is the most I’ll write about the experience online but I did want to share what happened.

Now as hurt of the last few hours of her life are slowly beginning to be replaced by the wonderful memories of her life, I’m finding myself going back through years of archives and images. I notice how the pictures I took at the beginning with poor composition, too much flash, no feeling, etc – they don’t look like her. They’re not bad pictures as such – it’s just that they don’t capture what she meant to us. It’s only as I got skilled at photography in both a technical and artistic sense do i start to see my memory of her captured in a meaningful way. I look at my favourite images of Ume and I literally see her standing right in front of me and trigger a flood of other emotions and memories. These are images that others might not recognise in the same way, but to me each one is suddenly worth a hundred of every one of my other “best” shots.

I won’t say that it took the death of a loved one to make me appreciate photography. I’ve always appreciated it and I don’t believe I take it for granted. What I perhaps didn’t realise however was just exactly how much some pictures would mean to me as time went on. Beauty since faded, locations since left and lives since lost… Perhaps it’s only after the fact we ever truly appreciate the importance of our shots.

Ultimately, I think when I asked myself “why do i take pictures”, i was really asking “who do i take pictures for”? Given that publicity, appreciation, etc never had much staying power as far as motivations, I always wondered who was really my intended audience. Well now i have my answer in undisputable form … i take pictures for me and I take them for my loved ones. If friends, strangers, peers are able to enjoy them along the way, then wonderful. If not, then I’ll be happy knowing that i’m doing more than just recording a particular time, place or event… i’m preserving memories in the way I will want to record them years from now.

We miss you Ume.

"2008 was great for photography for me in some respects. I had the Contender Asia final, the Contender Season 4 season and a number of commercial shoots. So while the year was a great success on that level, on the other hand, I did very little photography for myself – the kind of photography that got me started on this in the first place.

So I just spent the Xmas break looking through some of some of my Pbase favourites’ and the most popular galleries on that site. With the exception of those people who have continued to push their limits, boundaries and comfort zones, very little has changed. This is a good and a bad thing. It’s good because my favourites’ consisted of mostly excellent photograhers and that certainly has not changed. On the flip side, I’ve also noticed a trend amongst the general populus of photographers to move towards heavier and heavier processing, more obvious poses of pretty models and lots more “me too” images. The photography and processing has gotten more and more creative and simultaneously the images mean less and less. Mutton dressed as lamb we’d call this back in ol’ blighty. It used to impress me but digital photography, Photoshop and photographic workshops have all amazing tools in the hands of average photographers and now a glimpse through popular galleries looks more and more the same. Even more than it did a year ago. Popular photography, at least on pbase, is dominated by the same old usual suspects – followed closely by the crowd who wants to be just like them. Nothing wrong with that of course – but it bears no resemblance to what I consider to be photography. There are exceptions of course. Those who fall into that category already know who they are.

In contrast, this site has been an inspiration to me. Seeing everyone’s work continue to be posted on here while I was tied up in other things makes me believe that if you start something interesting enough, it quickly creates its own momentum and takes on a life of its own. That’s what has happened to Lost in Focus. It started slowly at first but in the past few weeks and months I sense a crossing of the Rubicon. Not every image has to be a work of art – but what we strive for will ultimately determine how interesting the journey is along the way, and ultimately the destination too. Keep that goal in mind and everything else starts to change naturally. Amazing photography when in that mindset almost becomes the side effect. To point out one individual whose work I think lives and breathes that, we need to look no further than Kal. Kal is someone someone whose work I always liked, but seeing how he seemingly effortlessly transformed his work to a completely new level with a film camera in his hand has truly been an honour. There are countless other images on this site that shout this also. When I think about the images I want to create, I think I owe it to myself and the peers whom I respect, to try to create genuinely original work. Again, not a masterpiece for every shot – but to never compromise on honesty and to be critical with myself and others. This means investing in subjects, trying new things, not getting pulled along with the crowd and continually reminding myself not to settle for less than I’m capable of. It’s such a pleasure to have this forum to share work on. Lost in Focus 2009 is really going to be something.

Here’s an image I took yesterday to punctuate how I felt as I start to get serious about my own work again"

A discussion has continued on the site on this topic. You can follow it here.

The only problem with taking a break, is that it’s hard to get started again.

January quickly bacame February. And then February became March.

I’ve not been totally away from photography in that time. Since the start of this year, the following been going on behind the scenes:

- I’ve had a chance to catch up with all my post processing work required on the Contender Asia
- Got published another half dozen times or so. Twice in the Bangkok Post, another cover for Kickboxer International which is coming out next month (and is probably my favourite cover so far)
- Further developed my relationships on the Singapore scene (somethng I’m conciously pushing only slowly so to bring on interesting projects). Am now working with a new agency out here and agreeing a few upcoming projects
- Bought a Hasselblad :)

The last one is an interesting one. More on that next week.

Anyway, despite all this I have done very little actual work from behind the camera. That all changes this weekend because tomorrow night is the final of The Contender Asia. It’s being hosted at the Singapore Indoor Stadium and will have an attendance of somewhere between 5,000 – 10,000. I just got back from the weigh in and the atmosphere is very exciting. It’s going to be a huge night for the sport of Muay Thai. Tomorrow night, I’ll be taking my role as the Official Photographer, shooting at ringside for 3 hours. I really can’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing :).

Anyway, it needed something like this to get me tuned back in again. I don’t expect to be needing another break for quite some time.

Now, I think it’s time I caught up on some comments & posted some photos.