- Name
-
David Astley Contact
- Country
- Malaysia
- Intro
- “It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary” – David Bailey.
I know some of my artist friends won't agree with that quote, but it is true that to be a good photographer you need to 'see' what makes a good photograph. To me that means understanding two things more than anything else: composition and light. You can learn about depth of field, white balance and all the other technicalities of photography from textbooks, but to be a creative photographer you must be able to 'feel' what makes a good composition, recognise when the light is soft or hard, or warm or cold, and have the ability to create an image that takes account of all of those elements. In that respect, photography is very much like art.
I'm a British/Australian expatriate, living in Malaysia since 1997. I'm not a professional photographer, but I've had some work published, I did some photo-journalism early in my career, and I still work in the media industry. My work takes me to some interesting places around the world, and I try to take advantage of any free time when I am away to pursue my passion for travel photography.
I have a personal website at www.xyzasia.com which contains some of my earlier travel photo albums, and I have some later albums on Pbase that I will progressively expand. I also post a few other photos from my travels to my blog
Although I was very active for my first two years on TrekEarth, these days work commitments prevent me from spending much time on TE. However, I do enjoy the rapport between TE members (and have enjoyed meeting a few personally), so intend to remain an active member and will post whenever I can. I try to write as many critiques as I receive, and write them honestly. Please don’t be offended if I give only one point if I think something could be improved. I would like you to do the same to me. My 'norm' is to give one point unless I think an image is outstanding. I know there are many on TE who give two points away for almost everything they critique as a quid pro quo for points they have received, but that reduces the effectiveness of rating images and in using TE to help us to improve our photography.
Copyright notice: My TrekEarth posts may be copied and used in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike2.5 licence. For commercial use and high res files, please mail me. - Member Since
- 2005-06-07
- Equipment
- Nikon D100, Nikon D200, Nikon D700, Nikon E5000, Nikon F70, Ricoh TLS 401, Sony DSC W300, Sony DSC-T9
- Note
-
Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer
![Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 1277 W: 114 N: 2603]](http://i1.trekearth.com/misc/g-g-g.gif)
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