this magic moment

08.18.08 - 05:17pm

The wonderful thing about practicing photography is that you learn so much. The more photos you take the more you understand how you see life and the more adept you become at showing others what you see.I’ve learned to notice things that many people miss and I’ve learned to appreciate the little things. I’ve learned to recognize patterns and I know what to expect in different situations. In a way, practice functions like a sixth sense and allows you to plan and shoot photos without having to stop and analyze every little detail.

The kind of practice I am talking about is years of shooting every day and shoot a minimum of 25 photos a day.

When you practice you are ready for whatever you see and know what iso, shutter speed, and aperture will work best given the conditions and your objective.

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Have you ever seen the Rain?

08.12.08 - 03:54pm

Songs with questions and songs with imperatives are always the most likely to capture my attention. Creedence Clearwater Revival wrote a song with a deceptively simple question. They ask:

Someone told me long ago,
There’s a calm before the storm,
I know, and it’s been comin’ for some time.

When it’s over so they say,
It’ll rain a sunny day,
I know, shinin’ down like water.

I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain
I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain
Comin’ down on a sunny day?

“Sure,” you might say, “I’ve seen the rain.” If you are more alert, you might say “Yes, I’ve seen it rain on sunny days.” If you are really alert, you might say, “Yes, those are the days when we see rainbows and silver linings.”

The questions is simple, the answer is varied.

I have a simple question too, do you really look at things?

A Look At Seeds

“I thank you for the seeds…Too old to plant trees for my own gratification, I shall do it for my posterity.”…Thomas Jefferson, 1822

What a strange thing is the propagation of life!
A bubble of seed which may be spilt in a whore’s lap,
or in the orgasm of a voluptuous dream,
might (for aught we know) have formed a Caesar or a Bonaparte
- there is nothing remarkable recorded of their sires,
that I know of. Lord Byron

“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been,
I have great faith in a seed.
Convince me that you have a seed there,
and I am prepared to expect wonders.”
…Henry David Thoreau

“To see things in the seed, that is genius.” Lao Tzu

“The miracle of the seed and the soil is not available by affirmation;
it is only available by labor.” Jim Rohn

The ultimate wisdom which deals with beginnings,
remains locked in a seed. There it lies,
the simplest fact of the universe
and at the same time the one which calls faith
rather than reason.
Hal Borland

“Everyone who enjoys thinks that the principal thing to the tree is the fruit,
but in point of fact the principal thing to it is the seed.
– Herein lies the difference between them that create and them that enjoy.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

In the evenings
I scrape my fingernails clean,
hunt through old catalogues for new seed,
oil workboots and shears.
This garden is no metaphor –
more a task that swallows you into itself,
earth using, as always, everything it can.
- Jan Hirshfield, Remembering Voltaire

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fried chicken or variations on a theme or developing your own vision

08.07.08 - 04:11pm

When I was in college, I had a teacher who believed that one of the best ways to grow your vision or style was by picking a theme and working it to death. She believed that by picking a theme and redoing it over and over and trying to create it in different mediums would force a break through in creativity.

I don’t entirely agree with her. However, I have found that it is a useful tool and certainly a good method of practicing your art when your creative juices are dead.

In music, a variation on a theme is defined as “One of a series of forms based on a single theme.” If one practices a variety of approaches to one image, one is going to find that a single theme yields a variety of moods. Just like a theme in music.

One useful thing to keep in mind when approaching a theme is distance. How close you are to an image and how far away you are creates perspective. Distance often reflects place and closeness often reflects intimacy. Both the telephoto lens and the macro lens are suitable for every subject. Consider what Victor Hugo says “Where the telescope ends the microscope begins, and who can say which has the wider vision?”

What does any of this have to do with chicken, you ask? The song One Vision by Queen made me think of this article.

It begins:

One man one goal one mission,
One heart one soul just one solution,
One flash of light yeah one god one vision 

in the middle it says

Vision,
Give me your hands,
Give me your hearts,
I’m ready,
There’s only one direction,
One world and one nation,
Yeah one vision 

it ends

Just gimme gimme gimme
Fried chicken 

So here is my worked to death theme - or if you prefer my fried chicken.

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looking through an irreverent lens

08.06.08 - 05:58pm

 A good photographer should listen to Gordon Webber who says that we ought “To dare every day to be irreverent and bold. To dare to preserve the randomness of mind which in children produces strange and wonderful new thoughts and forms. To continually scramble the familiar and bring the old into new juxtaposition.”

When you see something that seems incongruent then you have the opportunity to make an unusual and often ironic or sarcastic image that will make people stop to think. However, the irony or sarcasm will depend on how you compose the image or on the title that you give the image.

meat market

opiate for the masses

body shop

litter prevention

i know the future

made with pure water

a life of passion

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unusual composition

07.07.08 - 05:41pm

Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music.
If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them.
Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.
Truman Capote

• There are formal rules of composition in art. These rules apply to all forms of art. A good photographer will learn these rules and learn when to apply which rule.

• However, a good artist learns to know when to break the rules. Sometimes an unusual composition says more than a composition that follows the rules.

Good composition is like a suspension bridge;
each line adds strength and takes none away…
Making lines run into each other is not composition.
There must be motive for the connection.
Get the art of controlling the observer – that is composition.
Robert Henri

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don’t leave it unsaid

07.02.08 - 05:20pm

Don’t worry about your originality. You couldn’t get rid of it even if you wanted to. It will stick with you and show up for better or worse in spite of all you or anyone else can do. Robert Henri

Subject matter is an interesting aspect of photography. Many photographers feel that there are suitable photographic subjects and unsuitable subjects. Everything is subject to the human eye; so don’t hide what you see from the camera.

Suitable Subject Matter

1. Don’t be afraid of ‘scary’ subjects. If something moves you, photograph it.
2. Do not worry if it may seem weird to photograph it. Just do it.
3. If you place inhibitions on your photography, you will find your work getting boring. It certainly isn’t necessary to show other people the photograph but it will help you express what you are saying

In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it.
Ernst Fischer

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simplicity

07.01.08 - 05:17pm

Space is the breath of art. Frank Lloyd Wright

As a general rule, eliminating extraneous details in your composition will always improve it.

• Often moving closer, to one side, or choosing a higher or lower perspective will help you eliminate unnecessary information from the scene.

• However, sometimes simplicity is more than just streamlining the image. Sometimes, it is the image. For instance, the image below is a plant holder in the cemetery. However, when isolated in the snow and given the title “halo” it takes on a different meaning and feeling altogether.

• However, sometimes simplicity is more than just streamlining the image. Sometimes, it is the image. For instance, the image below is a plant holder in the cemetery. However, when isolated in the snow and given the title “halo” it takes on a different meaning and feeling altogether.

Sometimes a simple image can take the viewer further than a complex image full of stuff the viewer has to sort out and try to understand.

Simplicity, clarity, singleness:
These are the attributes that give our lives power and vividness and joy as they are also the marks of great art. Richard Holloway

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parts is parts (or are they?)

06.30.08 - 05:02pm

Tell a story with parts. Too often we think that people need to see everything to understand. Often the opposite is true. If you show everything – people think about the specific situation. If you show them part of the scene, they fill in the blanks with what they know and understand and relate more deeply to the image.

Let people fill in the blanks – don’t give them all the information. You will connect with more people by giving them to relate to the story on their own terms.

If the individual viewer realizes that for him what he sees in a picture corresponds to something within himself that is, the photograph mirrors something in himself then his experience is some degree of Equivalence. Minor White

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knowing where to stand

06.27.08 - 05:23pm

A good photograph is knowing where to stand. Ansel Adams

The most common angle shot in photography is that of a photographer holding the camera and looking at his subject straight on. This is nice for a realistic approach. However, it doesn’t say anything new about the subject.

I must confess that I dabble in writing poetry. One of the rules for poets is to take something common and ‘make it strange.’ I apply that rule to photography too. A new perspective can change everything.

1. Get down low or move up higher.
2. Try laying on your stomach or on your back.
3. Climb up on a ladder for a different perspective.

Don’t be afraid to embarrass the people around you. My father wasn’t. When I was a sophomore in high school, we went to Royal Gorge in Colorado. My Dad thought it would be neat to show what it looked like when walking on the bridge and looking between the rather substantial gaps between the bridge planks.

I was sixteen and completely embarrassed. My father likes to recall how after he got done taking his photo he stands up and looks around to find all his family had wandered off and was looking in the opposite direction. They were completely unwilling to claim him.

The perspective of the gull from below allows us to focus on his rather ludicrous feet. Notice that this photo also makes use of three points and thus creates a triangle – sing with me “three is a magic number.”

From above, this lounge in a hotel in Mexico begins to look like an piece of geometric abstract art. Oh, did you notice the balding man? Look! Play connect the dot with the lamps. What shape does it make? Bingo! A triangle!

I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may - light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful John Constable

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practice makes perfect

06.26.08 - 04:38pm

Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration

Practice!!

With the advent of digital photography there is absolutely no excuse not to practice. One of the initial reasons I switched to digital is because it allowed me to take as many photos as I wanted and not have to go to the expense of printing them. I love photography but I am cheap and lack financial resources so a digital camera was the solution. My first camera was Vivcam10 which takes 640X480 photos.

The Vivicam is so basic that most peoples pocket digitals are able to take higher resolution shots than the Vivicam. However, the Vivicam’s simplicity was a blessing for me. It forced me to develop my eye since the camera couldn’t do anything for me.

So Shoot. Shoot. Shoot. Sometimes a good shot will come as a result of skill sometimes it will be a sheer luck. There is always that one percent of inspiration that in the case of photographers is sometimes more luck than inspiration. But that inspiration/luck moment doesn’t happen unless you practice.

Practicing increases your odds. Odds are that you will have more good shots if you take more shots.

If you are shooting film and need to save money or resources try to pick one subject per roll and concentrate on a more detailed photographic shoot. Concentrating on one subject at a time is one of the best ways to improve your photography even if you are shooting digital.

I have often thought that if photography were difficult in the true sense of the term-meaning that the creation of a simple photograph would entail as much time and effort as the production of a good watercolor or etching-there would be a vast improvement in total output. The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.

Ansel Adams

Carry Your Camera

Hand in hand with practice is keeping your camera with you at all times.

If you have your camera with you, you increase your chances of getting an unusual or a once-in-a-lifetime shot.

I have a fascination with cemeteries so I frequent them. If I had not had my camera while visiting this cemetery the opportunity to get a shot of a cat yowling next to a decrepit tombstone would have been missed.

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