make your photos speak

There is a category in photography that some people like to refer to as expressive photography, which to me seems like a ridiculous name. In my opinion all photography should be expressive. However, there is a lot of sentimental, smutty, and maudlin photography that is passed off in photographic communities as expressive photography.

As a result, if you wish to make expressive photography, you have a chance to really shine. Use your own voice and say something unusual. It doesn’t have to be profound - if you are saying something that is unique to you it will be expressive. If odd ideas pop into your head and you have the ability to create the photo, create the photo. If weird or ironic juxtapositions interest you, capture them.

 candling

silence

I recently mentioned here that practicing sometimes entails taking between 24-100 photos a day. I mentioned that figure again this past Wednesday when I taught a photography seminar. Both times I was greeted by astonishment and the question did you really take that many photos every day.

I did. It started with my first digital camera. I knew that I could not afford to continue to shoot as much as I was shooting if I stuck with film, so I lobbied for a digital camera. My first camera was a Vivicam 10 whose images were 640X480. My objective was to convince everyone that a good digital camera was worth the money. So I took photos every single day and sent them to my family. The ease of a no-brainer point-and-shoot camera made this simple and I began to develop my eye.

I soon became involved in various on-line photography forums and discovered a fabulous photographer named Jeanne Wells . I learned from a comment she made once that at one point in her career she made a point of shooting at least a roll of film a day. I made that my goal. When I got my current camera, which was the first Digital Rebel that was produced, I continued to pursue my objective.

For two years I took at least 24 photos a day and worked them up. The result. I know what to expect from my camera.

Below you will find some photos from my Vivicam days.

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.

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

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.

 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

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

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

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

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