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Some thoughts on photography

[Jan. 8th, 2010|12:09 pm]

mikiedoggie

[	Tags	\|	photography	]
[	Current Location	\|	the dungeons of daggorath	]
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Technical proficiency is not enough.
Regarding my skill at photography, while I can see improvements in my technical skill over the last few years, I have always felt that I have had difficulty improving my creative skills in the same way. In other words, it's one thing to buy a 12mm ultra-wide angle lens with a bunch of filters, but it's another thing to know how to make compelling and interesting photos with it. Don't get me wrong, I love my camera equipment and it definitely serves a purpose. But its also a crutch. Why walk forward or backward to frame a shot with a cheap and simple 50mm lens, when you can just use your 18-200mm zoom lens even though you're also changing the perspective and depth compression of the shot by changing the focal length? Doesn't the focus on how to take a shot distract from the real issue: Why are you taking the shot in the first place? I don't think about that enough.

Some books that focus on the "why" and not the "how" of photography.

I picked up a couple new photography books this week. While many books focus on the equipment, or on the mechanics of how to shoot, these two books focus on the vision of photography which is a much more difficult topic. "The Best Camera Is The One That's With You" is a series of photographs taken only with an iPhone. Some of these photos are technically pretty horrid, but they all show a strong creative and artistic bent. The photographer, Chase Jarvis, wanted to show that an image shouldn't be measured by resolution, dynamic range or technical perfection. At the end of the day, the worth of a photo is the simple, profound, absurd, humorous or whimsical effect it has on the viewer. Simplify, simplify, simplify.

The other book, "Within the Frame" is simply amazing from what I've read so far. A sample from the Foreword:

As he [David duChemin, the author] says, gear is good, vision is better. That discussion, honest and open, separates this book from so many currently on the shelves that are more than happy to tell you the right f-stop... It is far harder to know how to intuitively work a street, and, with respect and care, get inside people's fences and boundaries to create images that matter...

...

He talks about how vision and technique combine to make art and craft. He shows the artist plenty about the gear, to be sure, and he explains very well the buttons and dials of all the digital machinery. But he also beckons to the geek in all of us, and pulls us beyond shutter speeds and white balances into the heart of the matter -- pictures that speak, pictures that tell true stories, pictures that inform the mind and move the heart.

Reading that forward to the book made me realize this was going to be a good read. Technically, I know how to shoot a shot. Artistically, I think I've stagnated. I'm really hoping this book gives me some guidance on how I can inject a little more creative vision into my photos so they become, cliched as it sounds, a little more meaningful (at least to me).

The 365-Day Project
For these reasons, I decided to do a "365 Project." For many such projects, people will take a self-portrait each and every day. I didn't find that concept very appealing or, ultimately, very useful for my personal goals in improving my photography although I am seeing some very clever executions of the project.

In a 365 Project, I have post at one photo for every calendar day of the year. For my project, I'm only using my 50mm f/1.8 lens. Although effectively its a 75mm lens unless I shoot with film. Regardless, I want to look at the world through a lens a little differently and by limiting myself to a "mundane" focal length, its going to make me to think more a lot more about some fundamental things: composition, exposure and substance. In other words, I'm not going broad, I'm going deep. As I start to visualize things differently in my head its going to change the nature of why I want to take the photo in the first place. Hopefully, the photos will have more meaning to me by the end of the year.

Some other general guidelines (but not hard and fast rules):

Minimize the cropping unless I specifically want to shoot something in a different format (e.g. the camera shoots in a 2:3 aspect ratio but I suspect I'll do some framing specifically for 16:9 or 4:5);
While I'd like to move away from night photography, practically during the week I'm going to be limited to when I can shoot outdoors. it is what it is;
It will be interesting to see if I post any shots that have 'technical' issues. The big one for me is focus. I almost never post out-of-focus shots, because I hate it when things are out of focus. Sometimes, however, there are very compelling photographs that are lacking in technical merits. I am going to try to open up my mind a bit.
My "final" shot for each day will be the one that speaks most to me, not the one which I think will get the most comments. I think that'll make for some quirky choices every now and then.

And on that note, here are the first week's photos from my 365-day project:

( photos under the cut )

January 7, 2010 (Day 7)

You can see the final shots of each day by going to this flickr set. I've also put all the photos from the 365-day project in 2010, many of which did not make the final cut, into this other flickr set.

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