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06/01/2004 10:11:00 PM · #1 |
As I stated in In the groove #1 I've had some computer situations that have taken me in to the land of funk temporarily. I'm trying to #1 get myself out of the funk and #2 help myself get into a better workflow and #3 share this whole experience with all of you. Hopefully this will help me get my groove back!
In this little segment, I would like to know what is YOUR workflow out in the field. When you leave home with your camera expressly to shoot photos, do you know where you are going? Do you have a shot in your head that you are intending to capture? Or are you more of the adventerous, serendipity type, looking to see whats around the next corner?
When you get to a site that you wanna shoot, do you meticulously plan out the shot, making sure all your settings are down before you snap? Or are do you capture many exposures figuring that one or two will come out good? And the big question of the day, do you have the final image in your minds eye when you push the button or do you wait to see what happens when you load the shot into Photoshop?
In other words, do you have a shooting style?
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06/01/2004 10:22:31 PM · #2 |
Well, if "fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants-and-pray-to-the-gods-of-photography-that-your-shots-turn-out" is a style, then that's mine! :o)
I take the camera everywhere and hope that something presents itself to me. I try to go out once a week specifically to shoot something, usually with a vague idea in mind but not necessarily. Guess I'm just not that stylistic! :o) LOL
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06/01/2004 10:25:00 PM · #3 |
I dont have a niche yet, or style.
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06/01/2004 10:38:45 PM · #4 |
I usually try to pick a place that I think will have a few kinds of shots available, a nice landscape, some fauna and flora, and a chance for a candid or two. Once I get to a place that 'has potential' I look, wait, and walk, til I see something that catches my eye. Then I shoot, settings I do fairly quickly ect and they change with each shot. But some days I decide ' i will only take macro lens' or I will leave that lens at home. Sometimes I use the challenge as a guide to where I will pick, but more often I find something I think will interest me and then I hope it fits the challenge. Either way I ask myself in 'the field' "what do I see here that is truly 'human' or 'divine'.
(p.s. buy a mac, you may have less comp problems : ) )
Message edited by author 2004-06-01 22:42:24. |
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06/01/2004 10:46:16 PM · #5 |
The good side to having a small point-n-shoot is that it is ALWAYS with me. SInce I have no idea what I am doing, I am then ready for when that perfect opportunity strikes me over the head! Most of my plans don't pan out. Almost all my entries come at the moment I least suspect it; unfortunately, that doesn't always lead to the most perfectly planned shot and time for editing. This weekend I went out for two hours and I got some gems on the way home. I shot about 100 - 150, in every way I could think of, then went through them at home. Then I have to talk myself out of all the ones I get attached to ( and shouldn't).
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06/02/2004 12:17:54 AM · #6 |
Originally posted by TooCool:
...do you have the final image in your minds eye when you push the button or do you wait to see what happens when you load the shot into Photoshop? |
My, you are a regular black hole these days! ;-)
I have many final images in my mind, but that's also where I leave them to haunt me.
I am very interested in places. Certain locations speak to me more clearly and profoundly than others. I avoid company, noise and distraction as much as possible, so I may be open to what is there. A place often suggests an image to me, when I am lucky, a very definite one.
When this happens, the first thing I look for is a perspective, a good vantage, light, backdrop etc. I usually have to move my tripod several times until everything feels and looks right through the viewfinder. I can spend hours here doing nothing but watching the clouds draw, metering, thinking about the form of rocks or women, listening to the wind in the trees, watching the light on the underside of leaves and -still- have no picture. Sometimes I leave with an empty card and a full battery and a little older for the experience.
When I start start taking pictures, when the light is 'unreal' enough, or a bird has come to see who I am or some cell-phone toting Artemis is driving her hounds off the hills, I take pictures in quicker succession and in a kind of controlled frenzy.
My friends have discovered that I often take shots of the same things, but I don't see it this way. Nothing is ever the same.
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06/02/2004 01:02:36 AM · #7 |
A lot of times it's just walking into a perfect photo-op and just taking the shot.
Sometimes it takes years to get the shot you want. I worked with this guy for years and took his picture many times before I got the picture that I wanted
Sometimes I work from multiple pictures to create my idea. In the digital age the sky is the limit, just shoot :)
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06/02/2004 01:09:22 AM · #8 |
Originally posted by Seanachai:
A lot of times it's just walking into a perfect photo-op and just taking the shot. |
So would you say that there is a good sized element of luck involved? Or would you say that you bring your own luck along?
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06/02/2004 01:12:15 AM · #9 |
Originally posted by TooCool:
Originally posted by Seanachai:
A lot of times it's just walking into a perfect photo-op and just taking the shot. |
So would you say that there is a good sized element of luck involved? Or would you say that you bring your own luck along? |
a very good sized element of luck coupled with bringing your camera every place you go :) |
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06/02/2004 02:43:59 AM · #10 |
When I am looking to capture a certian type of photo, such as for a challenge, I will think about it for the entire week and then at the end of the week go take a few pictures. With a lack of time, I can't do much more than think about taking pictures, but on the weekend I can usually squeeze in a few hours to do so.
My best pictures I have not attempted to take. Since what you seem to be asking about is what goes on in our heads I will talk a bit about what goes on in mine. Usually I am not thinking at all. :) I pick up a task to do, or one is given to me to do, and I go do it, there is no thinking over what needs to be done, no analysing this or that, I just go do it. Either that, or I am just 'soaking it in', so to speak. Taking in what is going on around me with no real involvement. This isn't as bad as it sounds, it is more like sitting on a beach, watching the waves, listening to the gulls -- letting reality wash over you without reaching out to control it in any way. I go for walks, no purpose behind them, no destination, it is relaxing and clears my mind of the day to day clutter.
Now, when I get interested in some problem, be it a challenge topic or an upcoming bill I need to find the funds to pay, I will be thinking about that. Usually, my thoughts are in words, and expressing my thoughts as words helps to solidify them, so to speak. But, and this is where it gets relative to your questions, I will think in pictures.
I find that the better I understand composition and the elements that go into making a photo aesthetic, the more I express my thoughts as images. Assuming this is universal and that I am not completely nuts (somethings that can be a stretch I know, but bear with me), those of you more acquainted with building images will likely not see much out of the ordinary in this. I am beginning to think that I do not express my thoughts as images more is due to my limited understanding of the elements of aesthetics -- maybe I just do not want to look at an unaesthetic image.
Anyway, when I 'get into the groove' and am thinking in terms of images is when I create the best photos I will likely never take. I have created several photos that I would love to take, but have not attempted because I do not feel I have the necessary skill to do them justice. But, and this is coming to an end soon I promise, when I create an image that expresses my thoughts, that image must be able to convey what I am thinking. Those images are the best because they are an image that if I was to give to someone, that someone would 'get' what I was thinking.
But, to answer your questions directly, when looking for a shot to enter into a challenge (or to fit some other specific requirement), I will first decide what it is that thought I want it to convey. After that, dream up several scenes that will convey that thought and create it or go to a place that I think is likely to produce it.
And finally, I think (and it may be completely off-base, but I think it anyway) that those who serendipitously find a great expressive image are simply more familiar with expressing their thoughts as images, and thus recognize those images when they come about.
David
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06/02/2004 08:56:22 AM · #11 |
Originally posted by Britannica:
And finally, I think (and it may be completely off-base, but I think it anyway) that those who serendipitously find a great expressive image are simply more familiar with expressing their thoughts as images, and thus recognize those images when they come about. |
Are you saying that many will see a thing, but only a few, those in tune with their creativity, will see it as a shot? Interesting!
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06/02/2004 02:53:57 PM · #12 |
Originally posted by TooCool:
Originally posted by Britannica:
And finally, I think (and it may be completely off-base, but I think it anyway) that those who serendipitously find a great expressive image are simply more familiar with expressing their thoughts as images, and thus recognize those images when they come about. |
Are you saying that many will see a thing, but only a few, those in tune with their creativity, will see it as a shot? Interesting! |
Well, I can really only speek for myself. I am trained in mathematics (amoung other things), and I find that I often will notice patterns in otherwise random numbers that happen to fall together (such as a few people walking past with jerseys on, where the numbers on the jerseys have a mathematical relationship). As I get more and more familiar with the elements of composition, I am noticing aesthetic compositions around me more and more.
The compositions noticed are also a reflection of you (as your sig says, I just noticed). Not to say you are, but referencing a previous thread where it was almost universally required to be depressed to be considered as having any aesthetic taste, lets take the state of being in apathy. Things do not matter much, nothing has much life to it, etc. Now, in that state of mind, going to look for photos in nature in spring just is not going to produce much. Nature is too full of life in spring. Of course the opposite is true as I found out this past Memorial weekend. Taking a cheerful attitude with a camera to visit the graves of those long gone, will get a person more than a few strange looks. ;)
But seriously, I do not think you have worry too much about being in touch with your creativity. Not many would have been able to take a rather mundane shot of a bridge with a blown out sky (sorry, but there it is), and see the changes needed to being it to life and make a very nice photo from it.
Yes I am shutting up now. :) (I have to go to work anyway) :(
David
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