Postcards from the Creative Journey

Do You Have “A Good Eye?”

The Ark, Window, Mirror

From The Fifty Project

When I was starting out in photography (many years ago) a complimentary description was that one had “a good eye.” Some claim a “good eye” is a quality that is inborn. I think there is something to be said for genetics, but I think that “good eye” we all strive for is developed, through studying good examples of photographs. I really don’t think there is a substitute for learning by seeing. After you see great photographs, you know what a great photograph looks like and you learn how to incorporate the elements of great photographs in your work.

This is the heart of my struggle with the current photographic aesthetic. New photographers are not being exposed to the best in photographic art in their learning process. There are two areas of confusion. One is to interpret current trends and fashionable art as “instant classics” and worthy of emulation. The second area confuses illustrations of photoshop skills with photographic aesthetics. Such samples are necessary to illustrate the specific function of a software program, but should not be thought of as aesthetic examples to emulate. I think the villain is the great speed with which technology progresses.

 We have people with more than forty years of experience with black and white silver gelatin processing and the aesthetics that go with that technology. Both the technology and aesthetics have been developed and refined through experience. No one has forty years of experience with Photoshop CS5.

It is quicker to develop training than it is to develop a good aesthetic using the newest tools. We should try not to confuse training in technique for development of an aesthetic and should remember classics have passed the test of time.

 

I published a new project on my website, "The Shoshone Building" right on the home page. Stop by and take a look at the newest photographs on the site.

Seeing More Is Seeing Better

By the River

I don’t deliberate as much as I used to when I’m making photographs. I think that’s because the economics of photography has changed so much for me since I “went digital.” Digital photographs do not have a ”material cost” so I really don’t have to pace my work as I used to do when I made platinum prints.

Last year I created a photographic folio, “By the River.” I wanted to use some of those images for the blog. When searching for the files I noticed that I never created a printable folio. The project was “complete” as a web folio. The cost of materials was zero.

Because the cost of materials was zero I made more compositions when I photographed. When I was lugging the view camera kit around, my photography was limited by the number of film holders I carried. Some large format photographers extol the virtues of making only six images in a day. They discuss at great lengths the contemplative artistic process, the fine points of calculating the exact exposure with the zone system and the details of previsualization surrounding their art. At that point, it would not be unreasonable to ask how many film holders are in their camera bag. The answer will more than likely be “three film holders.” When given the choice for expanding my large format kit, I put the money into good film holders. More lenses won’t make you a better photographer, but more film holders will. The same holds true about the capacity of a memory card, too.

With a limited number of exposures, you don’t “take chances” with something that costs more than a dollar per exposure. With economic restraints removed I am making more photographs. The more images I make, the better the best ones are. I think there is something good about that.

What Do You See?

What is in front of my camera and what I see through my camera are two different things. I don’t see scenery. I see a photograph composed of what is in front of the camera. Those of us that began photographing when the Zone System and previsualization were the holy gospel of fine art photography could not imagine any other way to photograph. When I duck under the dark cloth and inspect the ground glass of my view camera I do not see color, but black and white. It is truly an odd experience, but under the dark cloth I do not see color. Tones are the key element on the ground glass.

Proving that old ways die hard, an important feature of my digital camera is an articulating LCD viewscreen. This allows me to avoid squinting through a teeny tiny viewfinder to compose my images. My latest camera, the Lumix GH2, has a large articulating screen and I think it’s a wonderful way to compose an image. I find it odd that I do not have this learned behavior when photographing with my digital camera. I think there is something magical about the dark cloth that grants me the ability to see black and white in a color world.

Maybe some future iPad will have a sharp, high resolution camera lens. It would be great to have a large LCD screen about the size of a view camera with an app that displays the image upside down and backwards! We can have the best of both worlds; composing images on a large high resolution screen and making a digital file to perfect.

Great Technique is Humble.

General Staff, Bentonville, NC

Great photographs have great craft and technique, but it’s not the reason they are great photographs. They are great because the artist created the work to move you intellectually and emotionally. The craft and technique are just part of the total effort in creating the art. Great technique is humble. It does not draw attention to itself while contributing to the success of the photograph

The moment that technique begins to strut its stuff the photograph becomes more about the photographer and less about the subject. Getting by the technical tour de force to get to the message is not the path to great photography. What is the first impression of the work? Is it “That makes me feel…,” or is it “Look at those great shadow and highlight details? I wonder if it was HDR’d?”

Technical proficiency is not artistic proficiency. An artist needs technical proficiency to be able to create the message he wants to communicate to his audience, but if the message is technical proficiency, the focus of the work is on the artist, not on his audience.

A Vacation Camera

Charleston, SC

(I made this with my happy snap camera - no foolin'.)

What camera do you take on a family vacation? The fancy one with all the lenses and accessories or the ones that will make some nice happy snaps that can be shared with family and friends? I’m going on a family vacation soon and am debating on what to take. I’m leaning toward my “happy snap” Lumix LX3 (aka “the noisy cricket”) because it will record a 12 Mb RAW image, auto-everything, very nice video capability and it’s easy to use.

The only drawback to a camera that small is that you can put it in your pocket and forget it’s there. If you don’t have to hang it around your neck or carry around the tripod you stuck it on, or sling a camera bag over your shoulder, there is a real probability you may go a whole day and not get the camera out of your pocket. We’ve all carried the camera around for a day and not taken it out because we “didn’t see a thing,” but on a vacation you might be having such a good time you don’t take the camera out at all. That might not be such a bad thing because, after all, you are on a family vacation.