Postcards from the Creative Journey

1088 Lessons Learned Photo Safari XL Part I

It’s that time again. After spending two weeks on the road photographing with Brooks Jensen it’s time to enumerate the lessons learned when we went out to photograph.

1. Change your focus
One the first day we started photographing statuary at a cemetery. This was limiting on many fronts. We recognized this after completing the day’s activities and discussed how to avoid this in future days. We decided that the cemeteries were urban forest landscapes and that we should concentrate on the landscape portion of the cemeteries and work whatever statuary was included in the landscape was just a bonus. This was a much better idea and gave us the flexibility in both composition and subject matter. I’m going to include these two days of photography in the next issue of The Lipka Journal to demonstrate how some thought at the end of the day will improve future images.

2. People are honest
Halfway through a day long photography session, we took a break and purchased some non-nutritious snacks from a convenience store. After finishing our photography and driving back to base camp, I discovered my wallet was missing. After going through a mental checklist of the last time I had my wallet, I decided to return to the convenience store to see if someone found it. Someone picked up my wallet and gave it to the convenience store clerk. Everything was just as it was when I dropped it.

3. I am not the only stupid person in the world
When I inquired at the convenience store about the wallet, the clerk opened a cabinet, and my wallet was on top of a stack of about a dozen unclaimed wallets. I was not the only one to have stupidly dropped my wallet in the parking lot of a convenience store.

4. Just Waiting Around
Photographers seem to waste a lot of time waiting for the sun to rise and/or set. If you’ve ever been to a body of water late in the day, you will find a lineup of photographers standing behind their tripod mounted cameras waiting for “the moment” to make “the shot.” It’s as if they are in a groupthink about making the one shot from the same space and ignoring the gorgeous light all around them.

5. How to slow down photography
I packed a tripod on the last three or four safaris and I finally used it on this trip. It took me more than a day or two to gain proficiency in controlling the ball head. It was kind of retro having to fiddle with the tripod to change the heights for different photographs. In low light situations, it was still nice to have the steadying influence of some carbon fiber.

Stay tuned for next Sunday’s blog on five more things I learned on the most recent Photo Safari.

1087 How to Finish a Long Term Project (LTP) First Published 7/2/2017

Last week I introduced you to “Portals and Passages,” the LTP I have been working on for several decades without realizing it. Just before posting time I changed a word or two. I changed “finished” to “reached a milestone.” My LTP will end when I stop photographing or the world does away with doors. The former will occur long before the latter. How do we approach the LTP that appears to be huge and endless?

I have come to think of the LTP as a serialized novel. Completing a chapter is an accomplishment that can motivate you to move on to the next chapter, or maybe a different project. Breaking the LTP down into smaller tasks helps because completion gives you a sense of achievement and accomplishment. Starting the next chapter with recent success on your mind makes starting another project much easier.

Work never shared is unfinished work.

1086 On Acquiring A Gallery Exhibition

If you are searching for a venue for your exhibit, you will have to pass the gauntlet of gallerists, curators or possibly a committee of people to decide on the acceptance of the work you submit. Hopefully, these gate keepers will publish some criteria or themes for acceptance. Those guidelines are a good start, but there are some additional thoughts about what makes acceptable work.

Good work. There are two aspects of craft. One is the topic of the work. The more specific the topic is, the better the chances for an additional show. If your show is “My all-time best photographs,” you pretty much cancel out future exhibits. The second aspect is craft. Craft still means something in the gallery world. In addition to photographic skills, presentation in terms of mat cutting and framing are important.

Subject of interest. The photographs must be interesting to the curators, and more importantly, must be interesting to the audience. The location of the gallery is a good clue as to what is attractive to the audience.

Adherence to terms of contract. A signed agreement has terms that must be fulfilled. Be respectful of deadlines, image requirements for publicity and completing paperwork is a timely manner. The curators have a job to do, and they require your cooperation to complete their work. If you make their lives miserable, your chances for future exhibitions approach zero. If you make their jobs easy to do, you increase your chances for future exhibitions.

Plan for exhibition. Laying out the exhibit well ahead of the delivery date makes everyone’s life easier. Knowing the number of images you need to fill the exhibit space should be the first thing done. It’s an old project management trick. If you don’t know the destination, you have no idea of what it takes to get there. Once you know the route to the destination, the plan becomes evident.

A final thought. Competition for gallery shows is intense. You have no idea what the gallerists, curators or committees think about when they select shows for exhibition. The plan should be to hope for the best, prepare for the worst and don’t take rejection personally.

1085 How Long to Wait for the Decisive Moment? First Published 7/30/2017

How Long to Wait for the Decisive Moment? The answer? Ten minutes, tops.

For those of you that want a crisp, clear guideline on how long you should wait to make a photograph, there’s your answer.

For the rest of us, the correct answer is, “It depends.” Are you on vacation with a limited number of days you can devote to photography, or are you on a long term assignment from a big budget client who expects “the shot” and is willing to both wait and pay for you to bring "the shot" back, then you can afford to wait it out. If you’re fortunate enough to have a client with deep pockets and lots of time, you can sit down, put up your feet and wait for that cloud to move into the exact spot you need.

When on vacation, I go by the ten minute rule because that’s enough time to figure out if something is going to happen in your scene, or I have to come back later for a better picture. I might make a record shot to remind of the place, or to help me refine the composition for later. Then again, I just might make the photograph and move that cloud into the proper position with a little nudge in photoshop. (I added this thought after the final draft. Isn’t it amazing how we sometimes don’t give up on four decades of ingrained analog photographic behavior?)

The vacationer also has a value judgement to make. Waiting on one photograph means you are depriving yourself of the opportunity to find another subject to photograph. So it is a gamble we willingly take when we choose to wait or move on to the next opportunity. As it is with gambling, you make a choice and take a chance.

1084 A Misty, Moisty Morning

Our host had a family emergency and had to leave a day early, so our last day of photography consisted of a rainy, foggy morning and was over by lunchtime.  Apparently misty, moisty mornings happen in the Atlantic Northeast just as well as the Pacific Northwest. With that weather we felt right back at home and headed out to photograph.

We drove to the Bubble Pond, the Jordan Pond and the Jordan Stream. Even though it sprinkled as we went out to photograph, we remembered our two rain rules, developed over decades of outdoor photography. The first rule is it almost never rains all the time at every place you want to photograph. The second rule is that there is no such thing as bad weather, there is only bad clothing. 

With good clothing and optimism, we made some nice images on our last morning photographing.

1083 Photography by Appointment Only

I’ve done photography by appointment before, but that was because we needed to coordinate our subject matter with the tide tables. That’s a completely natural thing to do and not a man made contrivance. In order to ascend to the peak of Cadillac Mountain, one must arrange an appointment time to keep the peak of the mountain free of tourist traffic jams. 

We took our time reaching the peak by moseying around the island to capture a few interesting items. The house was one of those interesting things. 

The top of the mountain is about 1500 feet above sea level gave us a pretty good views of the surrounding islands.

The interesting thing about fall leaves and light is that on an overcast day like today, the leaves photograph better. Harsh light washes out the color, flat light reduces the contrast and lets the leaf color shine through.

We have a half day of photography left on Monday and then we head back to base camp near Albany. I'm home on Wednesday afternoon and back to reality.

1082 A Pleasant Day for a Drive

Not much artistic, intellectual or sophisticated photography (not yet, at least), but we did get a chance to make some very nice photographs.

Our host took us on a well-planned drive around Desert Island showing us wonderful places and things to photograph. The plan has been to photograph early in the morning, break for lunch and rest and then go back out in late afternoon. 

I made this photo near sunset on the beach. I was facing away from the sunset. About a half dozen other photographers were also there, lined up in perfect formation so that each of them could make the same sunset photograph.

1082 Negotiating the Transition

The tough part about working on projects is that projects must end. The objective is met, the celebration is over, the lessons learned are remembered and then…

What’s next? The temptation is to rest on one’s laurels and wait for the muses to inspire. Waiting for the muses to find you is perilous. The muses will only find you if you are out working, not sitting at home on those laurels.

If you wish to continue working on projects, it is imperative that you have multiple projects underway simultaneously. That way, you can pick up a project that is already underway. Overlapping projects are the easiest way to keep on creating. The dead space between a completed project and starting the next project from scratch can wind up being a very long time. Having multiple projects in progress is a good way to keep productive.

1081 Strolling Through A Meadow on a Friday Afternoon

After a Friday lunch, we headed back out to stroll through meadow and woodland trails. Meadows here seem to indicate a swampy thick forest with either built up paths or duckboards to keep you out of the swamp. A pleasant walk,and we did find a few scenes worth memorializing.

We crashed and burned after Friday dinner and are having a great deal of trouble getting motivated for early Saturday morning photography. The intense creative space is catching up with us. 

1080 Arrrgh Matey! Marooned on a Desert Island

That would be Desert Island on the Coast of Maine which hosts Acadia National Park. Happily, we are staying near South Harbor, on what’s the “quiet side of the island.” We got up this morning at zero dark thirty to make sure we could get in place to photograph at the right place in time for the early morning light. 

After we ran out of the predawn and early dawn light, we headed over to Otter Cliffs and photographed until the light got a bit higher in the sky. 

All that and we’re finished by 9:30 AM. Now, we have to wait and watch the race between the afternoon sun and the afternoon overcast. Maybe there will be more images from today, maybe not. We'll just have to wait and see.

1079 The Indecisive Moment, First Published 11/13/2011

Indecision is the biggest killer of great photographs. I can think of nothing worse than being undecided about a photograph. The first decision every photographer must make is whether or not to commit to a particular scene. In the olden days of film photography (like, five years ago) there was a cost for film and an investment of time in the creation of a photograph. When I was doing large format photography, I took a long time to decide if I was committed enough to the scene to spend the time and money on developing the film and making a print. There was a whole lot of editing done before the shutter was pressed because there was an investment of time and money on the outcome. Prior to the exposure, you had to be committed to the photograph and the process.

A long time ago Portland Photographer Richard Brown made a comment about people taking 1/30 of a second to make a photograph and spent the rest of their life trying to explain the photograph. I think it’s much better to take the necessary time to figure out what the photograph will mean, how you will achieve that meaning and then decisively make the photograph.

1078 It’s a Catch Your Breath Day

We’ve been photographing for five days straight and it’s time to hold up for a bit and catch your breath. Today has been a day to take care of domestic chores, blog writing, just taking some time to rest from the explorations of the last few days and prepare for the next phase of the trip. The next phase starts tomorrow with an all day drive to Acadia National Park in Maine. Our route may not be the most direct, but we’re hoping it might be the most scenic. 

We’re expecting that once we get settled in Maine, the photographic pace will pick up considerably in order to meet the opportunities on the scenic coast of Maine.

In the meantime, here are a few images from the previous few days. I’m not sure if these images will ever be used beyond being included in the blog, but I like them right now and that’s good enough.