"Just Shoot Me!"

I have a vaguely schizophrenic approach when I go to shoot places. In most cases I grab my gear and simply wander the streets until I find something that catches my attention. On my personal website – admittedly needing of an update – I have a page entitled “Behind the Camera”. At the bottom of the page is a section which discusses my process in this way:

Fog over Queensway Bay

“I am drawn to take a picture as a result of a fraction-of-a-second emotional reaction. If I see something that attracts my eye it must, in that fraction, catch me and then tell me a story.

For me to later select that picture -- among the potentially hundreds of others I have taken -- as one which I wish to share, it has to have a little something extra, a little something that brings me up short, makes me stop and look.

And look again”

Monument in Winter

It’s essentially the same process the viewer, such as yourself, uses when looking at a gallery of photos, or paintings or any other visual presentation. If something that is designed to attract the eye and tell a story fails in that most essential of requirements then it fails, IMHO, as a piece of art. Not only as a piece of art, but as a method of communication. Fundamentally that’s what any work aspires to be: a communication between the artist and the audience. It may be something as mild as “isn’t this a pretty flower” to something as inspirational as a profile picture of a favorite musician – or as profound as conveying the horror of war.

Are these Aliens in the Nevada Desert?

In the case of travel photography, one of the twin subjects of this blog, the shot must convey the feeling of a place, not just a pretty picture of it. The Eiffel Tower is a grand and awe-inspiring structure. So is the Golden Gate Bridge. So the issue becomes, how can I shoot Paris and San Francisco, including pictures of these icons, which doesn’t tread on thousands of previous iterations? Some are unavoidable – there are only so many viewpoints for the Golden Gate, for instance, so you have to allow for composition and environment to help you make it unique. There’s the oft-expressed sentiment about the Grand Canyon

regarding a photographer’s ability to spend an entire career not moving from one spot, and yet still archiving a tremendous and diverse library over the course of a lifetime. 

Then, not only is it the photography of icons, but more essentially it’s telling the story of a place by showing you things you may not have seen, but that even more fundamentally give the viewer a taste of a place in a way that words or paint or music cannot. (Though, it should be noted, in the same way each of those forms convey in their own way the special attributes of  “place”.)

It Happened...on Bourbon Street

A Dog on Huntington Beach

When I see something, a setting or composition or event, that in some way demonstrates an attraction, it must demand that I get it, frame it, and commit it to my camera’s storage. Then, later, when I’m reviewing the photos I may have accumulated, it has to grab me and ask for a longer look. (When, for example, I return from a trip with some two thousand images, think about the time expenditure if I opened each and every one of them in Photoshop and spent even two minutes trying to enhance it sufficiently. That’s four thousand minutes, or just a bit less than two work weeks of eight hour days. On the first pass.)

Life in the Everglades

I may be completely off base, but I like to think it requires a practiced eye to see the potential in a situation, frame it, shoot it and think that it achieves at least a few things. When I refer to Photoshopping – apologies for using the verb form of a copyrighted noun – my work, it usually, though not always, is along the lines of color correction; the exposure; some sort of cropping; or making sure that the horizon is indeed horizontal, not the nearly ubiquitous semi-diagonal line that invades most everyone’s shots. (Unless you’re using a tripod, or have sufficient time to align and capture the image, there’s always the risk that the background may be just a little askew. Sometimes it’s deliberate, so as to include a vital element of the composition. But most times it’s just a fraction off, enough for the eye to note but usually only a degree or two when it comes to making the correction. But if the eye picks it up and it’s not deliberate, a simple thing like that can ruin an otherwise terrific image.) (Thus endeth the lesson.)

Sunset from Mallory Square

But, for me, it’s all about what attracted my eye in the first place. When I’m flashing through the raw shots – not RAW, as in digital file, but raw as in unaltered and fresh from the camera – that the image has three, maybe four seconds to grab me. It doesn’t mean it’s not a good picture, and it doesn’t mean it’s not telling an interesting story. This is why I periodically go back and review old portfolios in the hope I find something I hadn’t seen before. 

A watchtower in the El Junque Rain Forest

Each of the pictures for this post are images I had captured and essentially relegated to archive status without taking the time to see what could be done. If they failed, in whatever way, to grab me the fist time around, maybe they will for the second, or third or in some cases tenth time I take a look. I have changed. Circumstances have changed. Images I loved a decade ago might strike me as bland or one-dimensional today. When it comes to travel-related images the lesson is even stronger. Castoff photographs of, for example, different airport terminals might individually fail to inspire me…but add the additional framing of a “theme” and suddenly there’s a pattern – a story if you will – which requires a second glance.

France, A'la Disney

It’s not an easy task – and you have to find a way to disconnect your personal memories and evaluate the image based upon what it conveys, not what it might mean. In the past there were photos which remained in my portfolio because it felt important to have a representation of that image, even if the picture itself wasn’t all that good. But as my mind’s eye has (hopefully) progressed, my heart remains attached to some images more than others. But that’s the story of the thing, really. It’s not the flat image which is the definition of success, it’s what that image evokes, conveys and energizes in the eyes (and hearts) of the viewers.

Again, from my web page:

The Desert Beckons

“Much of the challenge (and pleasure) of photography is to give a sense of place. While the photographer may have concrete memories of a moment he/she has captured in time, the viewer does not.

What has to occur for the viewer to appreciate a photograph is the triggering of a memory, thought or emotion.

For a picture to be truly successful it must be visceral, capturing the essence of what the photographer saw, and melding it to a feeling the viewer once felt.”

That...is my goal and -- ideally -- my achievement.