December 20, 2019

Photography Notes 

Ease of taking photographs, there is nothing to it just point and shoot without a visual foundation for your personal expression. A haphazard reality we seem to live in now where anybody can create art even though they didn’t really create their art, it was more or less a copycat expression of someone else’s work. 

You know a truth when it is your individuality being present, when you connect on a deeper level with your subject and you feel the purpose behind the image created.

You also realize that after the fun of photography is done you have a lot more work to do to get these image ready to be viewed by others. 

Then a nervous reality begins to take hold after you look at your exposures on your cell phone/camera, you see a run and gun approach to your photography that doesn’t work in creating meaningful imagery. You fell for the standard approach to tourist photography,

snapping pics in a random manner. 

What you needed was a structure to your visual mission before you went berserk and started clicking the shutter at anything that was in front of you. 

So after the shoot you download your images onto your computer. Now first and foremost what is your after shoot work flow, your editing process. I like to look through the images fast the first time through and deleting the obvious mistakes, the out of focus and haphazard compositions that doesn’t give a constructive visual sense of the scene that was present in front of me.

And then I settle down and really study the images to find a few that represent your inner intuitive feelings with the scene. Obviously most of the images won’t feel right, they won’t fit your unique visual perspective and you might feel defeated.

But this is a good thing, a good lesson as well because you learned not to just go blazing in upon a scene and blitz it hoping for a few good images. You have to have in your mind images already being formed as you approached the subject and you must allow those perceptions to blossom in you. Let them take a hold of your senses and open your eyes to your intuitive vision. 

Next you enlarge your image so you can find all the dust, foreground and background distractions, tree limbs jumping into the frame, people stopping in front of your subject to admire the wonderful landscape, your wife or husband yelling at you that the kids are getting cranky, lets go! all these things frustrate you and limit your ability to move closer to uncovering the subject you were finally interested in to create your visual perception. 

But that is the life of the photographer. There is always and I mean always something that will interfere with you and your ability to have the time to create your vision but you must control the time you have and with a focused attention to create a worthwhile image.

You have to be aware of your surrounding, the time of day, the fading light and even who you are with and work as quick as possible, once you have uncovered your subject and are beginning to compose the scene to create a beautiful image. 

And finally you will color correct the images. Not exaggerating the color but giving it the necessary quality that creates for the viewer an image worth remembering.

Photography is a lot more than just snapping photos randomly hoping for an image that looks OK.

Let your imagination go, let go of stereotypical image creation that you see repeated endlessly, look for that detail, that expression, that realness you felt as you begin to set up your visual senses to examine the scene before you, beginning to find a connection with some elements of the scene but more work needs to be done exploring the nooks and crannies of the landscape before you can zero in on your unique composition. 

You only see the reality you were conditioned to see, this structure of narrow-minded perceptions is to blame for your confusion when you are attracted to a subject but then give up because it didn’t fit your pre-planned comfortable, redundancy of a narrow perspective, as if shooting the same old subjects over and over again will create an unexpected visually unique perspective. It will not happen.

The only thing that is stagnate in this world are people who don’t accept/see the truth that they know in their souls is the right path to take but instead they are so filled with fear and hate and the blaming of others that they fold inward and refuse to allow their unique perspective to be seen and heard. 

A society that is fear based, that has been manipulated by the corporations and oligarchs has a deceitful purpose in controlling the population, it is a form of slavery, just ask the Native Americans and African Americans what a false life we live by becoming mouthpieces for lies and hatred of other human beings dictated to us by hate groups fearing the coming changes that are upon us now.

It is your responsibility to outgrow the cliches of behavior and visual stereotypes that permeate through our society and to have the courage to look through your own unique eyes and to create your individual sense of the physical world through photography. 

Conformity is a decease and it is spreading hate and criminality through this world. You must have the courage to break free from the conformity of vision, the endless replicas of the visual cliche’s and break free with your inner vision poised to create unique beautiful subjects.

I can remember that image I created that changed my photography forever. It was a photograph of my daughter sitting in front of a blue door in a downtown Seattle alley. It was far above any image I had taken up to that point. What was different about it was that I took my time finding a place that intrigued me and allowed me to compose an image that I intuitively knew would be a good image.

Hopefully, we all can get to a point in making images that transcends beyond the snap shot that everyone shoots, but not you, you studied the scene the lighting, the contrast, the tourists, and decided to make an image when the early morning light just brushes along the mountain terrain creating a special sense of nature’s magnificence.

You must be confident in your abilities to learn and create great images. What is missing most often is having the confidence not in your bombastic ego or redundant intellect that keeps meddling with your visual senses, demanding they know better than you what to shoot. Just be yourself flow with time and your physical presence allowing all the details of the scene to penetrate your intuitive mind and focus your attention on the little details that will guide you to a photograph that was not present until you allowed a connection with the subject and your inner talent to be united together to bring forth the image that was hidden.

Without ego’s meddling and just being yourself in your individuality, you will create opportunities that others won’t see because they are being ruled by the intellect that judges them without mercy and creates a barrier to originality and a fear of trying something new. Your unique individual experiences are with your efforts!