Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts
Photography is an interesting hobby. Taken to its logical extremes, it causes the artist to see truly spectacular things and almost always be alone while doing it. Photography is about showing an audience how you see the world, and unless you have met someone who sees the world exactly how you do- you will be alone while doing it. I've even seen wedding photographers, surrounded by people laughing, crying and getting married, be completely isolated. Lost in their own world of light, angles and apertures.
I want to take you on a journey of how an idea becomes a photograph. Understand that I'm not a professional. Nobody pays me for anything. On the best days I consider myself to be mediocre. It's important to understand that because what started as a fun, short little blog about photos became much more while I was writing it. Understand that everything I'm about to tell you is coming from an amateur, and a minimally talented one at that. The amount of knowledge, experience and talent an individual must possess to be consider truly great, is exponentially higher than the ramblings you're about to read.
Pre-Shoot
Every photograph starts with an idea. Even simple photos where you grab your friend, hold the camera out and smile starts with an idea. You wanted to document the moment. Maybe to show your friends, or put in an album, or upload to whatever social media site you are using today-but, almost assuredly, will not be using in ten years.
My idea was the same. I wanted to document a moment. I write for gridlockmagazine.com and wanted a photograph of the San Francisco skyline at night to submit. That was the extent of my idea. Literally millions of people take a photograph of city skylines. So, my idea wasn't exactly original. That's okay, there's a reason so many people have the same idea: City skylines look nice.
After an idea is conceived it's important to have the equipment to transfer your idea into something more tangible. I will use an example from National Geographic.
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| Property of National Geographic. |
That is a California Redwood tree. It is 1,500 years old and 300 feet tall. It is enormous. But look again...notice how the whole tree is seen. This wasn't some guy who walked by and thought, "That's a big tree, let me take a picture of it." No, this photograph took months of planning. It involves a cleverly designed pulley system that allowed multiple cameras to run up and down, snapping photos, all while the artist was watching on a laptop on the ground. Then those photos were digitally combined into a complete portrait of a three hundred foot redwood, the only portrait of it's kind. It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to get this photograph.
Luckily, not every idea needs that much equipment to be fully realized. Mine certainly didn't (remember, nobody pays me for this...). In fact, with technological advancements almost everyone is a photographer now. Every phone comes with a camera inside.
This isn't a blog about camera equipment, merely a comment that the realization of an idea is sometimes impeded by wrong or lack of equipment. I brought my camera and the only two lenses I own, and frankly the only two lenses most of us ever need.
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| Nikon D90 with 18-200mm f5.6 |
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| Nikon 35mm f1.8 |
The only piece of equipment, other than my camera, I was planning on to realize this idea of mine was a basic tripod for when the light got low. Like the mediocre amateur I am, I forgot it.
The Shoot
This is the only thing most people ever do. Something looks cool, you take out your phone, snap a picture and upload it to facebook. Boom, done. Simple. Never let anyone tell you that there is anything wrong with that process. It is simply, and amazingly, perfect. Furthermore, it is exactly what everyone does. It's normal. That's exactly what this shot is. I pulled up, got out of my car, and snapped. I know, be impressed.
I never expected to show anyone this shot. Almost by default, I delete the first twenty photographs I take of a given subject. Especially because this wasn't my idea. It is not what I envisioned. Sure there's the city and bridges and it's not bad. But it wasn't my idea.
Over the next two hours I will take 156 pictures. The entire time I won't move more than twenty feet from where I parked my car. In fact, for a few exposures I was standing on top of my car. (Car-a valuable piece of equipment for a photographer).
Of course, part of being good at photography is knowing that maybe your idea isn't going to happen. I realized this when I got out of my car and noticed I didn't have a tripod. Ever vigilant (after I remarked under by breath how stupid I was) I pursued on, knowing almost uniformly that what I wanted to happen was now nearly impossible.
After about a half hour of watching the sun go down the sky finally got more interesting. Rarely is the sun a good thing in photos. It is too bright and will come out white more often than not. What you want to wait for, from a photographers perspective, is after sunset. For about an hour after the sun goes down photographers can really shine. (Clever wordplay ftw)
Since becoming interested in photography I've also become something of a secret expert on clouds. See, clouds are interesting. There are many different types, and if you know what you're looking for, they can do amazing things with light.
Notice the photo above. The horizon is actually covered in a thick layer of clouds. They completely block out the sun, almost as if there is a small mountain range out at sea. But then there are the wispy clouds up higher, known in the science world as cirrus clouds. There are also some altostratus clouds in this shot, but now I'm just showing off.
Wispy clouds reflect light. If this photo was taken on a cloudless day all you would see is a slight variation of color along the horizon (normal, sunset type colors) and then solid blue. There would certainly not be any pinks as high as there is now. And to this shot, the pink/orange clouds are vitally important because of how blue the sky is behind them. Blues like orange. If you want a fun experiment google: blue/orange movie posters.
This exposure was made less than twenty minutes after the first but, obviously, it looks quite different. There are, literally, hundreds of decisions someone can make before any exposure. Composition (how everything fits in the frame), aperture (how wide your lens opens), shutter speed (how fast your lens opens and closes), focus, brightness, darkness, and on and on the list goes. Generally, the more a person progresses as a photographer the more decisions they can make.
I took this exposure specifically to see the pink clouds at the top. In a perfect, I-didn't-forget-my-tripod world I would have used a technique called HDR to combine several exposures into one photograph. Basically I would have taken the top third of this photo, the middle third of the photo above and the bottom third of another photo that showed the city in more detail. The idea looks really cool in my head, but I don't have anything to show you. Because I'm stupid.
I have something to say here but let's just look at the pretty colors.
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| "God must be a painter. Why else would we have so many colors?" -A Beautiful Mind |
Eventually, the time comes for my idea to be fully realized. The city is alive and the sky looks amazing. However, long exposures are impossible without a tripod. The human hand shakes too much and the whole thing would come out blurry.
But here's part of what I love about photography. It's a game for problem solvers. Problem: I have an idea in my head that I want to show other people. Solution: Take a picture. Secondary problem: I lack the necessary equipment to take a picture and show people what is going on in my head. Solution: Place your camera on a boulder and use a timed delay to take long exposures.
See, look how fun that was! ...Fun for me, we all have our thing. Moving on.
This was exposure number 142 out of 156. It is the closest thing to what I wanted. The environment forced my hand, my forgetfulness limited where I could place my camera and my own abilities dictated how it would all look. At the end of the day, this exposure was never "the one" but I did like it quite a bit.
Post-Shoot
As with any discipline, there are several schools of thought when it comes to photography. A major point of contention with many people is the ability of technology to drastically alter photographs. Some people wouldn't call it photography anymore if I took an exposure and turned it into something like this.
In my mind, it's all art and it seems silly to put down someone else's work because it's not your cup of tea. Plus I think that picture looks awesome.
When it comes to editing my own photographs, I generally use the philosophy of "show what I saw." The eye is an amazing thing, and doubly amazing is our brain's ability to process the eye's stimuli. I never do anything too crazy in the post-production world. What I aim to do is remove the imperfections created by the camera or my own mistakes. I would never disavow editing because of the incredibly vast amount of work it takes to get a single exposure exactly how your eye sees it.
My eyes see in color. Vivid color. Most of the photos above are unedited, straight from the camera. (The only edited one is where I said let's just look at the pretty colors).
If you look closely however, most are a little off. They are crooked. The horizon doesn't look exactly how it should. Either because of how I held the camera or the earth I was standing on, all my photos had a slight crooked-ness to them. So I adjust things like that because my brain never saw the skyline at an angle, and neither should you.
Here's the unedited photo from above.
Here is my final edit, and the photograph that will appear in Gridlock Magazine next month.
It's cropped, straightened and "warmed," a technique that brings out the orange of the city lights. I like it quite a bit.
Closing Thoughts
I honestly thought this would take twenty minutes. Just a fun blog about the process of taking a photograph. I just passed the hour and a half mark. Thanks for staying with me all the way to the end.
Hope you enjoyed.
That picture was drawn by my roommate Rolando on our white board next to our door. I was on the couch, he was walking around, we were talking, he started drawing. He stopped there and then I looked at it.
Here's what I said, "Hey that's really good. It looks like a little cartoon character whose sitting, staring off into the distance. Seems kinda alone and sad."
Rolando's reply: "You're insane! Those are just lines. I wasn't even done yet!"
If that was a Rorschach test then I failed miserably and a psychologist would be having a great time diagnosing me. At least, that's what Rolando probably thinks.
For me, I still see what I originally saw. Even when Rolando did finish and what your looking at became the Foot on the island and he added the Black Rock about to crash into it. (That's all stuff from LOST, no worries if you don't understand).
My main point is that what I saw, and what I see, is fundamentally different from how others view things. To me, life is all about perspective. How we view the world changes with time and new experiences. It is shaped by how we were raised, our race, our nationality, our religion. Everything adds another layer to our image of the world.
From a photographers perspective, I think of it as the different lenses someone can use. A telephoto can allow you to see great distances, a wide angle can let you encompass a whole landscape, a fish-eye can distort your view.
We all have different lenses. We are born with a certain disposition, a certain way of handling incoming stimuli. Then on top of those lenses we add filters. There's a great quote from one of the creator's of the Blair Witch Project. When asked how they shot a feature-length movie in such high quality with only a $300 camera, he replied, "With $600 worth of filters."
Filters are our experiences. Did you come from a rich family, that's a filter. A poor family? That's a different filter. College? Filter. Military? Filter. Kids? Job? Relationship? Filter, filter, filter. A good photographer can take just about any lens and with enough filters get any shot they want.
That's how I think of it at least. We continually are adding and removing filters to our life. Maybe you can't remove them. I'm not sure about that point right now. But you get the basic idea.
That's why even with my own photographs I can have different perspectives on them. And let me be clear, I took all these. Some were difficult and required a long set-up and post-production work. Some I saw, positioned, and fired away. But none are snapshots. I try to put a lot of thought into my work. I'm not great, however, I am conscious of it.
But let's look at a few. (All available in gallery, plus more.)
The first took awhile to set up. It required a tripod and some other equipment. I really liked the end result. Two weeks later I looked at it again and found a part I love even more. It's end the red box below.
This tiny, fragment of that larger picture is my favorite part. When I was actually out taking the picture it was a secondary thought. My focus was on the main fall and that stick leaning into it. Now whenever I look at this photo, this is all I see...
The next photo I just took yesterday. I went out with some friends and saw this tree. I walked around it for a bit. Trying to figure out why I liked it. There were plenty of trees. But I kept looking at this one.
I still can't figure it out. I know why I took the picture. The tree was isolated from others. It was resting on the very last piece of earth before the water. The hard lines contrasted against the softness of the sky and clouds is visually appealing and draws the viewers eyes. The orange of the limbs against the blue of the sky makes the image pop. Those are all reasons I thought the photo would work.
But there's more I can't describe. There's something about that photo that I absolutely love and can't explain to anyone. Some people look and say...that's a tree. I don't.
Rolando was flabbergasted, and probably concerned, about what I saw in his half-finished drawing. But we were just looking through two different lenses, with very different filters on.
That's why I think it's so important to be conscious of others views and perspectives. That's why I'm so glad to live in the time that I do, because we are able to read and see and experience things that were never before possible.
It is, quite simply, a beautiful thing.
This weekend on a whim I decided to go to Yellowstone national park. I live about an hour and half away so it's not exactly like I was crossing the country to go there. The weather report said there was going to be overcast skies with temperatures in the 60's and 70's. Not bad for a place with an average elevation of 6,800 ft.
The weather report was wrong.
It rained. And after it rained it got colder. And when it got colder the rain turned to snow and hail and all sorts of horrendous things that human beings living outside of Antarctic are not supposed to deal with in the summer.
Furthermore, I was unprepared. I own a tent, sleeping bag (rated for 0 degrees), and an air mattress. I packed a long sleeve shirt, a sweatshirt, and a change of underwear. I had on me a pair of jeans, t shirt, and a windbreaker.
The craziest thing is that I was staying at a campground with ~750 other people. Most were in tents, some had RV's or campers. I doubt any of them were truly aware of the incoming weather because, after all, every weather report said that it was going to be a nice memorial day weekend.
Now to the essence of my post. Nobody in there right mind would consider me a "man's man." In fact, those who are only somewhat aware of my existence probably think I'm gay. I find it enjoyable to throw in little homoerotic comments every now and then just to see people's reactions. The fact that I live with 5 other guys doesn't help. I think the best box to put me in, if boxes are how you do things, would be to say I'm androgynous. Truth be told, I just don't care that much. I am what I am and stopped caring what other people wondered or said.
So my androgynous self decides to go to Yellowstone. Hoping for some good photographs from the spontaneous trip. Remember- not a man's man, but I'm also not an idiot and am plenty able to take care of myself, be it in a city or the nation's first national park. It starts to get cold. Then it starts to hail. Beating my tent senseless and making anything resembling sleep impossible. Then it gets colder and the hail turns to snow.
I left my tent. Moved to the car and hunkered down for the rest of the night in there. It wasn't much warmer (illegal to idle your car in Yellowstone) but it wasn't nearly as wet.
My alarm goes off at 4:15am. I needed to get to this certain spot by sunrise. As I drove out of the campsite I noticed my fellow humans in their tents and their RV's, most who were probably feeling more miserable than I. And an idea started to creep into my head at this point...the world doesn't care about us.
It's not karmic, it goes against most major world religions, and it's something I'm still dealing with. All I know is that 750 people were treated to a pretty rude awakening the previous night. Regardless of how manly they were, how womanly they were, how much training or experience they had. No amount of boy scout preparation can ever deal with the fact that nature doesn't care about your plans. It doesn't care about your equipment. It doesn't care about your manliness.
And so with this pleasant thought formulating in my brain I continued to drive. A truly beautiful drive...minus the unplowed roads, the twists and turns and sudden drops, and the accumulated 3-5 inches of snow. I did have a good time. I like being alone in nature and this was about as alone as one can get. No cell reception. Nobody around for 50 miles in any direction (and when I say 50 miles, I mean that every 50 miles there is a bathroom and an emergency phone...not actual people). I blazed the trail. I took my truck and my unmanliness and drove through the wilderness.
I got to my destination about two hours later. The Yellowstone canyon claims to be the only rival to the Grand Canyon in the USA. Had to see for myself. The canyon is the last stop on the map at this point in the season. It's as far north as you can go before all the roads close. And so there I was at 6:05am at the edge of Yellowstone.
My car slid off the road. Not dramatically or dangerously. About 5 miles from the canyons I hit a spot of ice (remember I'm trailblazing still at this point) and slowly slid off the road. What happened next?
I didn't butch up. I didn't man up. I didn't grow a pair. I stepped out of my car, got my shovel from the back and started clearing the snow out in front of me. It took 20 minutes or so of hard work with a shitty shovel but it got done. I backed my car out and kept going. Nobody cheered. No triumphant music played. I didn't feel any more manly than the moment before.
I reached my destination and like any good photographer I began to freeze my ass off waiting for good lighting. It's not deathly cold (around 30 degrees) but in six inches of snow with jeans and a sweatshirt I wasn't exactly doing well. Once again I was reminded of the simple fact that the world doesn't care about what other people say you are. It rains on the just and the unjust alike.
The sun broke through the clouds for all of 20 minutes. I got some good shots and some bad ones. I packed up my gear and started to drive home.
The road was closed.
The same road that I had come in on maybe an hour or two hours before.
There was an accident. Somebody had driven off the road.
I waited. Maybe an hour went by.
When the road finally opened they drove us through with a lead car in the front. Don't pass and don't fall behind that car they said.
The car probably went off the road 20 miles or so before I did. Undoubtedly he was following the trail that I originally blazed. That my manliness was able to conquer and his was not. The accident wasn't in one of those "it's no big deal if you go off the road here" spots. It was a straight drop about 10 or 15 feet at a 75 degree angle and then trees.
The car didn't look good.
No word on the people inside. Could be just fine. Could be dead. I have no clue whatsoever. What I do know is that the world didn't pay him any special moments before he drove off the road following my trail. It didn't ask if he was a nice man. It didn't ask if he payed his taxes. It didn't ask if he beat his wife. It didn't care about how manly or how feminine he was.
And so here I am. Still the same man I was before but slightly changed. I have this theory that people don't really change all that much, just that the blank areas of their portrait get shaded in. I don't know if I'm right or wrong about that but it's how I feel right now.
On my trip I was cold. Sore. Happy. Exuberant. Content. In love. There was never a moment when I would have considered myself manly.
The truth is that I don't really know what that means. If someone wants to give it a shot and explain it to me I'm all ears.
Until then I'll wake up and greet the world with a smile on my face and a little adventure in my heart. To go out and seek a great perhaps.