The I's Have It

In most of the blog entries I've mostly written about this or that and maybe try this or that, but I've not actually said much about a methodology that can be used to help point the aspiring photographer toward bigger and better output.  So how do you go about developing the concepts or ideas that I've written about.  Well, everyone develops their own style of doing things and most of us work through those learning curves at our own pace.  Even so, there is a methodology I've used that can help a novice photographer take progressive steps toward more production photographically.  I call it  'The I Method'.

The I Method consists of six related concepts that progressively guides a novice photographer toward creating innovative photographs.

1.   Idea  

 2. Instinct

 3. Identify

4. Isolate

5. Invest

6. Inspire

Let's look at each one.

Idea:  Before you can truly take charge of your photography you should formulate an idea of what you want to accomplish.  Having a purpose for your photography helps you focus on not only the techniques and concepts of exposure, composition, and post processing, but helps you develop a vision.  With a vision of where you want to go, you will more likely find the enthusiasm required to get there.  Going at the craft of photography by simply relying on random chance...well...as I've said before...all you are accomplishing is playing the notes, when in reality what you are wanting to do is create wonderful music with emotion and feeling.

Instinct:  All of us possess our own preferences and interests.  By tapping into those interests, you will find it easier to become motivated to follow through.  Use your instincts to help you focus in where your stated purpose for your photography will take you.  If you instinctively enjoy sports, then maybe sports related photography may be the angle you should take.  If you enjoy nature, then nature photography might be a good directions.  If you are good with people and kids, then portrait and/or people photography could be a solution.  Go with your instincts and most of the time you will not be disappointed.

Identify:  Once you have formulated an Idea, now comes the time to do some research.  Identify potential opportunities for you to follow through with your idea.  If sports is you where you want to go, then check out local sporting events that may allow you access to the fields.  If people photography, then check out local or community events where you might be able to photograph performers or take candid shots.  Practice with your own kids, or the neighbors kids.  Identify as many opportunities as you can and then follow up on them.

Isolate:  Once you have an idea and have identified potential opportunities, it is probably a good idea to isolate specific things to focus in on.  Some ideas are very broad and to avoid being overwhelmed, it often helps to decide that this day or this week, I will concentrate on only one aspect of that idea.  Take the sports idea for instance.  There may be numerous high school and even college sporting venues going on along with little league or development leagues.  Pick one of the easier venues and give it a try...not just once or twice, but over a period of time to develop skill and technique.  Afterwards, you may want to branch out to a more advance situation.  The idea here is to focus your efforts into a manageable opportunity.

Invest:  There is no substitute for time afield.  Simply having an idea is not enough...you must allocate time to follow through with it.  Time afield also means to invest time researching...finding those opportunities...looking for potential locations or venues, then planning ahead to take advantage of them.  Look beyond the obvious when doing this...and always factor in lighting conditions.  What you see visually at the time you find a location may change dramatically with different light at different times of day...so try to visualize what a location will look like in different lighting conditions.

Inspire:  There is a difference between capturing simple memories and creating an image that inspires.  Inspiration comes from the heart and is often triggered by a creative vision.  When photographing nature, always think in terms of inspiring your viewer...not illustrating a text book.  Light is the key to generating those inspirational moments...Inspirational moments are often visualized by looking beyond the obvious...Looking beyond the obvious requires that you develop your unique vision and purpose for your photography.  Seeking to inspire is the engine that elevates your photography to the next level.


The idea behind the I's is to help establish a methodology that will guide you toward developing your own unique style of photography.  It's not an all inclusive stepping stone approach...just something to get you thinking differently about what you might be doing...and that after all...is what this blog is all about.

Keith

Three Misconceptions about Photography

As I have stated numerous times, Photography is all about Light.  Light is the key to great photographs...and it is the quality of light that is important...not the quantity.  Most beginning photographers tend to concentrate on the equipment side of the equation and rely too heavily on the camera's mechanical ability to take good photographs.  They often ignore the most important element which is looking for and seeing light...or being able to see photographically.  Granted, there is no substitute for quality equipment, but that alone is not enough.  Even the best equipment will only take mediocre photographs if the person using it doesn't understand what to look for, or have a solid grasp of the mechanics.  More often than not novice photographers grow frustrated because they approach photography from a frame of reference based on several misconceptions.  Having talked with a a lot of photographers of varying levels of skill, it seems to me that three misconceptions are most prevalent and tend to prevent us from graduating to the next level of becoming artistic photographers.  Let's take a look at them.

Misconception Number One: Concentrating on Place or Object...or believing that a place or an object alone will generate that great photographic moment.  Think about this for a minute.  I've often used music as a comparison to photography.  There are a lot of piano players out there...they can play the notes...but...there's a difference between playing the notes and imparting emotion into your music.  Photography is the same.  Many people can mechanically play the notes...take a snapshot...but rarely understand how to impart emotion into their photographs.  They rely on the mistaken belief that the location or object, and their camera will do that for them.  Granted, places like the Grand Canyon offer some potentially wonderful photo ops...but that alone isn't enough.  Do you just want to play the notes, or do you want to create emotional music?

The problem is placing too much emphasis on the wrong thing...the object itself.  I recently had a photo friend of mine proudly show me her first ever photo of a deer.  It was a nice 'note playing' photo of a deer...but only that.  There was nothing exceptional about it, the deer was too far off, and standing in a shaded area.  No thought was given towards how light plays a dynamic roll in any artistic photograph, nor was the composition cleverly thought out.  Without great light combined with creative composition...even a great location like the Grand Canyon, or a wonderful critter like a deer will look...well ordinary.  With great light, ordinary objects are transformed into artistically expressive images.  Always...always...think quality light...combined with creative composition.

Misconception Number Two:  Believing that you must capture a scene exactly the way it looks.   Now the idea of capturing a scene/image exactly how you see it is not always a bad thing...but neither is it always the right thing to do.  This may be one of the most difficult misconceptions to overcome.  Countless times I have had people say to me..."I just want my photographs to look like what I see...but my pictures never turn out that way...and I don't understand why."
I really don't have enough space to do justice to the subject...but you must understand that the camera cannot detect the emotion of the moment...all it is capable of doing is registering the intensity of the light...and your camera sees light differently than your eye.

We can see great spreads of colors, contrasts, differentiate between glare and clutter...but the camera doesn't know that.  Once you understand how the camera captures light, then you can begin to use it as a tool to capture a scene the way you want to express it...not necessarily how it looks visually.  The point here is to get you to thinking about photography from a different perspective.  Use the camera to capture your vision...use your mind to visualize the potential of a scene...look for and use light in such a way as to bring out the unique qualities of the moment.

Virtually all of the images you see on this page in their final form did not look like what I saw visually.  What I try to do is look beyond what is there visually, and try to observe the scene from the perspective of how the camera will see it...how I know it will look in its final form.  Knowing in advance how the camera will react to certain lighting conditions will give you a huge advantage and open up windows of photographic opportunity way beyond what you may be experiencing now.  Sometimes, even marginal visual light can look stunning through the lens of the camera.  Make it a practice to look at your scene from the perspective of how the camera will see it.

Misconception Number Three:  Always shooting on Auto or Program mode...or believing the camera knows best.  This is closely related to Number Two.  Full auto or Program mode will provide a mechanically good photograph and can be a good starting place for new photographers to begin understanding how their camera works.  Photography is actually more of a visual art form than a mechanical process.  If all we want to do is 'Play the Notes'...then program mode will work just fine.  But, if we want to impart emotion into our images and create a work of art...it's going to take a bit more effort on your part to understand of how the camera does what it does...then using that knowledge, capture a moment the way you want it to look...not the way the camera wants to capture it.  


I know an individual who has a solid grasp of the mechanics of photography..could easily teach those mechanics and do a good job of it...but...that person's photographs fall well short of what that knowledge base should dictate.  Why is that?  Well there are probably a lot of reasons, but based on conversations we've had, these three misconceptions play a part in it.  That person simply never looks beyond playing the notes.  Another person I know gets this far off look whenever anyone speaks tech talk about cameras...has not a clue what is being said...and further more probably doesn't care.  But...that person takes some really very nice photos...simply because of not being afraid to break the rules and never wanting to be known as a note player.


Today's cameras are marvels of engineering and they have tremendous capabilities.  I hope by examining at least in definition, these misconceptions...it will encourage you to look at what you are doing photographically a little more creatively...

The Four Levels of the Photographic Learning Curve

There are some great photographers out there and every time I visit one of their websites I realize just how much I still have to learn..  A year or so ago I was asked to teach a short workshop on photography. I really had a lot of fun putting it all together and then presenting the material. Part of that workshop included what I like to call "The Four Levels of the Photographic Learning Curve".  It raised a few eyebrows at the time, but it actually made a lot of sense.

Level 1: The Snapshot...or "nice picture...you must have a good camera."
Everyone takes snapshots...even the pro's. Snapshots are those images that when taken you really don't put a lot of thought behind it...or put another way, it's simply a way to capture memories, as a photographer friend of mine once said.  They may capture memories, but they don't necessarily possess a lot of artistic value.  Snapshots are where every aspiring photographer begins.  They are the shots you bring home from vacations and show to your friends and family.  More often than not their reactions are along the lines of, "...those are nice pictures, you must have a good camera..."  Well, you may have heard this before, but that's like saying to a cook, "Nice meal...you must have a lot of good pots and pans."

To a novice photographer, snapshots are a necessary stepping stone and valuable learning tool.  Only when you begin to separate yourself from the notion that the camera does all the work, then you will begin to understand the difference between what it takes to create a snapshot verses what it takes to create a photograph with artistic value.

Level 2:  "That's a good picture...it looks just like a post card."  How many times have you heard that one?  I've graciously heard it more times than I really want to hear...because what is really being said is, "I've seen this kind of image a thousand times before."  That answer would probably be right...there are thousands of post cards in every drugstore and tourist trap you go into.  What this means is that the image may be a technically good photograph, but it's not unique...it looks just like  every other post card image in the same category.  There is not much to separate it from the ordinary photograph that every vacationer takes by the millions.  What is needed to separate those kinds of images from all the rest is to visualize the same scene in an extraordinary way...and then add a bit of 'Wow' to the composition and light.

Level 3:  "Wow...Great picture". Wow factor photographs are generally powerful enough to elicit an emotional response  from whoever is viewing it.  They clearly stand apart from most photographs, but...what this kind of reaction really means is..."Hey, this is a really good photograph, but can you consistently take these kinds of images...or did you just get lucky."  Even novice photographers will from time to time manage to take a Wow photograph.  What separates the novice from someone who consistently generates this level of image is that the novice tends to rely on luck, while the other relies on his or her ability to visualize the potential of a location, plan out a strategy, returns again and again until just the right light is present...and has the technical skills to take advantage of the moment...and do it over and over.

Level 4:  "Whoa...". The forth and highest level of photography is what I call "The Whoa Factor". Like the term whoa suggest...these images stop the viewer in their tracks.  They are so powerful that they move well beyond wow and generate a "Whoa! How did you do that?"  This means you have reached a level of creative understanding and mastery of what you are attempting to accomplish photographically.  Your photographs become like fine music.  Images you create are consistently at a high level because you have an exceptional knowledge of the principles of exposure, composition, story telling, visualization, and technical expertise...and you understand how to combine those principles into an extraordinary photographic solution.  Like the very best musicians, your photographic music imparts feeling, emotion, and depth.  Only a few photographers ever really consistently reach this level.  Even though I know it when I see it...very...very few of my images might fall into this category...but...that's why I keep shooting.