Same Flower - Three Looks: The Difference Between Ordinary, Pretty Good, and Extraordinary

It became one of my favorite images, but almost did not happen. Back in the day when I was still shooting film, transparency film to be more specific, I happened across a situation where I had one image left on the roll with a potentially great shot developing. In front of me alongside a country road stretched a long row of Queenannes Lace blooms. In the distance a low rolling horizon rose up to meet the setting sun which hovered just above the ridge. Subdued by a thick hazy layer the sun turned into a orange ball. My thought was to zoom in tight on the bloom and center it against that orange ball. I could only visualize the final image, but knew what I wanted and set the exposure to what I believed would produce the expected results. Problem was, I could not easily line up the shot because of a barbed wire fence. I stooped low through the wire, stretched as far as I could but just could not get the alignment I wanted without falling. I leaned a few inches more and rotated the camera but could only partially align the bloom against the setting sun which was rapidly about to dip too low. I fired off the shot hoping for the best. The final results turned out far better than I imagined.

This image became a good example of what I mean when I explain to novice photographers 'never settle for the ordinary'. Often they become fixated on the object thinking that the object by itself is what creates the great image. Too often they neglect to think in terms of photographing light. There is a difference between ordinary, pretty good, and extraordinary, and as photographers we should always pursue the extraordinary.

Ordinary

Ordinary, when it comes to nature photography, tends to have that fundamental look about it. It may very well be a good technical image and capture the basic appearance of the object, but, more often than not it looks like something that would be used in a Text Book, a documentary image of sorts, where the light falls upon the image.

Pretty Good

Pretty Good is a step in the right direction where light has been used to enhance the basic beauty of the object. It certainly provides a more interesting viewpoint, but there is more available to capture. As a photographer, if I stopped at Pretty Good, I would have left myself short realizing that anyone, even a novice can capture Pretty Good. There is always another look, another example, another opportunity to use light in an artistic manner, and that is what we seek to discover.

Extraordinary

To capture the Extraordinary, one must look well beyond the obvious and visualize the potential of what is there. Even simple objects in ordinary circumstances can become extraordinary images with a bit of creative vision. One must also understand how the camera captures light, knowing why that white field of snow looks gray in your image, or why that deep blue sky looks pale and washed out. This idea takes you deeper, it stretches your thought process broader into the realm of becoming an artist, someone who has a command of the tools they use, someone with a vision vs simply being a photographer of things. It takes practice and a willingness to try something new, something different. It may require you to learn more about how your camera actually does what it does and why it does so, instead of just accepting what the out of box configuration gives you.

Same flower, three perspectives. The difference between Ordinary, Pretty Good, and Extraordinary is often just a few inches away, a different angle of light, another perspective, or coming back a second or third time to discover the right combination of light, object, and circumstance. What you will find is that even though Extraordinary seems hard and difficult to master, the potential for doing so is endless.

Ten Things I learned About Photography in 2015

1. You're never too old to learn something new in photography and there is more new in photography to
learn than I have years left to learn them.

2. Never give up on fading light...even after it appears to be virtually gone, what is still there will often produce unexpected results..

3. There is more to Light than meets the eye, and more ways to capture it than I realized.

4.  Light is not only visible, it speaks with a language all its own...but sometimes you have to be still to hear it.

5.  Kids and teenagers make wonderful models.

6.  Photographing teenagers can lift your spirit like nothing else can...they have an energy about them that can make a tired older photographer feel like being 40 again.

7.  On any given day something magical photographically can happen, on any given day I will miss a magical photographic moment.

8.  Sometimes I need to set the camera down and enjoy the moment just for myself.

9.  It is too easy to get caught up in photography and miss the rest of your life moments.

10. I can often see lives begin to shine in a different light when I see them through the lense.

Essence of the Moment

One of my favorite refuges is to stand alone on a high knoll inside the tallgrass prairie. One can discover moments of the heart while standing there. Emotional Images such as these are difficult to convey inside the visual elements of a photograph, but that is exactly what I always try to do...capture the Essence of the Moment.

You see photography is more than taking a picture of an object, it is about capturing moments of the heart. This may be one of the most difficult concepts for novice photographers to grasp, maybe even for a good number of advanced photographers as well. The Essence of the Moment is about capturing what you feel and less about what you see. One of the biggest mistakes novice photographers make is to think they have to capture a subject exactly the way they see it when in reality a photographic work of art rarely exhibits visual life as an exact capture of visual facts. Instead, a photograph should capture the emotion of the moment and become a visual point of reference as to why that moment was important. There is no single best way to accomplish this. Photographers must first understand what the concept means, be willing to alter or adapt their way of seeing, and then develop their own techniques that fulfill the desire.

A good writer is able to 'show' through words the emotion of the moment in his story. An inexperience writer tends to 'tell' his reader what is happening. The same holds true with photographers. The good ones instinctively understand how to 'show' what they are experiencing visually. There is a big difference between a photograph that 'tells' me about an object from one that 'shows' me why that object at that moment was important. The images that 'show' carry a hint of realism across a pallet of light filled with color, texture, contrast, vibration, and purposeful composition.

It has been said that all photographs contains two people in them. The first is You the photographer as it is a representation of not just your technical skill, but your emotional being. The second is the person who views the photograph, for they always project a part of themselves into the moment of the image. A photograph capable of pulling the viewer into it making them wish they were there or stirring an emotional response from them is a photograph that captures the Essence of the Moment.