One of those weeks!

 Photography  6 Responses »
Oct 222009
 


It has been one of those crazy weeks where life gets in the way of photography. Usually, I can make time for photography, but this week, not so much. I’ve not developed or scanned any film in the last 17 days! Yikes! And, as I realized yesterday, daylight is becoming a very precious thing, especially for those of us who like to go out to the street and shoot. Sunset is now at about 6:39 PM and loosing about 1 minute in the evening each day.

If I leave work at 5:00, I can get downtown at about 5:30, which leaves me, technically, about one hour to shoot, but it turns out to be much less than that due to the numerous buildings that happen to be there. :-) Not that downtown Charleston has any large buildings, it doesn’t. It’s just that the angle of the sun is so low by the time that I get there that I have maybe 30 minutes to shoot. Perhaps I’ll have to load up with higher speed film, or, dare I say, get to work earlier so that I can leave earlier. Hmmm? I’ll have to think about that.

Not only is it the sunlight factor, it seems that most every day this week, I’ve had something that I have to do right after work. Today, I have to come back to the apartment to pick up a FedEx overnight package, sign some papers, and return it. The apartment closes by 6:00, which usually means about 5:45. So, were I to come here, get the package, and attempt to go downtown, it wouldn’t work. Downtown is 45 minutes from here. Sigh. Yesterday was my volunteer day, so that was out. Maybe tomorrow evening I’ll get to go and shoot. We’ll see.

I’m chompin’ at the bit here. I feel the need to get out and shoot, but life just is not cooperating. Sunrise isn’t until 7:30 AM. I would get up, go downtown, and do some morning shooting, but for the most part, there are only joggers in the morning. Not much to see. Also, traffic coming out of downtown and going towards work is nightmarish. Not a good way to start the day.

Oh well, I’ll get to do a lot of shooting next week when I go to visit Tom, The Photo Father. More about that later! :-) I ought to put myself in a massive backlog of film needing to be developed. At least I hope to!

 Posted by Paul at 8:15 am  Tagged with: ,

Is a picture worth a 1000 words?

 Photography  13 Responses »
Oct 202009
 


Day at the beach? Family? Baby’s first steps? Missing fathers? Same sex marriages? Sisters? Point & Shoot Cameras?

Continuing on with some more thoughts based on the Gary Winogrand video, I’m wondering if a picture is really worth a thousand words. Gary Windogrand said:

The fact that photographs — they’re mute, they don’t have any narrative ability at all. You know what something looks like, but you don’t know what’s happening, you don’t know whether the hat’s being held or is it being put on her head or taken off her head. From the photograph, you don’t know that. A piece of time and space is well described. But not what is happening.

In one respect, I would say that yes, a picture is worth a thousand words, but only in describing how something looks. I would have to agree that you can get little or no story from it. QBP rather solidified this point for me in her comment yesterday where she said:

For me, it depends upon what is presented. I think a photo can be as impactful, if not more, than someone’s writing. I was recently reading a blog where the author had written a series about a farmer who had to close his farm due to the corporate competition. He could no longer keep up. Although the writing was quite impactful, I found myself turning away and skipping over some of the many photos he’d taken to document the event. It was powerful, the sadness and emptiness captured in those photos. Painful.

For me, that ability to hit an emotional nerve with either the reader of the word or the viewer of the photo makes the difference.
–QBP

From what I can infer, she read the article, or at least part of it, then went to the photos. By the simple act of reading the article, or even the title of the article, she had context, was able to gather feelings about the article or situation, then looked at the photographs, which just added additional impact, allowing her to add her own narrative and feelings about the subject. If the pictures of the farmer were not included in the article, I would say that the article would have much less impact, but certainly more impact than photos alone; however, I would say that if the photos were in a spread by themselves, well, they would have just been photos of some farmer and no one would have a clue as to what they meant. Therefore, no narrative ability whatsoever.

I could go back to my photos of the poetry reading. Without the context of the poetry reading, the photos might hold up on their own, but as what? As I write this, I’m hit by another thought. This is probably why I’m not so attracted to photo-only blogs. There’s nothing to go along with the photograph to help me along, to frame it, I suppose. I want context. I can appreciate a pretty picture, or perhaps a disturbing one, as much as the next guy or gal, but give me some words with it and it takes it to a new level!

In the end, I guess that I’d have to agree with Winogrand 100% that photos have no narrative ability by themselves. Probably some of you would disagree. I’d like to hear your take on it. Can a photo stand entirely on its own as a narrative piece? I’m not talking about can a single photo evoke an emotion, I know that it can, but can it tell the entire story? Should it be able to?

 Posted by Paul at 7:57 am  Tagged with: ,

Moved more by words

 Photography  7 Responses »
Oct 182009
 


My friend Tom, The Photo Father, sent me an e-mail with a link to a video and some quotes by Gary Winogrand, a famous Magnum photographer. Tom, who always sends me interesting links, wanted to know if I liked Winogrand. Truthfully, I didn’t know much about him until a few months ago. I really don’t know much about any famous photographers. I wonder if that is unusual for someone who likes photography. However, I did like some of his quotes, on in particular:

I learned a long time ago to trust my instincts. You see? When I’m photographing, I wanna — if I’m at the viewfinder and I know that picture, why take it? I’ll do something to change it, which is often the reason why I may tilt the camera or fool around in various ways. You don’t learn anything from repeating what you know, in affect, so I keep trying to make uncertain.

Certainly, he was the most eloquent of fellows, but he got the point across. He liked to kind of shake things up. He figured that if he knew how to take a certain picture, why bother? He was all about learning, experimenting, and trusting his instincts. He was certainly less about follow rules or guidelines. He simply wanted to make his picture ‘complete’. He also talked about failure and how you cannot be afraid to fail because most of your shots will be failures. From watching the video, you can see that this guy was prolific, to say the least. He was behind in developing by the sum of about 2,000 rolls when this film was made back in 1982.

I see many photographers, myself included, get caught up in which equipment to use, instead of working to learn how to photograph, or spending too much time talking about photography and less time actually shooting. Since going and shooting more people-oriented photographs, I try to think of ways to challenge myself, ways to become bolder, moving in closer, etc. Perhaps that is why I changed back to film, to give me something different to do, to learn something else.

Words do more for me than any photo that I could possibly view. Photos seem to capture me for a short time, then I move on. Words seem to hang around for a longer time and, even though I cannot remember the exact quote, the intent hangs around. I’ve always been a reader, so many that’s the strongest form of communication for me.

How about you? What form of communication sticks with you better?

 Posted by Paul at 10:35 pm  Tagged with: ,

I wish that I had said that

 Photography, Spirituality  6 Responses »
Oct 162009
 

Fear to make a step into the Great Unknown because the fear to loose everything is still greater than the hope to win everything.

I found the above words in this post and the words were so stirring and rang so true to me. Sometimes, someone can just summarize things so succinctly and with such clarity that it leaves you breathless, or at the least, knowing, on some deep level that they spoke ‘truth’.

I was going to go into a post talking about my personal experiences with this, but I don’t think that I need to, the quote says it all. It’s something to think about … Do yourself a favor and go and read the post. :-)

 Posted by Paul at 10:59 am

Discontinued

 Photography, Techy Stuff  13 Responses »
Oct 152009
 


Well, it seems as if the commercially viable life of a digital camera is about 18 months, perhaps 2 years, depending upon how fast technology moves. The D300 was introduced in August of 2007. I bought mine in February of 2008.

Although I am about a month late in hearing about it, I see that Nikon has discontinued the D300, in favor of the D300s. The main differences between the two are the the ‘s’ model has HD video and a Live View button. The sensor and, for the most part, the entire camera are the same. Oh, and the D300 supports dual card slots. One for a CF card, the other for an SD card. There’s nothing here that would make me want to trade.

There is an interesting feature, Quiet Shutter Release mode. From Nikon’s site they say:

Also added to the D300s is a Quiet Shutter Release mode, which substantially reduces the sound of the mirror while shooting. Quickly accessed by selecting “Q” on the release mode dial, this feature is ideal for the photographer who wishes to remain unobtrusive.

I wonder how much quieter it would really be. Certainly not as quiet as a rangefinder! :-) Anyway, I’ll be keeping mine, after all, basketball season is around the corner!

 Posted by Paul at 12:00 am  Tagged with: , ,

Flashback!

 Photography  6 Responses »
Oct 142009
 

Both of my guys, Pedro (25) and Tony(17) played the same three sports: basketball, hockey, and soccer and each of them were really good at two of them. Pedro: Soccer and hockey. Tony: Basketball and soccer. Pedro was an excellent hockey goalie and a very good soccer player. Pedro still plays indoor soccer and had a game last night. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go to his too or I would have ended up back in Charleston at midnight or 1:00 AM.

Tony has always, and I mean, always been a competitor. From the time that he could understand what soccer was he wanted to play against his brother and would get so upset if he didn’t win. Now, this is a 4 or 5 year old wanting to win against a 12 year old! In fact, he was so competitive that when he and Pedro would play street hockey, Tony would occasionally ‘accidentally’ hit Pedro in one or both shins in order to score a goal! We still laugh about that. I had to have a number of talks to Tony about fairness!

One time he came home and was pretty upset. He was mad because the kids down the street wouldn’t play with him. When I asked him why, he said that he didn’t know. After I asked the kids why, they said because he cheated and always changed the rules of the game while they were playing so that he could win! Sigh … another conversation. :-)

When Tony first started playing soccer, he was 5. It was funny to watch because he was all about business, even as a 5 year old. While the other kinds were meandering about, kicking ant hills, picking flowers or clover during the game in which they were playing, Tony was scoring goals. It was fun to watch. He played soccer from 1st grade all the way until 6th grade. He also played competitive soccer for a couple of years, which I think burned him out on soccer. They would play or practice 50 weeks/year.

Tony hasn’t had the desire to play soccer in a while. His focus has been totally on basketball; however, this year, in order to get in shape for basketball season, he decided to go back and play soccer, as a senior. He’s become a starter and the go-to guy on the team! Say what?!

I’ve not seen him play in 6 years. As I was in Charlotte for a few moments yesterday, having just returned from Dallas and on my way to Charleston, I decided to stop by the school and check out the game. Pedro came by after work, too. Pedro remarked that it looked odd to see Tony playing soccer and that he looked too big, as we were both used to our memories of him in a much smaller uniform, 6 years ago. :-)

Now, to be sure, he didn’t get all of this athletic prowess from me. I was NOT an athlete, to be sure. Sure, I threw shot put and discus on the track team, tried my hand at American football (didn’t like it), bowled, and did photography, but never excelled at any sport, save for bowling, which I heard is not a sport because you have to rent shoes! ;-)

Anyway, it was a good day to get out the D300, blow off the dust, adjust the settings, and try my hand at shooting soccer. Certainly, I didn’t do a great job, I was out of practice in shooting this sport, but I got a few keepers. In the end, or team won, 2-1, and Tony scored one goal, pictured here. Basketball season is almost here! Practice starts in about 3 weeks! I’m excited for him.

 Posted by Paul at 9:31 am

The camera as a talisman

 Photography  8 Responses »
Oct 122009
 


I’ve been thinking about this post for a few days now, perhaps a couple of weeks. I wasn’t sure what to write because, quite frankly, I wasn’t sure about what I thought about it. The final catalyst was a comment made by Julie:

p.s. your poetry shots are different from anything else, and they have a magic to them. Is that just from that particular scene, or do you find you’re getting the same effect with everything you’ve taken on that camera?

To my recollection, I first encountered the word ‘talisman’ in a Stephen King novel. I’m not sure which one, but that isn’t very important. A talisman is an object, usually an inscribed ring or stone, that brings good luck to the owner or keeper of said object. In thinking back about my poetry reading photos, I wondered did I get them because of the camera? That is to say, did I believe that I could get good, interesting photographs because of the camera that I held? Did it impart any magical qualities onto my abilities? Did it change my belief system, if but for a few moments, and make it such that I could these photos? Or, perhaps, was I just in the right place, at the right time, with the right equipment, in the right mood?

Certainly, a new piece of equipment can inspire one to go out and take photos, but are those photos necessarily different, other than in some technical aspects, more pixels, better color rendition, etc? In certain situations, the use of a certain piece of equipment can mean the difference between getting the shot or not, but I’m talking, I think, about something more … inspiration. I might ascribe the ‘success’ or differentness of the photos in part to the camera that I held, which allowed me to be stealthy, but I think that it is more of where I am in life at this moment. I’m interested, mostly, in rolls and personae. Therefore, my focus (no pun intended) has shifted to people and their interactions in their environment as a way to understanding that mysterious ‘Self’, my rolls and relationships.

As you can see, I’ve shot almost all B&W film for the past 5 months. It’s not likely to change anytime soon as it seems to be the right medium for that expression, or perhaps it is that I like the cameras and their legacy of capturing these types of shots or moments, yet, it may be that these cameras do possess some talisman-like qualities that change my belief system and allow me to capture such moments.

Lastly, I might ask, does the magic of the photos come from me or from the eyes of the viewer because, on some level, the photo might resonate with them.

 Posted by Paul at 12:04 pm
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