thanksgiving

I made pie.

@Home

I was already composing a post for today about how badly I failed at the reading deprivation. I struggled with it and failed miserably really. Kept reading blogs. Kept browsing the internet. But a funny thing happened while I was trying to avoid forums.

Last night, when I'd normally start reading a book or flicking through a magazine, I found some motivation to try again. Because I'd committed to at least attempting the Artist's Way exercise, I managed to spend time not reading. Instead I started working on the copy of my book that I'd printed out (yes I know, technically still reading, but I was writing too). Then along the way, I found an urge to pick up the camera and start taking some pictures. So I did. I took around 200 pictures of Amanda and I spending a quiet night at home, together. More pictures than I've taken for weeks. More fun than I've had in a while with a the camera, too. Maybe there is something in this exercise after all.

reading deprivation

I continue to stumble along trying to follow the Artist's Way program. This week, one of the big themes is reading deprivation. Avoiding any and all of the standard forms of reading that I do. The idea is that much of the things you read are just so many ways of avoiding hearing your inner thoughts and ideas. Words are little pieces of junk food that pollute the mind. Only about half a day into what is supposed to be a whole week of avoiding reading as much as possible. It is difficult! No blogs, no talk radio, no audio books, no magazines, forums, web pages, trying to limit email. Alone with your thoughts. TV isn't a valid substitute, so avoiding that too.

Interesting to realise how much of that sort of empty reading I normally consume in a week. In some ways I'm lucky this landed on Thanksgiving week - the long weekend holiday and plenty of other distractions to keep me occupied. Maybe I need to try this again later in a more typical week - but it is already quite a struggle. I think I'll pick up my camera, just for something to do (that's part of the idea after all!). Writing is a valid activity, so I may get around to doing some of the blog posts that have been backing up in my head. I suppose I should avoid reading any of the comments so don't expect a response this week.

ETA: After posting this blog entry, I then wandered over to google and searched for 'artists way reading deprivation' and read a few blogs about experience with trying to do this exercise. Not a great start...

christmas is coming

Seems to be sooner and sooner every year. But then everyone complains about that, so I'll stop right there. I really like shooting Christmas lights. Meaningless, pointless and fun. I have a hard time standing still and shooting or using a tripod. I seem to always end up waving the camera around, or shooting out of focus or running back and forth while taking the pictures. Long exposures, out of focus, lensbabies, zooming the lens or my feet. So many fun ways to shoot Christmas lights in a non-literal way. Even with a small point and shoot camera, you can get good results, zooming with your feet while exposing, or twisting and turning the camera through the exposure, weaving trails of lights on the sensor.

end of the year already

Vanity Fair is already doing their 'year in review' photographs. I thought it was still just November. Good mix of imagery, mostly portraits and news.

easy questions about finding light

On this post, Mark asks a question:

How do you get Amanda exposed so nicely against such bright background colours? Or is it that there wasn't strong sunlight coming off the yellow background, so it didn't underexpose Amanda?

A good question without an easy answer. On the day, I put her in light that I thought would be good - didn't give it much thought at the time. That's an easy but mostly useless answer. Thinking about it more carefully, I put her in light that I knew would work well within the limits of the particular camera I was using. I was, as my friend Randy would say, in the pocket, shooting within the dynamic range that the camera can work with. I suppose I've learned where that is by taking a lot of bad pictures and looking at those results.

Maybe more usefully, these particular shots were taken on a bright, sunny day, but in open shade. The walls are in shadow, with the sun the other side of the buildings. Amanda and the walls are both facing away from the sun towards the open sky - bright day, lots of even light. Randy again describes the situation of finding light as going to where the light isn't, and looking the opposite direction. You find good light flooding in from there. Be in the shadows, and shoot with the subject facing the light.

One part of this is learning to see how your camera sees a scene - rather than how your eye sees. Sitting in a cafe, having lunch at the weekend Amanda & I were playing around taking pictures of ourselves. We were sitting up in the window of the cafe. Lots of light, a big window that faced the open sky, without any harsh sunlight. The window faced to the North (which is always a great window to use in the Northern hemisphere for portrait light). A generous woman at the next table offered to take our picture and we accepted her offer. Immediately she wanted to pose us with the window behind us, because 'the street outside was a more interesting background'. The only problem was the great light for portraits was coming in the window she wanted to put behind us. I suggested maybe we'd shoot it the other way around and she was happy to do it - maybe somewhat confused why I wanted to have the picture with the boring solid red wall of the cafe behind us. The same situation here - the light was outside, so we faced it. Also, the shot was taken with an appreciation of what the camera can do and how it sees light, rather than how our eye sees it. I snapped a quick shot of the alternative direction, just to show what it could have been like - bright, well exposed outside world, black silhouette of me. I could bias the camera to expose for me in the middle, but the window would be totally blown out. Shooting against the light (contra jour) can provide great results, but for portraits, I tend to like quite quiet, simple light. The other solution is to add light to the scene - with a flash or other light source, but the on camera flash is terrible on a small point and shoot and these are just quick snaps.

So the simple answer to Mark's question is have the subject stand in good light and orient them appropriately for the light source (the sky in both of these cases). Watching the background helps a lot too - keeping it cohesive with the subject - that doesn't necessarily mean bland or boring, but hopefully building on what you are trying to express, rather than fighting with it. Dealing with the direct sun is tough, so in both cases, I just avoided it - being in the shadow of the building in one, or using a North facing window in the other. Becoming sensitive to these sorts of things takes some careful attention to start noticing how shadows fall and where light is coming from. It also takes some experimentation to get familiar with how your camera sees a scene compared to your eye. All things that can be learned with a bit of focused practice.

I've got a part-finished sequence of images and comments that might give a bit more insight into how I try to find these sorts of locations with just ambient light and subject placement. Some day I want to go further with those examples. Maybe that's SoFoBoMo II or another book.

finding the time to be creative

I'm always struggling to find enough time in the day to be creative, around life, work and all those other commitments. I worry about trying to clear large enough chunks of time to go and photograph, or write or even to give proper consideration to a photography book or other reading. Reading and working through 'the artist's way ' one idea has stuck - just be creative in the time you have. It might just be 15 minutes but that's enough to keep things ticking over. You don't need to drag out the tripod and the serious camera. Just make some pictures. Yesterday's series of images of Amanda at the Kure Beach pier are a good example - we only shot for about 5 minutes, but it was fun and kicked off some new ideas in my head.

a weekend at the beach

Went to Wilmington and drove down to Kure beach. Found a strip of typically brightly coloured shops and walls and took a few portraits. Cold, sunny and windy day. Didn't get into the ocean this time!

Only had a point and shoot pocket camera with me (little Panasonic DMC-LX1), but fun all the same. Certainly better than my cellphone.

autumnal

Took a picture today. Was writing in my journal over lunch, rambling on about creative blocks and things like that. Got back in the car and was struck by the wet trees and colour. The picture is taken with a camera phone and isn't exactly my best ever, but it was surprising how compelled I was to make the image. I'm getting back to wanting to take pictures and I think the things I'm doing to try to spur on my creativity are actually starting to work, no matter how much I'm fighting against it.

I also got a chance to use FotoFlexer to edit the image. Surprisingly effective and easy to use. Good to use in a crunch.

touching strangers

image by Richard Renaldi

This is a fascinating project to me. Go take a look before you read any more. Trust me, it makes a difference.

Richard takes photographs of strangers, posed with other strangers to them and the photographer. The body language is strangely odd, more so even when you understand the relationship (or lack there of) between the subjects in each image. Joel Colberg has a great interview with Richard here, for Conscientious.

Having done a bit of street portraiture myself, I'm impressed by the courage shown to start this project. I wonder if the mystique of using a view camera helps to get the subjects involved, in this digital age. Great work.