After a busy fall and Christmas season it is time for me to focus on this project again. The last several months I have been so busy that it was about all that I could do to post once per week. Now that I have my time and attention freed up, I want to get back to work improving my eye. To start, I need to remind myself that the photo that works is not always the one I set out to capture.
I took this photo in the fall of 1996 for my high school photography class. I think the assignment was “an action photo”. My youngest brother and a neighbor obliged me and this is what I ended up with.
This is the print I turned in for that assignment, the only touching up I have done is removing dust and other spots from the scan. This was shot with a Minolta SR-T 101 @ 50mm and probably Tri-X 400.
In an effort to simplify, one thing that I do not spend a lot of time in is post processing. Of course, I would like to learn to use Lightroom to it’s full capability, but for now, I have enough going on learning to take decent photos. I could spend hours on one photo in post processing (and I have) but since I really have no idea what I am doing, I am never sure that I couldn’t have gotten equivalent results by using the LR presets.
One day I was looking through a book of photos by Henri Cartier-Bresson and I learned that he never processed his own photos. While this is old news to many people, I couldn’t believe that some like HCB could trust half of his creative process to someone else! Then I thought, if he can give up control, why can’t I? So I did, and I haven’t looked back.
After I import my photos, I select all and convert them all to the same B&W preset that comes standard with Lightroom. Then in the grid view I am looking at what I think of as the digital version of a proof sheet, and I can go from there. Sometimes I will experiment with some of the other B&W presets, but for the most part I have one that I like and I stick with that. I will adjust the tone curve a little, maybe some noise reduction if I am shooting at 800, but I try to keep it really simple.
I feel that by placing this additional limitation on myself that I have really freed myself up to be more creative, in addition of course to the amount of time I free up by not parking myself in front of the computer. By shooting with one preset in mind it is like shooting with film, you can’t change mid roll, everything will come out in the end with the same treatment. I also get to know this “film” better the more I shoot this way so I can anticipate the results while I am shooting.
We spent a long weekend in Dallas with my family for Thanksgiving. We visited our favorite stores, hung out around the house and let the dog chase us on longboards.
I also forced myself to face my fear of photographing complete strangers. It is uncomfortable, but in the end I am satisfied with the results.
After several weeks of having little time for photography, it was nice to have the freedom to spend some time with the camera.
It has been a very busy few weeks for me, not leaving a lot of time for photography, or at least not as much as I would like. This week in particular I have felt like I am in a creative vacuum. This is my eighth week on the “lines” theme, and I am starting to feel it. Of course that was the whole point, to shoot something so much that I am forced to see it in a different way.
So it comes down to making time. It isn’t anything new or earth shattering, and I have written about it here several times already, but it is a lesson I keep learning time and again. Make time, even if it is only for a few photos. Make time to look at what is around you, and you see differently.