Photography Stuff
“The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it.” Ansel Adams
Life here isn’t all work of course. And although I don’t ever really get out to seriously photograph, photography occupies a great deal of my off-hours attention and momentary free-time thinking.
I’ve read a lot. Studying Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Steve McCurry - through books, e-books and online. Then there’s the monthly mini-e-book and bi-monthly magazine put out by David DuChemin and the Craft & Vision gang, as well as monthly magazines and a few websites that are rewarding. It all depends on my brain capacity at any given moment. But aside from keeping up with the soccer and world news, photography has had my brain space outside of work for quite a while now.
I’ve gone through a video series on the key functions of my main photography program, Lightroom, which pretty much constitutes my modern darkroom, in an effort to acquire the skills necessary to execute a high quality image. And since I can’t generate much (read: any) consistent new work in Liberia, I will occasionally return to my catalog of older images to see if there is anything I can really improve - like the image above from 2009.
Photography is not easy, especially if you’re not inspired by your surroundings (or can’t photograph what would inspire you . . .). So you pretty much take what you can get when you can get it.
A couple months back, I had an early morning appointment down at the bottom of the hill (the Embassy is at the top of the hill) so I worked from home until about 8:15. As I was about to head out I looked down my hallway and saw a peculiar light. Peculiar because I’m not usually at home walking down my hallway at this time of the morning, but still, it was a subtle contrast of different light types and colors as well as tonal layers through the space. Not a great shot, but something to learn from, so I ran into my bedroom, grabbed my camera, made a couple of photographs, set my camera on the table and still made my 8:30 appointment.
That’s pretty much what my photography has been like. I can read all the books I want, work on blog images to my heart’s content, but it’s all really just practice to improve my skills for when it will count. Try to stretch my seeing as much as possible, but it’s catch when catch can.
Like my trip to Cuttington. In addition to taking photographs for the blog post, I tried a couple of interesting shots. It's hard to do anything like this justice without a lot of time (I didn’t have it) or a tripod to assure precise composition in the frame, but still I took one:
And then another, just trying to figure out how to approach the same subject differently; how does the light change, how does the color affect the image, how do you separate a foreground from the background? For lack of a better word, playing with the camera to see what I can get.
Henri Cartier-Bresson said that your first 10,000 photographs are your worst. I’m assuming that with a nearly 10-year hiatus from real photography, I have to start over again.
If I had my druthers, I’d start walking around to photograph people on the street - but in Liberia that is a recipe for violence. Against the photographer. People on the street think you’re exploiting them, that somehow you’re going to get rich from a photograph of them. My Liberian colleagues assure me that it’s not just white people photographing, anyone photographing others becomes a target. So, I don’t go around photographing what I’d like to - the people and life of Liberia.
Which gets back to sunsets at goodbye parties. All last week we had these beautifully rich brilliant orange-sky sunsets. I saw no reason why Friday would be any different, so I took both cameras (a point and shoot and my nice fixed-lens Fuji) to yet another good-bye party. It became apparent quite early that Friday was indeed quite different. Different cloud structure - no way brilliant sunset light was going to paint the sky orange. But it turned interesting, so I pulled myself away from the crowd and headed over to a spot I scouted out that was elevated enough over the wall to get get a decent shot ( bolstered by my conclusion that the guards weren’t going to throw me down and arrest me for taking a picture on the old compound).
Even though it wasn’t spectacular, it was something to learn from, between the layers of clouds, different, rapidly changing colors of light and the patterns on the water, there was much to see. It was a multitude of subtle changes that only required you to look carefully.
I took several photographs over 5 or 10 minutes and went back to the party, carefully keeping an eye on the changing scenery. After another 15 minutes, I again grabbed my bag and, beer in hand, walked over to photograph. Things had already changed. A lot.
Yes, the colors had fundamentally changed from yellow to pinkish-red, with the pink on the horizon rapidly fading, yet remaining in the clouds high above.
So catch when catch can. Nothing spectacular, but always lessons to learn.
And then there’s been the joy of spending a lot of time with Ann, online, talking about photography and photographs. Namely, her photographs. And answering lots and lots of questions. The best students always ask challenging questions and, based on that criteria, she’s a good student.
Ann expressed an interest in photography when I was home last, so I left my old camera and a couple of lenses with her. Lately we’ve been planning hikes for her to go on to photograph, and then we look at, discuss and edit her photographs together. The wonders of the internet! Sometimes we’ll just IM, but other times we’ll set up Skype (even with my bad bandwidth) so we can quickly talk about edits to images. We'll transfer files through Dropbox, e-mail screen shots of settings to each other, and even send IMs of hyperlinks and other information. Often she’ll go out on a Friday (she works 4 very long day weeks with 3 day weekends) and we’ll discuss her images on Saturday and Sunday, often for 3-4 hours at a time. It’s not ideal, but it’s time together. Wonderful time together.
Although she’d claim otherwise, she is learning and growing. Although she still doesn’t fully grasp the aperture depth of field - shutter speed - iso relationship all the time, she understands the key points of exposure and always comes back with a digital negative you can work with (even with the crappy micro 3/4s sensor in that camera).
Ann took a well-deserved break a few weeks ago in Sisters and drove out to Smith Rocks to go shooting (some of the places we’d scouted out were still snowed in!). She got some very impressive shots from that trip, to include the one above. Already she's asking how to make them better!
Nearly every week it’s been one hike or another. She’s also learning how hard it is to make a really powerful image in the Willamette Valley area where there are lots of trees and other things that want to get in your way (even Ansel had a hard time getting quality images from the dense vegetation in the Pacific Northwest - grand vistas, with their awe-inspiring vistas, are a lot easier subject to work with). She is coming to understand that good photography is hard. Great photography seems nearly impossible.
Still, she keeps at it and she’s made some impressive images.
She’s slowly understanding why a tripod can be so useful and is wanting to do things that are pushing her skills. She thinks she’s a hack. I know better, and I’m looking forward to spending some quality time together, photographing and answering her questions on the spot, instead of over the internet a day or two later.
I could say that I’m helping Ann with her photography out of sheer self-interest. It's not just to get her out photographing and to scout out places for me, but to get her to make better pictures of what I feel I’m missing out on the most (save for being with Ann) working here in Liberia, and that is spending time with Pen.
About a week ago Ann went over to Ben and Geneva’s place and took the camera. Afterwards, while Ann focused on the dozens of shots where Pen was blurry, or had closed eyes, or had looked away, I saw things differently. I knew that if you get 2 or 3 decent photos from a shooting session with a baby, you’re doing good. When you get one like this . . .
. . . well that’s exceptional. (I know Ann, you wouldn’t use that adjective about your photo skills . . . but . . . .)
Pretty soon I think Ann is going to be ahead of me in getting to her 10,000 worst photographs!