Looking to See

Perhaps I should have titled this “photographing to see,” but to be honest, I’m not quite sure how to best describe it.  As you know, I’ve written a couple of posts about “working” an image - when you see something that strikes you and you keep working to make the best image of it that you can.  Sometimes this means (un)subtle shifts in camera placement or lens selection, sometimes it means moving around an object to finally realize what you see.  The thing about that process is that you see something first, and then you have to figure out how to photograph it.  But I’m talking of something slightly different here.  That is, you don’t see it until you start photographing it.  I love the sense of discovery and fascination I feel when I see things this way.

When I’m out photographing, one of the things I’m doing is exploring.  New things, old things, it doesn’t matter.  I’m constantly looking at things, studying them, wondering if there is something there that wasn’t before, or something that I had missed.  It’s fun to find something there that you hadn’t noticed at first glance.  Some discoveries have photographic potential, others don’t. And some don’t reveal themselves until you’ve looked at them through the camera.  And some of those hit you over the head like a baseball bat.

Perhaps the best way to explain the process is to show you a series of images that led me to one such discovery.  Images from our 4th of July trip to Brice Creek.

To set the scene I’ve included an image from our approach to where the photographs were taken that led to my discovery.  I was just to the left of the main falls you see below, looking at the falls as it drops off.  As I mentioned in the blog, I stood on a ledge that was right at water level - you can see where the rock on the left of the falls cuts towards the left, then back up-river.  That’s were I was, at water level.  Also, in the images below, you’ll see that big rock just to the right of the falls as it splashes down, and the squarish rock that is covered in dark green moss.  Both are in the images below.

But from this view, you wouldn’t thing there was anything particularly unusual (read: special) in at this location.  It’s just a lovely creek-side location ripe for photographs.

As I mentioned in the blog of our excursion, I had taken a couple of photographs facing up-river before I turned in the direction of the falls.  Importantly, I had been using a polarizing filter in those photographs.  What polarizing filters do is, if the light is at the right angle, it can eliminate reflections off of non-metallic surfaces.  Among other things, it’s what photographers use to take glare off of water surfaces (and fisherman use to see into the water).  When you deal with wet surfaces that have multiple angles on them (i.e. some wet rocks), you can only eliminate glare from some of the surfaces.  The polarizing filter is mounted on a frame that you can spin around to see the changing effect of the filter.

When I positioned my camera to make these photographs, I initially composed to include the stone in the foreground, the rushing water with that swirl to the right of it, along with aligning the top edge with the ledge you can see, and the circular holes in the moss on the wall in the upper left corner.

Then I did what I always do with a polarizer and water, you spin the polarizer to see if you have the filter oriented the way you want it.  While spinning the filter helped deepen the darker water a bit, what it did to the wet wall on the right - between the big boulder and the water swirl - was stunning.  It would go from bright to black, and various shades in-between working the glare up the wall.

I had to step away from my camera and look to see if I could see what my camera was seeing.  Yes, it was there even without the polarizer.  The wall was glowing - I just hadn’t noticed it until the polarizer had turned it off.

I decided to finish up this image and use the polarizer orientation that would back light the drop, but not totally wash out that wall.

I then decided to move in closer and to make that glow the focal point of the image, and to let the rock, moving water and the colors of the moss above frame that glowing wall.

I wound up moving on to making other images, but eventually the focus of my attention returned to the wall.  So I hopped back down to the ledge and decided to make a composition of the image.

This time I adjusted the polarizer a bit (probably too much) and didn’t pay as much attention as I should have to shutter speeds.  Face it, when you get excited about things on the ground glass (ok, it’s an LCD screen - but close enough) one sometimes forgets to pay attention to technical details.  Simply put, I was fascinated by what I was seeing and my mind wasn’t working right - I was enjoying what I was looking at too much to think.

So that’s how discoveries like this go.  Sometimes you have to photograph to see, or just look around really really carefully to discover something right in front of you.

And yes, I think I need to go back to Brice Creek soon and work on this image a bit more!