Thoughts on Photography - Visualizing Part 1
I’ve been doing a bit of reading about photography lately (in large part to stay away from the news) and as much as I love my landscape photographers, I respect the work of many photographers do who aren’t landscape photographers and pay attention to what they say. Unsurprisingly, photographers have different ways of describing the way they work to get to the point of visualizing something that should be photographed. Rarely does just pointing a camera at something result in a beautiful, interesting or compelling photograph. One has to see the potential image (or the potential for an image) in order to make a successful photograph.
As a lawyer, y’all might not be too surprised that, for me, words matter. Words have meaning, but not always the same meaning for everyone. So I think about what these photographers are actually saying and try to understand what they mean when they say something. I’m not so concerned about what those words may mean in terms of a particular approach to photographing (or the moral issues surrounding the particular choice of words) as I am in what the words mean in terms of observing the world around me and understanding it photographically. If that last sentence confuses you, it hints at debates within photography, for example about the analogizing of photography to hunting, of “shots,” the “capturing” of an image and the “stealing” of something away from others. Sorry, but I’m not going down that rabbit hole and have no desire to ever go down it. I try not to be offensive in the wording that I use, but my concerns are about meaning as applied to the photographic process. What I’ve thought about are words photographers I respect use in discussing what it takes to actually make a decent image once you are out and about with a camera and want to make a decent photograph.
In my readings over the past couple of months I’ve wrestled with several words these “Visualizing” posts will address - seeing, looking, noticing, expectations and visualization (to include my thoughts on the whole “pre-visualization” debate - a rabbit hole I am willing to go down). This post deals with the first three; Part 2 with the last two.
Seeing
I’ve decided to start with what is perhaps the hardest of all of the visualization terms to achieve, but is in my opinion the ultimate reward one can gain from photography. That is truly seeing things in a new way, so that you perceive the world around you differently. For me, that’s the natural world.
I’ve often mentioned that the camera does not see things the same way as the eye. That the camera and photography can reveal things that the normal eye/brain generally does not perceive shouldn’t surprise anyone. Part of my work is exploring what the camera sees that I don’t, discovering some aspect of that, and then pushing it so that I can, eventually, come to see how the camera sees, so I can see the natural world and its functions in new ways. For the longest of times (in my film shooting days), I would say that I see the world in black and white. At least I came to see the world that way. One sees things differently when one “sees” in only tonal values and seeing the world in color when you’re photographing with black and white film is a recipe for wasting a lot of money on some very bad images. I, unfortunately, have lost much of that ability to see in black and white photographing with digital cameras. That was one of the reasons I found the Q2MR so appealing.
I’ve dug through my library to find some examples from when I was very aware that I was seeing things differently as I was making the image, which I’ll refer to below (and throughout the series). When it comes to seeing, as I’m using the word, you don’t necessarily “see” something first and then photograph it, you make a photograph, see something you didn’t expect and try to figure out why it is that way. If you’re lucky, you see it on the rear LCD at the time of making the image and you can press it to explore that new way of seeing. But that image reveals something new to you, something that you can develop the sensitivity to see so you can see what is there in the world differently.
That is what happened the morning on the beach north of Seal Rock when I thought I was making a “minimalist” (to use a now-overused catchphrase in photography) image - a small island out in the ocean. What I saw instead was an amazing dynamism involving the water and clouds, with a comparatively minor “subject” that grounds the image in reality. I’d been working with moving water around that time, but this was a very different result (based on the length of time the shutter speed was open), that started opening up new worlds of exploration (within a very limited range of exposure times - beyond that range in either direction the effect was lost). And once I saw it, I could see it elsewhere.
What’s interesting about the intense experience that led to the image above is that Ann made a photograph of me while I was engaged in the process - standing behind my camera in contemplation, in-between working an image, searching where to push it next - which Devon later posted on Facebook saying that it was his favorite photograph of me. It was me not only doing what I love (photographing), it was of me in the process of discovering how to see things anew.
Another good example came from the trip Ann and I took to the Santiam River. It’s strange how similar the experience above and the Santiam experience were - both involved water, and both lasted a relatively short period of time involving intensive work that left me mentally and physically exhausted. Again, the characteristics of camera exposure time came into play, but even more critical this time around was the role a fairly bright sky (and occasional direct sunlight), water and the river bottom played in opening opportunities for image-making.
Again, it was a discovery made as a result of making a photograph of something else and trying to get the shutter speed right for the other image. Once I looked at it (a traditional landscape) and saw what was happening with the riverbed in a small portion of that image, I abandoned it to explore that mix of light, water and rock exclusively until I was mentally unable to figure out what more I could do. It has allowed me to see this potential in other images, which I have used since then. And I now see Monet’s Giverny paintings differently.
This last example of expanding the way one can see the world comes from a truly exploratory image I made on a trip to the Painted Hills. I’d completed the image I had composed and turned around to put my camera away in my backpack. I looked up and thought, “I wonder if I could photograph that?” So I did. The dynamic range was near impossible for the sensor to record and I did my usual several exposures and, after seeing nothing special when reviewing the photograph on my LCD (the contrast range was so vast everything looked either pure white or pure black), I put it away.
It was only afterwards, when something told me to work with the image despite its technical difficulties did I realize what I had. I realized that it opened the door for certain types of images that I’d previously never seen before (thus never considered making because the rule of thumb goes, “Don’t photograph into the sun.”). Fortunately, a few weeks later I saw another opportunity looking into the sun through hazy clouds and “saw” that image. Now I keep my mind open, half-looking for the right opportunity, because it has to be right or it doesn’t work. The real opportunities are few and far between, but when the conditions present themselves, I now can see it and know that I can photograph it.
The thing is, actually coming to “see” things in a new way is very rare indeed. Sure, it’s the ultimate enjoyment one can get from photography (if you’re experience-oriented like me), but those moments are very few and far between. Face it, I can only really think of these three examples of this type of discovery in the past 10 years of photographing. So how does one come to visualize images in the 99.9999% of the other times you are out with a camera?
Looking
I have to admit I’ve done a poor job in my own mind associating the wording used by one photographer versus another, so I can’t tell you that so-and-so photographer talks about actually “looking” while out walking the streets, versus the photographer who says, “the problem with most photographers is they don’t notice what’s actually going on.” I apologize, but I’m not that organized in my studies (read - much of it is on the fly in those 5 to 10 minute moments of free time in-between doing other things). I guess it doesn’t really matter because I’m probably using them in ways those photographers don’t intend, which is fine. These are my thoughts and my defining of these terms, framed in ways I think will be useful for myself.
For me, looking is the state of mindfulness where you’re being observant of your surroundings and sensitive to potential photographic opportunities. Imagine the difference between walking down a city street trying to get from point A to point B (from work to the subway station) and walking down a city street lined with shops and you’re scanning the shop windows to see if there’s anything interesting for sale. The two are very different mind-sets.
When you’re out photographing, you want to be, at a minimum, truly looking. Not just walking down the trail, but truly looking to see (in a very different sense of the word than above) if there are photographs to be made. It takes focus and concentration, and I’ll admit that many a time, especially at the end of a long hike or long day out photographing, I’m just interested in getting back to the vehicle to . . . eat, drink, get off my feet, you name it. I hate to think of how many photographs I’ve missed simply because I was too tired to look during the last mile or two of a multi-mile hike.
But when you are looking, you’ll definitely see images to be made. Sometimes they are obvious, you know something is there and all you have to do is to work the image to make something special.
Other times you’ll look, see something, but it just doesn’t work out to be a successful image (for any number of reasons), but that process of looking and working the possibilities reveals other possibilities that you can pursue that lead to a successful image. And it is work.
My image of the whole tree on the edge of the cliff was . . . face it, I didn’t even press the shutter for it. This tighter framing of just the branches though, which I saw while composing that other, unmade image, that’s a different story.
And the scale can sometimes matter too. Often Ann or I will arrive at a spot and say, “There’s got to be an image in here somewhere!” Looking puts you in that state of mind to recognize that potential exists (even if it might not appear so on first glance). You still have your work to do - framing, aperture/exposure, filters - but you don’t even stop if you’re not truly looking. I dare say that landscape still life images like the one below come only if you are looking intesely while walking through an area.
We’ve all had our days, or photo sessions, where we say, “I just couldn’t feel it today.” I’ve come to think that the inability to see any images is because of an inability to get into the mindset to really look. Looking is an active process connected to a state of mind and it’s really difficult to make a decent image if you can’t look. I think that’s why so many photographers prefer to photograph alone (or pairs go their own way while photographing), you have to be in the mindset to look if you have any hope of seeing the photographic opportunities that are there and that mindset is rarely possible when engaging with another person.
Noticing
For me, noticing is somewhat different than looking. Perhaps you could call it a higher state of looking, a heightened awareness. To better understand it, one might think of the question, “What makes a photograph successful?” There’s Henri Cartier-Bresson’s decisive moment (a term coined by others, not him), the humor in Eliott Erwitt’s street photographs, or Joe Cornish’s TLC (time, light and composition (my thoughts on that might warrant another post)). What I’ve come to understand is that many different things can contribute to a good photograph, and the more of them you have, the more likely the image will be special. It’s not a recipe, and no group of or single quality can guarantee a successful image, but the more qualities you have in an image, the better it’s likely to be.
With that in mind, noticing comes when you think you have something and you start working with it and then notice that there is something different, special about some aspect of what is happening (with your subject or something altogether different in the same general conditions) and you take advantage of it. Think about the photograph looking into the sun from the painted hills above - I noticed the light conditions enough to decide I needed to try and photograph it.
The two photographs below are a good example of noticing. Ann and I arrived in Yachats not long after a storm had passed. The storm and rain had passed and the clouds were starting to thin, but the ocean was still charged up. It felt alive and angry. I distinctly remember approaching the rocks and thinking that if anyone falls into the water, they’ll die. The water was, in a word, violent and I decided that I would try my best to capture that anger and violence in a photograph.
It took me awhile to find just the right shutter speed, and then many, many images to figure out how to best time the waves as they crashed and then rolled off the rock outcroppings, and then a few images of each effect because each image resulted in distinctly different patterns. I was at it for quite a while. Satisfied I had at least one image that would work, I stepped back to once again look in awe upon the violence in front of me.
And then the light changed. First, very subtly and then obviously. Not only did I notice the light changing, I noticed that how I felt about the water changed. So I made some more photographs - initially at the same shutter speed as the image above. But it was wrong, all wrong. I no longer felt the violence of the ocean, rather the light seemed to calm the mood and that’s what was needed for a successful image.
So I started working towards that feeling - what shutter speed did I need to convey a sense of calm that the light seemed to demand. I eventually found it.
If I hadn’t noticed that change in mood caused by the light, the latter image would never have been made.
So noticing the changes happening around you while you’re looking is an important part of visualizing. Below is another example from the Hoh Rainforest. That afternoon had clouded up and Ann and I were photographing in the forest with even light for a good hour or more. I’d made one image of this tree and then walked away because, despite its form, it had nothing more going for it at the time. Half an hour later (and 3 different shots of other subjects) I was about 100 yards away when spots of sunlight started shining through the clouds (and interrupting my images). They would appear, move a bit and then disappear. I started noticing the pattern of these spots - transitioning from a gentle to strong glow, to bright sunlight, back down from strong to gentle glow. That’s when I thought of this tree - I stopped working on the image I’d framed (a much less interesting tree), and went back to this location. And waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, the tree started to glow and I started making exposures to track various stages of “glow.” Not only had I noticed the potential with this subject and the newly developing spots of light, I had noticed how these spots progressed.
I was fortunate on the latter part because the “total sunshine” spotlight image is way too contrasty and unappealing. Only the images exposed as the tree was lighting up and then dimming down are really workable. Sometimes you have to notice where the light is and its qualities. And by the way, after I’d made the image, I waited another 15 minutes or so, but no luck, no more sun spots hit this tree again.
Another example comes from one of our trips to Brice Creek. There’s an adage in photography, “Follow the light.” In practice, I think of it as, “Look to see where the light is exceptional, and then figure out how to make an image that takes advantage of it.” My experience is that a decent subject under great light beats a good subject under crappy light each and every time. Perhaps that’s not phrased the most eloquent way possible, but it’s true.
The day was an overcast day immediately after several days of heavy rain. The creek was flowing high and fast, which made our usual lovely running-water-in-the-creek photography impossible. Much like our first couple of days in England, photographing torrents of water is . . . difficult. But we had driven up to Brice Creek early in the morning and hiked the mile or so to the rocks, so we figured we should look around a bit before we head back home to call it a day.
That’s when I noticed a glow coming from one of the rocks. I’d never seen it before and have never seen it since. It took me a bit to figure it out - the creek level was so high and fast flowing that the water level at the bottom of the z-shaped chute was so much higher than normal that it kept the chute walls damp and the fast-flowing whitewater reflected the overcast light from above back onto the wall.
I just had to figure out a way to photograph it.
It was a detail in the landscape. A very dull landscape that didn’t make for very good photographs. But this one curved surface as the creek zig-zagged through a drop in the rocks was glowing. All I had to do was notice that this was different than everything else in the landscape, and then figure out how to make a photograph of it. Interestingly enough, you can see the glow in both the black and white and color versions of the photograph.
So that’s it for Part 1. The minimal requirement of truly looking when you’re out with the camera. The added benefits of noticing those things that can add to a photographic image. And the all-too-rare occasion where you learn to see in an entirely new way, and the wonder that flows when it happens. Each has its role in visualizing images in photography.
Join me soon for Part 2 where I talk about expectations and visualization