Thoughts on Photography - Visualizing Part 2
This time around, I’m sharing my thoughts about expectations in photography and visualization (or pre-visualization) in photography. If you missed my thoughts about seeing, looking and noticing, go back and check out Part 1.
Expectations
A few months ago David DuChemin sent out an email discussing the many problems with setting out to make photographs with expectations of what the results will be. There are many and I really couldn’t agree with him more. I thought he was spot on with every point and I sure thought a lot about what he had to say. Most significant for me is that when you get to your photographic destination and things aren’t quite what you expected (note I didn’t say “if” - it’s a “when” sort of thing), it’s hard to shake off the expectations you had and to get in the right mindset to look at what is being offered to you. It happens even when you think you didn’t have any expectations. That’s the thing about landscape photography, it’s never just a walk out the door to see what’s out there. You have to go there and even the relatively short travel time to a local area builds up certain expectations. Imagine what it’s like when you’re on a once in a lifetime trip to . . . you name it.
It’s easy to say “Don’t have expectations.” Harder done than said. Actually, it’s more like you need to learn how to drop any expectations that may have built up once you’re at a location, not let that nag at you, and look around with fresh eyes. Even if what you’re looking at is ugly, under poor lighting, and nothing like the landscape in the google search looked like. Especially if the conditions are precisely as you had hoped and you get the photograph you thought you wanted (though it’s usually much less than you’d thought it would be), then it’s almost harder to see what else is there on offer to you. Your expectations usually pale in comparison with what’s actually there; you have to push yourself to actually look beyond the surface of a beautiful location. It’s a skill one has to learn (regardless of whether conditions are “good” or “bad”), it takes practice and you suffer a lot of failures (imagine having the compounded pressure of being a working professional and having somebody pay you to make great photographs at a location that falls far short of your expectations). But it can be done.
I don’t know if there are any real tricks or techniques one can try to overcome expectation shortcomings. All I know is to keep trying, keep looking around and try to shake off a bad attitude, negative thoughts and a lack of motivation. The answer to that mental block is to keep working and trying to make images; keep looking and try to find what you’re missing.
I recall one of our trips to Death Valley. We’d had a day of wonderful sand dunes followed by a next location that offered a lot of . . . disappointment. I’d expected a bit more from the main part of Death Valley but, in the bright sunlight of the afternoon we arrived, the place was pretty much blah. It wasn’t until early the next morning, when we were out way before sunrise at a location we both thought would be good once the sun came up that I realized the moon was giving me all the light I needed to make a very interesting image. An image that offers much more in terms of mystery than sunlight could offer.
Look. See what’s being presented to you, not what you’re expecting or hoping to see.
On another of our spontaneous weekend trips Ann and I headed over to the east side of the Cascades. We had a rough afternoon and night in the Willamette National Forest north of Sisters with rather ugly snow on the ground and ugly trees followed by a disappointing morning shoot at Smith Rocks with overcast skies. After breakfast we headed down towards the Deschutes River south of Bend hoping to see better snow (nope), only for the skies to clear and flood everything with sunlight - the bane of landscape photographers everywhere. It was going from one bad extreme to the opposite.
After a frustrating walk along the Deschutes River and a couple of mediocre images taken, I stopped to look at (and enjoy) a set of rapids and noticed a tree branch in the middle of the river. I realized that, zoomed in, the back-lit icicles could shine and if I let the shutter speed go slow, I could separate the branch and icicles from the water around it.
It was there all the time. It’s not the type of image I thought I would be able to make along the Deschutes River (a type of expectation) but in some ways it’s more interesting with its interplay of light and dark, textures of wood and flowing water, and water in both liquid and frozen states. Don’t let your expectations cause you to not see what’s there before you.
Several of our longer tips have involved over-night stops in Lone Pine, CA, where the Alabama Hills are located. It’s a great overnight stop because you have an opportunity to do an evening and a morning photography session on the way to other locations. I was excited about this stop because I thought we were going to be able to get some good sunset (and sunrise) photographs with the amazing rocks there. My expectations were shattered when Mt. Whitney’s shadow crept up and over the rocks I had framed in my foreground before any lovely color change had really occurred in the skies. Oh, I expected it to be a gorgeous shot, but then it wasn’t. Of course I took it anyway and naturally it was nothing like I’d expected. Ann and I commiserated our misfortune for a bit, and when I walked back to my tripod to pack up for the night I noticed what was happening in the sky.
Be sensitive to what is there, embrace it instead of being focused on what could have been . . . but wasn’t. Your hopes are just hopes, but that doesn’t mean that if they don’t play out the way you expected there aren’t other opportunities waiting to be photographed.
It’s really difficult to not have certain expectations when you return to a location you’ve photographed on numerous occasions. Familiarity from multiple trips allows you to dig deeper, to get beyond the superficial images to make truly substantive work. But even then, you often arrive with some form of expectation, even if it’s the thought that you’re going to see things anew. And if it’s a weekend trip, well, you’re stuck with the weather you have for the day or two you’re there. Bandon has the most amazing early morning light . . . except when it’s heavily overcast.
Ann and I were both bummed that morning. All of the thoughts I had about what I wanted to work on that weekend went right out the door - I hadn’t even thought about what I might do with heavy overcast skies. So I started photographing, working with what I could, hoping my mind would click and see more, bummed at what could have been. When I’m in that mode, I tend to focus on things as subjects and work to build the best image I can with the context around the thing - photographing becomes more an exercise in composition, sketches for practice. When I saw this rock I started with that same approach - focus on the form of the rock, the surface barnacles, the star fish, and how to place it within the frame. .
As I kept looking at the rock and tried composing an image, I finally saw what really would make the image interesting to look at. I saw the different colors of the water - the browns the greens - the varying textures of the water, from the different ripples in the foreground to the crashing waves in the distance, the contrast between the textures of the clouds above and the water below, and the range of color in the water. The photograph ultimately became about everything other than what I started with.
Even when you think you’re just going through the motions to practice, that too is an expectation. You need to be open and receptive to what is there that can become a photograph.
And sometimes, having the right kind of expectation (though I’m not really sure it was an expectation as opposed to a limitation) can help. There was a distinct period where I intentionally began making photographs with a square aspect ratio. I once (read: 1985) bought a Rolleiflex twin-lens-reflex camera that was a joy to operate, but boy did I hate that square format. I eventually traded it for a 24-mm lens for my Nikon cameras (which was useful to earn money with doing architecture photography), and now regret having done so. After doing a deep-dive into Charlie Waite’s work (much of it square), I decided to try the square format again.
One of my first outings was to the Painted Hills, another very familiar place. What better place to give the new square framing a work out? I distinctly recall thinking as we were driving out there (that time period where expectations tend to take root even if you didn’t have them before you left), “What in the hell am I going to be able to photograph using a square format there?” Landscapes are linear, hills are vertical - how do you even frame an open landscape with a square?
I can honestly say that on that trip I really had no expectations, other than perhaps of failure. Fortunately, that first morning I had an open mind and simply only had to look at the landscape differently.
That trip was way more productive than I’d thought possible, especially after going in with no clue about how to approach it. Probably my familiarity with the landscape helped, I wasn’t in first-impressions awe with what was around me, but I hadn’t a clue of the types of compelling images I could make. If I could only have that mindset every time I went out, wouldn’t that be great?
As I was writing this I thought of a couple of more images that fall into this category, so I’ll include them - why not?
In our 2015 trip to the SW with our friends Paula and Gary, we’d hiked out to the Delicate Arch viewpoint (located across a canyon from the arch itself) for a sunrise photograph of the arch (with expectations of a well-lit arch). The sunrise itself was marred by clouds on the horizon, but we stayed a bit longer than usual because Gary actually had forgotten a lens and went back to get it. Fortunately that took time because by the time he got back, the clouds seemed to be breaking a bit and the landscape would be lit by spots that lasted sometimes as long as a few minutes. So we sat in wait for a shaft of light to hit the right spot, which they eventually did (my images of the same shot without the shaft of light are . . . uninspiring). Disclaimer: the image below, and two others that I have shown of Delicate Arch from that morning are heavily edited in that I have removed a dozen or so people who were hanging around the base of the arch.
The image above is fine, so are the other two worth showing of Delicate Arch from that morning. Fortunately, I didn’t let my expectations of what I would photograph that morning - which I achieved after waiting for the sunlight to shine - blind me to what else was there for me.
You see, while Gary was off getting his lens, and we were waiting for the sun to creep through the clouds, I walked over to chat with Ann (my tripod and camera were within sight about 50 yards away). Walking over on the hard rock, I felt textures underneath my boots and looked down. That led me to run back to my camera and tripod and bring it over to the beautiful textured area I’d been walking on. When I was done, I took my tripod back to where I’d been and set up to make the photographs of Delicate Arch once the sun came out. This is the best photograph of that day:
Don’t let your expectations blind you to what else is there.
Visualization
Ann and I consistently watch several photographers on YouTube, and will periodically watch a video by some other photographer (we may or may not know their work) if we’re interested in the topic of the video (and they don’t take too long to get to the point). One of the phrases that has been bandied about a lot the last 6 months (no, it’s not how to make your images “pop!”) is visualization. I know that, like many words, it means many different things to different people. However, the term visualization - often in the form “pre-visualization” - is what we refer to in the legal profession a “term of art” that was formulated initially by Ansel Adams (with due credit to others). And I must admit, I am a purist when it comes to how he framed it, because I think he was on to something that can help one’s photography. So it grates on my nerves (think fingernails on a chalkboard) when folks go bantering on about visualization (can’t they find a different word?), and it downright pisses me off when they invoke St. Ansel’s name with a grossly incorrect characterization of his concept of pre-visualization.
So I’ll start with what it is not. It is not the quest to go to some specific location to find the tripod holes in the ground made by **insert name of famous photographer here** to make an iconic image just like **famous photographer’s** iconic image. Nor is it the detailed scouting of locations - physically or via Google Earth, Photographer’s Ephemeris or Photopills, etc - to plan out a photograph you want to make based on the sun’s path, the tides for that day or where the Milky Way will be when on a particular night. Site planning (which I do a lot of for trips - wanting to find potentially interesting places to photograph instead of leaving it all to chance), and specific shot planning are very legitimate means for approaching making a compelling photograph, or for me just being in locations that might inspire me to carefully look, but it is not (pre-)visualization in the sense Ansel put it. Pre-visualization is more the immediate response you have to what is before you and the development of those feelings in your mind about what the final photograph should be to capture those emotions, combined with the technical understanding of what it will take to realize that in the final photograph (photographic print in Ansel’s case, possibly computer screens, phones or iPads in other instances).
I’ll leave it to Ansel to tell you what visualization is, from a very short video you can see here if you want to see for yourself:
“My basic approach to photography depends on the visualization of the final print before exposure is made. I say this very often, and I don’t know whether people realize that’s exactly what is meant. When you visualize a photograph, it’s not only a matter of seeing it in the mind’s eye, but it’s also and primarily a matter of feeling it, feeling the various qualities that you wish to obtain in the final print. The shutter is operated. And then, the negative is developed. The negative can now be compared to a musical score. It’s ready for its performance, the print. If the negative is properly composed, technically and aesthetically, it can be performed, so as to recreate the original visualized intention . . . so that finally I can say that I visualized the essence of the photograph to be.”
Ansel Adams first “visualized” an image with his photograph, Monolith, the Face of Half Dome made in 1927. He recounts the story in his book, Examples: the Making of 40 Photographs. In fact, it’s the first photograph he talks about. That’s how important visualization is to photography.
In another video made years later, which you can see here, he gives a slightly different framing of visualization. My summary of that video is: for many there is the external event, the scenery, which they take snap shots of. For others, there is the internal event, the creative work in photography where in your mind you see the finished photograph. Alfred Stieglitz described photography as a process where something excites you, you see the picture in your mind’s eye, and you make the photograph that is the equivalence of what you saw and felt. The whole key to that process is visualization. The picture has to be there clearly and decisively. If you have enough craft, have done your homework and practice, you can make the photograph that you desire. You must train yourself to see as the camera sees, then you can see the final picture in your mind’s eye. With training and practice, these technical processes - thinking about exposure, tonal values, depth of field and other technical matters - are not a hinderance and making the photograph becomes a quick and instinctive process.
In other words, visualization comes from what you are experiencing at the moment about the subject when you are there. It’s about being present in the moment, at that place at that time, and you are moved enough by the subject and have the technical ability enough to make a photograph that recreates that emotion. Not every photograph is that moving, not every subject is that inspiring, but when you feel it and you see it in your mind’s eye, you have to try your best to realize that image and those feelings in a photograph.
The most recent example of what I would say was a pre-visualized image for me is from our Lake District’s workshop. When I saw the subject, I knew what I felt and what I wanted the final result to be and I knew that a simple snap shot, alone, wouldn’t give me what I needed to make the final result convey that feeling. It would be a good image, but it would not have been emotional. As I mentioned, I worked to get several technical components of the image just right, experimenting with the exposure time (for the water), experimenting with filters to tonally render the clouds the way I wanted them to be to convey what I was feeling, and then waiting for the light to be just so. I ignored the urgings of one of the workshop leaders to move to another location “because the light is coming there, and it won’t last long,” almost rudely so, because I knew I had something better in my mind’s eye that I was sure I hadn’t quite captured yet. And I kept at it until I was sure that the image I examined on the LCD on the back of the camera gave me as much as possible, as close as possible, to the finished product I saw in my mind.
Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s hard to realize an image you’ve pre-visualized. The light at post-sunset (like pre-dawn) can be stunning and it is fleeting. Often, I feel like a chicken with my head cut off trying to make as many different compositions as possible during that short period of time. Sure, most of them are lovely, because the light is lovely and the subject isn’t half bad. But sometimes you get a composition that you feel is right - and you know the light isn’t right. But you know what it can be and you pre-visualize that image. And the way to get what you see in your mind’s eye is to wait, and wait, and wait. The moment when it will be right is invariably fleeting and you have to be ready, because in some instances, you know it’s coming (so long as some cloud doesn’t move in to fundamentally change the nature of light as the earth rotates) so you just have to time it right.
Not all images need an incredible amount of development work (in camera or on computer), but the successful ones are rarely the ones where you can just pick up a camera and call it good.
A year later at Goblin Valley State Park quite a different visualization occurred, this time in pre-dawn instead of post-sunset. As we were walking out to the edge of a hillside in the dark, I looked behind me (because looking means looking in all directions, to include up and down and behind you). There it was - complete in my mind’s eye the instant I saw it. I hate letting Ann walk alone in the darkness, but I told her to go on. I had to make the photograph. She understands, so she kept going to her intended location. I had to make a series of judgment calls for this image, because sensor technology, while good, isn’t that good. I tweaked things technically so I had something to work with for the moon, but not so much that I lost any sense of quality with the clouds (the rocks on the horizon were beyond saving - but then again, that was part of what was pre-visualized, it wasn’t supposed to have any texture below the horizon). Finally, I had an exposure that gave me what I needed to realize the image after a bit of further development on the computer.
Even now, I look at the image and feel the way I felt when I first turned around. That’s pre-visualization.
That concludes my two-part series on visualizing photographs. From seeing, to finding the images, from having the right mind-set to visualization, it’s a process that is rewarding and, many times, frustrating. But it’s that process where the real photographs come from, the photographic images that rise above mere snap shots of a place. And no, it’s not easy. As St. Ansel himself said, “Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.” Rarely do I hit that mark.