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I would consider some of these limitations being listed of cameras as an advantage. The ability to isolate a single view point, limiting the areas of focus to a specific plane, and using crushed shadows or blown highlights to eliminate irrelevant details or lend a sense of mystery and the unknown are all tremendously useful features. I agree that the most common feature that marks photos as amateur is a disregard for what is going on in the background and how it composes with the main subject. It's kind of an issue of really looking at what is in the view finder, not what you understand the scene to be. The disconnect is less between your eye and the camera than the difference between what is seen vs the sense of space and place and emotion that your mind has constructed. That sense of awe you get in the forest can be as tied as much to the smell as what it looks like. And the sound of an old dense forest is an amazing thing. Don't expect an experience from those two senses to be recreated by an image. Ed: I spell gud.
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Sep 18, 2009 19:16
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germskr posted:There are times when a photograph can evoke some physical responses- vertigo is a common one; sometimes people can hear the environment; smell it; even taste it. I definitely agree that a photograph can trigger a physical response, but from the photographer's perspective, you have to recognize the only tool available to provoke that response is the image. Vertigo is a good example. Many images of the Grand Canyon, while they can achieve awe inspiring or beautiful, don't instill a sense of vertigo. The times I have visited the Grand Canyon, I am extremely aware of hanging on the edge of something quite vast. A slight gust of wind or a small shift in balance can be a very scary experience. To get that effect in a viewer of your photograph, you can't use a gust of wind. Perhaps you need to compose the close Canyon edge in the frame, or use a subject in an unbalanced pose. Maybe recognize some converging lines of strata that conflict with their more level layered surroundings. I'm not saying a photographer can't achieve some feeling or emotion beyond visual. Just when you are in the moment of taking a photo where you are experiencing an emotion, recognize what senses and what mental state are contributing to it. Sometimes you have to reverse engineer things, and compose a photo differently to convey the feeling you are really getting from one of your other senses or simply from your mind's extremely subjective interpretation of the scene.
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Sep 18, 2009 21:14
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fronkpies posted:A big inspiration is James Nachtwey, and although I will never shoot in the places he does or get to photograph the people he does it makes you think alot more about your own goals and what the point of you picking up a camera is, and this really helps in driving creativity, at least for me. I highly recommend the documentary, War Photographer. They mount a little super wide angle video camera on Nachtwey's SLR, with his finger on the shutter in the frame. You get an amazing look at him working / framing / and when he fires. There is also a brief bit of him approving prints for an exhibition showing just how demanding he is with his photos all the way through. Ed: But I see you've already posted the youtube link to War Photographer in the documentary/photojournalism thread. Carefree Koala fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Sep 19, 2009 |
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Sep 19, 2009 05:11
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