Ed Schlotzhauer

An artists journey

Category: Artistic Process

  • Happy Accidents

    Happy Accidents

    We like to promote the impression that we are a professional, so what we do is always deliberate and we know exactly what the result will be. Too bad it is not true for many of us. Sometimes our best discoveries are a result of happy accidents. If we are open to them we can learn a lot.

    Have a plan

    Shouldn’t we have a deliberate plan before we go out shooting? That depends on what you are doing and what your personality is. If you are shooting for someone, of course have a well thought out plan. You are contracted to produce agreed on results. You have to deliver.

    I am a “fine art” photographer, though. My only client is myself. This “client” is looking for great experiences and images that are meaningful to me and that excite me. Those are very hard to plan.

    I find it best to have one or two project themes in mind and then put myself is harm’s way, so to speak, by getting out and shooting. My best work is done by being in the moment and reacting to what I find rather than just thinking about what I might do.

    So no, I don’t really plan. A plan for me might be to decide to go east today. That determines the general nature of what I will find.

    Accidents happen

    I expect accidents to happen and I expect many of them to be happy ones. An accident does not imply something bad or disruptive. It just means it was unforeseen and unexpected. An accident in my terms is not usually an event that happens. Rather it is the recognition of an opportunity I had not considered.

    If I have a few project ideas kicking around in my head to seed my thoughts, I wait for something to trigger some kind of recognition. I have to stay wide open to what is there so I allow myself to recognize what I am seeing. This is my own brand of mindfulness.

    Be receptive

    Being receptive is the hard part for many of us. Especially you Type A personalities. If you are heavy on control and planning you tend to put blinders on to other opportunities that present themselves.

    Not being a Type A, I am usually content to go out empty, as Jay Maisel would say. I enjoy just having some vague ideas in mind to slightly focus my thoughts and wait for things to come to me as I wander around.

    Let’s say I am thinking about a project on “The Forest”. I go to a forest cause, well, that’s where you find forest pictures. I wander around aimlessly for a while, shooting a few frames to get the creative juices flowing. After getting the obvious shots out of the way, I start asking myself more questions. What is the essence I am feeling? What is a forest, really? Is there anything unique about this group of trees? Can I offer any insight on this? Things like that.

    If my mind is engaged and things go well, I will get past the obvious, shallow first impressions and start delving deeper into my feelings about this place and what I am seeing. Magic can happen then. I seem to be operating on a different plane. Suddenly new worlds of sights open up and I see a different forest than I had before. At this point I can do creative work.

    By being receptive to my feelings and what I am encountering, I can create images that show a new perspective on the subject. This usually will not happen unless I can get into a mindset of being grateful and receptive and respectful of what is around me.

    Get out of your own way

    Finding this state is not easy until you have done it enough times to trust the process. You have to get out of your own way. Stop trying to control so much. Gratefully take what is there and use it to the best of your ability.

    There is a yin/yang battle going on in my mind. Part of me is instinctively framing and shooting as I intuitively recognize good images. Another part of me is questioning. Asking “why?”, “what am I drawn to here?”, “how could I get deeper to the core of this?”. This questioning dialog subtly guides the instinctive shooting process and helps refine my view of the subject.

    But there needs to be a healthy balance. Don’t become paralyzed by over-thinking what you are doing. On the other hand, don’t just go totally open loop and shoot all day without any self-examination of what you are getting and why.

    Results

    Results count. For me it may be better to say the quality of the results count. When I went out to shoot I may have had a vague notion of what I expected to find and capture. If I have taken advantage of the happy accidents I encountered, what I ended up with may not have been at all what I expected. Hopefully I will think that what I ended up with is much better than what I expected to get.

    It is kind of a mental game that takes practice to master. In a way it is probably like being in a flow state. If you have never experienced it, it is just an abstract concept. Once you have experienced it, it is “Wow! That’s great! I want to do this a lot more”.

    That is how I feel about happy accidents.

    Today’s image

    This is one of those unexpected, happy accidents. This is sort of a follow up on the idea of working on a “The Forest” project.

    When I went out to shoot this day I had no idea I would end up with pictures of a burned forest. I went up high and came to a burn area of a few years ago. Usually I would avoid a scene like this. It makes me sad to see so much of the forests near me burned. Knowing they will never come back in my lifetime.

    This time I found the sights and designs of the burned trees fascinating. It reminded me that there can be beauty even in death and destruction. It is a natural cycle. Besides, just taken on their own it kind of reminds me of a stark pen and ink drawing. Something I really appreciate.

    This was my introspection on a forest that day.

  • The Magic of the Frame – 2

    The Magic of the Frame – 2

    All 2 dimensional art exists within a frame. It is a constraint imposed on us. It can also be beneficial, because it requires choices. This is the magic of the frame. This article is an expansion on a discussion of the frame I did several years ago.

    Finite

    I do 2 dimensional art. Most paintings or photographs are. But besides being flat, 2 dimensional works are also bounded. They cannot extend to infinity, although they may capture images of near infinity.

    So a print may be 20×30 inches, or maybe 6×9 feet, but there is a limit. A print of a landscape scene is not the size of the original scene.

    And because the print is bounded, there are edges. The edges create the frame, or more precisely the bounding rectangle of the image. I am assuming rectangular prints for the discussion. So in simple physical terms, the frame is the box that encloses the print.

    Why rectangular?

    Most paintings and photographs, and therefore their frames, are traditionally rectangular. Have you wondered why? And why and how a round lens makes a rectangular image?

    I have looked into this and have found technical reasons and pragmatic reasons, but no real answer. Lenses are round for a good reason – they are easier to make and making them rectangular would introduce lots of distortion. The lens throws a circular image on the focal plane of the camera. The the light that falls outside of the sensor is cropped. We never see those parts.

    Sensors are rectangular for technical and pragmatic reasons. Sensors are very large silicon chips made by normal semiconductor processes. Rectangular chips pack efficiently on a wafer. If they were, say, round, there would be lots of wasted space between chips. Since they are very expensive to make, the manufacturers are anxious to minimize costs. Also, digital cameras mimicked film cameras which exposed rectangular patches on film. Again for efficiency to maximize the film use.

    And finally we expect prints and images to be rectangular. It is the convention developed over centuries of painting. And it is less expensive to make and frame rectangular prints and canvases.

    So rectangular prints are conventional and the path of least resistance.

    A window

    The frame, though, is much more than the constraint of the shape of the sensor or print. Something magical happens when we look through the viewfinder or crop our image in our processing software.

    What we see through the viewfinder becomes our window onto the world. This window in where we pour much of our creativity. As we move and zoom and continue to examine our subject through this window we decide how we want to present it. What is important to bring out. What should be excluded.

    We may realize the interest is not the whole scene, but only certain parts of it., and they should be presented from a certain point of view. So we adjust our window and keep searching for the magic.

    After all, if we are an artist we want to bring something to our viewers that is more than just what anyone would have shot if they walked up on the scene. We bring our own interpretation. Part of this is what we chose to have in our window.

    Composition

    Over the centuries many “rules” of composition have been formed. I put it in quotes because there are no real rules. The “rules” are observations of patterns that have been found to be generally pleasing to viewers.

    It was very interesting to me to realize that most of these “rules” are relative to the frame. Let’s take a look at a few.

    The rule of thirds helps to increase dynamic tension by placing the subject along the intersection points of dividing the window into 3 groups horizontally and 3 groups vertically. This is totally relative to the frame.

    Along with that is the oft quoted “do not put the subject in the center” – of the frame.

    The horizon should be level – relative to the frame.

    Diagonals can add a lot of interest to many compositions. The diagonals exist because of their relation to the frame.

    Leading lines are often recommended. They help encourage the viewer’s eye to lead from the frame to the subject and keep them exploring.

    We need to be careful to not have distracting elements at the edges of the frame.

    Unless it is really your intent, we must be careful to not cut the subject off at the edge of the frame.

    This could go on a long time. Go examine your favorite composition rules and see if they are not mostly describing relationships to the frame.

    Artist’s judgement

    So really, at one level, the work of an artist is to arrange the elements within the frame in the most pleasing or impactful way. This is the magic of the frame. It is the canvas where we compose. It is the crucible where our creativity is tested.

    Since the camera sensor captures everything in the frame, it is not only critical to arrange the elements as we wish, but it may be as important to know what to exclude. That is one of the tricks of photography. What is in view of the sensor will be in our image unless we consciously figure out how to eliminate it.

    I think Henri Cartier-Bresson had great insight when he said “A photograph is neither taken nor seized by force. It offers itself up.” There are amazing scenes all around us. We have to see them then be able to compose them to create a great image.

    Much of the artistry is in working the frame: figuring out what is significant and how to present it within the frame. It is the stage where we work our magic. The frame is more important in our work than we usually express. This is what, to me, is the magic of the frame.

    This image

    This illustrates framing. The diagonals and leading lines make it much more dynamic. I was intentional about what to include and exclude and how to frame it. At least, as much as I could on a tossing sailboat in a strong wind.

  • Go Out Empty

    Go Out Empty

    I often advise us to go out empty. This, at least, fits my working style and my personality. I don’t always follow my own advice. And regret it.

    Go out empty

    Go out empty is famous advice from the great Jay Maisel. What he meant is to not have preconceived ideas of what you want to photograph. Instead, be mindful (I doubt if he used that expression) and react to what you find.

    That way you will get the maximum good from the situations you encounter instead of being disappointed with not finding exactly what you wanted to find. What’s there might make an interesting picture. What’s not there, well, that doesn’t make much of a picture.

    When he lived in downtown Manhattan, Jay was famous for going out on the streets every day just wandering and taking pictures. He would occasionally get great images. Sometimes nothing. But even with nothing, he was not disappointed in not finding what he was seeking, since he wasn’t seeking anything in particular.

    I have been to New York City and I will be quick to admit that the streets there are far more interesting than the streets of my small little town. But still, I believe the principle applies wherever we are.

    I believe the basic premise of what he is advocating is to find joy in what you are shooting. Really look at it, Discover the interest. Be receptive. Inspiration is overrated. Shoot interesting things.

    No planning?

    Does that mean we should never plan anything? No, there are times to plan. Even Jay would plan carefully when he was doing commercial shoots. For instance, he shot the first Sports Illustrated Swimsuit covers. He had a crew and models and scouted locations, etc.

    When someone is paying you for results, you have to deliver what they want. This will involve careful planning and preparation.

    What I am discussing, though, is what most of us “fine art” photographers do when we are shooting for our own satisfaction and creativity. Different people have different personalities, but I am in the group that does best when reacting to scenes rather than trying to set them up.

    Falling into the expectation trap

    I advocate going out empty and I usually do it. But on a recent trip I fell into the trap of setting expectations for what I wanted to photograph.

    I was in central Florida visiting family. One afternoon I was able to slip away for a few hours to visit a favorite nearby place, Lake Louisa State Park. It has lakes and beautiful trees and swamps and incredible red water.

    A few times before I have found and photographed some gorgeous trees. In my mind, that is what I wanted to revisit and explore. It didn’t work out well. This was summer, not winter, and the foliage was very different. Some trails had been re-routed and I could not find the trees I wanted. And it was miserably hot and raining. Not al all pleasant or condusive to what I wanted to do.

    I was very disappointed until I reminded myself to explore what is there, not get stuck on what wasn’t. It was actually beautiful when I let myself see it. With the storms, the sky was very different from what I had seen before. The rain give a different look to the tree trunks and foliage. After some false starts, I was able to get some interesting shots before the thunderstorms and pouring rain chased me out.

    Don’t do what I did

    Do not fall into the trap of letting preconceived ideas block your creativity. Be mindful of where you are and what is there. Get into the flow and work the scene. Make something out of what you find. Look at your surroundings fresh and discover the good that is there.

    Today’s image

    The image today is from this aborted trip to Lake Louisa. It was during the calm before the storm. That really is the color of the water. It contains lots of decayed vegetation that has flowed slowly through the swamp and turned that color. Not what I expected to shoot, but beautiful and interesting.

  • If You Can’t Beat ’em

    If You Can’t Beat ’em

    You have probably heard the old phrase “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em”. It can actually be pretty good advice for some situations. Sometimes it is better to abandon your preconceived assumptions and respond to the actual conditions.

    Previsualization

    Many famous artists, from Ansel Adams onward, preach that we should previsualize the end result before we shoot. One accepted meaning of it is that the photographer can see the final print before the image has been captured. In other words, based on his experience, the photographer knows what end result he will be able to achieve before pressing the shutter release.

    Mr. Adams, ever the teacher, broke it down into 4 steps:

    1. Need or desire for the picture. Why are you taking it?
    2. Discovery. Recognize the essential composition that can be made.
    3. Visualization, the process of anticipating what the result will look like.
    4. Execution. Doing everything right to make it happen. This is image capture through post processing.

    I would not go on record as disagreeing with Ansel Adams, but I think there are a few assumptions wrapped up in this that we can look at. The advice may not be a universal truth.

    For one thing, if you are a commercial photographer contracted to get a certain image for a client, yes, planning and previsualization is important. Also, if it is a “one in a lifetime” situation where you know the opportunity will never repeat for you, be very diligent and make sure you get the shot you want when you have the chance.

    But another angle I don’t think I have heard talked about is personality. Some people are naturally planners. They work best when they are following a carefully thought out script. They need a high degree of structure in their environment. Other people don’t work that way.

    Generational changes

    And consider the differences in technology and capability of editing now compared to Mr. Adam’s day. You can see that we tend to favor a different style of capturing images.

    For Mr. Adams, making an image was slow and expensive and fairly difficult. A lot of heavy gear had to be set up. Looking at the upside down color image on the ground glass of his view camera and trying to visualize the resulting black & white print took a lot of skill and experience. And the 8×10 film sheets were expensive and he could only carry a limited number with him in the field. So yes, previsualization was necessary in that generation.

    Now, though, digital imaging is “free”. And we have great sensors and real-time histogram displays. Most of us can immediately see a fair representation of the captured image on our camera screen. We know what we captured.

    Since the images are basically free and quick to do, we can “work a scene”, shooting and looking at the captured images while we hone in on the result we want. We should seldom have any question of whether of not we captured the image correctly. The larger question is, did we get what what we want. It is not uncommon to shoot several or even dozens of images to finalize the result we want.

    Trying to force it

    Now I will readily admit that I am much more in the “no planning” side. I enjoy spontaneity.

    Something I see at times that makes me sad is photographers who go out with a rigid expectation of what they will accept. Many of them tend to battle against conditions they cannot overcome and go away disappointed. Maybe even feeling like a failure.

    In deference to the planners, I love this quote from a great planner:

    “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

    Dwight D Eisenhower

    Thinking through the situation and trying to anticipate what may happen can give great insight on what we may decide to do. However, once the battle starts, e.g. we are in the field to make the image, nothing is likely to go as planned.

    Adapt

    When we discover that our plans are falling apart, we can double down and try to force it to work, or we can adapt and reevaluate what we can do.

    One aspect of creativity is to be flexible, to adapt to the situation and make the best of it. Make the best of the situation. Perhaps you got to the great scene and it is raining or snowing. Not what you planned. Use it. Get what you can. The result may be even better than what you planned.

    One of the principles of improvisation artists is that each step is “yes, and…”. That carries the momentum forward to the next step. Whenever you say “no”, it blocks the flow and makes it hard to go forward. So don’t block your flow. Respond to whatever situation you encounter and creatively figure out how to use it.

    Let it flow

    As artists, we are trying to creatively interpret the world around us. I find an ideal to enable this is to get into a flow state. This seems to be a peak of creativity and energy and concentration. This lets us work with the situation rather than fight it.

    Previsualization can give us an idea of what we want to achieve. We might even make the image as planned. But never overlook the opportunity to make a more compelling and engaging image.

    Maybe we do not get the image we anticipated. Often we get a better one. But even if it is a disappointment, as long as we did the best possible in the situation, we should be happy. I have said before that it is better to be lucky than good. But this is not luck. It is creatively adapting to circumstances.

    Today’s image

    This is a “bored at an airport” image. While waiting for a flight I wanted to capture scenes of airport operations. But I was frustrated by the reflections I could not eliminate. They were interfering with the image I had in mind to create.

    But on some thought, I discovered that maybe the reflections were integral to the scene. People waiting patient and trusting while a huge amount of complex logistics of running an airport went on just outside. Outside of their interest and curiosity. They just wait like cattle until their flight is called.

    This was definitely a “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” situation. I think the resulting image is better than what I originally set out to make. What do you think?

  • Not HDR

    Not HDR

    My last article sang the praises of HDR processing. I don’t want to over sell it. Today I will try to balance it by showing we typically do not need to use HDR.

    The good

    My previous article attempted to show when and why to use HDR. There is a time and place for it. In general, if a histogram shows more than about 7 stops of needed information then I would consider HDR, if the subject and situation allows it.

    The example I used was a scene with the sun visible in the frame but where I also wanted to preserve the deepest shadows. Back in the film days we had to use a split neutral density filter over the lens to try to compress the dynamic range in these situations. Whenever you would have reached for the split ND filter is the time to consider if you can use HDR instead.

    The bad

    But HDR has some problems and limitations. There is the dreaded “HDR look” that most people want to avoid. In addition, there are problems with subject movement and extra processing steps to do.

    When HDR first became available, people tended to go crazy with it. It was almost a symbol of showing off the new technique. The HDR look was over compressed with flat tonality and lack of true whites or blacks. Sure, I could shoot that scene with a 20 stop range and make a print. Too bad it looks weird. It became almost a cliche. Many “serious” photographers shunned it as looking artificial. It got a bad reputation.

    But the problem was how people used it, not the technique itself. Almost any technique can be over used to create unappealing images.

    There is also the problem I mentioned with subject movement. To create a good HDR image there must be very high correlation between the pixels of each exposure bracket. That is, there can’t be significant movement.

    And there is the extra processing. This is not too big of a problem anymore. We can quickly do HDR processing from within Lightroom or Photoshop or your software of choice. It is probably easier now to do it than it was to adjust a split neutral density filter and figure out the exposure.

    Why we don’t usually need it

    Trust your sensor and the processing software on your computer. Modern high-end camera sensors are amazing. They record the greatest dynamic range of information that has ever been possible in photography. I’m sure it will only get better with new generations of equipment.

    My camera records a far greater range of information than it is possible to print. Prints are my gold standard. They are the expected outcome of my work. A surprising fact to many is that, although it is hard to compare because the physics are totally different, the effective dynamic range of print media is around 6 to 8 stops. So making any print has some aspects of dealing with HDR data, since the captured data is probably much greater than the final print.

    OK, so I am shooting a high contrast scene. I am careful to allow a little space on each end of the histogram, so say I am dealing with about 12 stops of range. The reality is that, for most needs, this can be used to make a great print.

    But that 12 stops of data has darks that are down dangerously close to an unacceptable level of noise. And the brights are dangerously close to clipping. Is that imperfection OK?

    How to process extreme ranges

    This is not a tutorial on photographic processing. You can find too many of them on the web. I will just give some suggestions. In Lightroom (Classic – the only version I think is worth using) just the 6 controls in the Tones section of the Basic panel can do wonders. And I seldom use Contrast, so there are really 5 most important ones.

    Use Whites and Blacks to set the overall white and black points as desired. Then I often use Exposure to balance the overall tonal range. Finally I use Highlights and Shadows to fine tune the tones.

    These simple adjustments, along with some tweaks in the Presence section, can do amazing things to “rescue” most images. These are probably an 80% fix for most situations.

    Of course, when I select an image to print, I will spend a lot more time working on it. A lot of work will be done with curves and masking and doing fine adjustments. Sometimes I will send it to Photoshop for very detailed tasks that cannot be done in Lightroom. Editing an image can take many hours. Most of us are pretty obsessive about our work.

    My point here, though, is that most single captures have enough data to make a great print or other final image. Sometimes we just have to work with it a little.

    Maybe you don’t want it

    The look of your final image is an artistic decision. It is not dictated by the “reality” of the original scene. You or I as the artist decide the look we want. What we decide is “right”, at least for us.

    So I may not want to create a perfectly balanced image that retains all the tones and data of the histogram. I may want to crush the blacks to make a moody, low key image. I may want to over brighten the image to make an ethereal scene. It is not written anywhere that the final print must look exactly and faithfully like the original scene.

    This is where artistic intent comes in.

    It is not numbers

    I want to end with the point that we are creating an image, not manipulating numbers. Well, we are manipulating numbers, but that is not what counts. What counts is the look and expressiveness and quality of the finished product.

    Photography is the most technical art, but do not be dictated to by the technology. Do not let someone say you can’t do something because the numbers are wrong. All that counts is the final art you create. Emotional response trumps technical excellence. How does it look to you?

    Example

    The image today is a full histogram spread. Single capture. I think this kind of thing comes out OK. What do you think?