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:
Need or desire for the picture. Why are you taking it?
Discovery. Recognize the essential composition that can be made.
Visualization, the process of anticipating what the result will look like.
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.”
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?
I often write about carrying a camera all the time and even using it as a tool to get into a flow state for photography. I just did the opposite. I went off on a 3 day trip with no camera. Well, my phone, but I didn’t use it.
Why take a camera
I have said that having a camera with me gives me license to think photographically. It is true. This technique often helps be get off dead center and get moving.
Most of the time, the feel of a familiar camera in my hand and the click of the shutter propels me into a creative zone. I start seeing possibilities I was overlooking before. After the first frame or 2 things start to flow.
I wrote a couple of weeks ago about side trips and excursions. One example I used was taking my wife to the airport then wandering in the eastern Colorado plains. What i didn’t say was that I drove for a couple of hours without “seeing” anything to shoot. Finally I basically forced myself to get out the camera and shoot a couple of frames. After that I “found” over 300 images by the time I got back that evening. About 1 per mile that I drove. Some were quite good. Many more are ones I’m glad I shot, just for the experimental value if nothing else.
On the other hand, I sometimes, but rarely, deliberately leave the camera at home. I mentioned the trip I took last week where I did not take the camera.
There seemed to be a need to back off some. This is unusual for me, but I sometimes get so far behind in my processing that I feel like I am just shooting blindly and loosing touch with my work. And getting un-creative and un-inspired. So I decided to slow down producing images and work more on assimilating what I have already done.
I have slowed down shooting for a couple of weeks, but I haven’t completely stopped. Given that, though, when this short trip came up, I reluctantly talked myself into altogether abstaining by not even taking my camera. It is the first time I have done that for a long time.
OK, it was frustrating at times, but not as bad as I thought it would be. Granted, this was a fast family trip and I knew the weather would be bad. Those things helped. But before it would not have dissuaded me.
In a strange sense, it was kind of liberating to not feel any pressure to take pictures. It did not stop me from practicing composing images in my mind. But since it was impossible to shoot them, it as all just a fun creative exercise.
Recharge
I’m pretty good about having accurate intuition about what I need to do for my physical and mental health. I think I realized I was getting a little burnt out and needed to back off some. This exercising of depriving myself of the opportunity to shoot was actually kind of refreshing.. It was a recharge.
Just the 3 day event was healthy and useful but not enough. I plan to stay slowed down for a few more weeks. It will let me decompress and get back in touch with my current work and what directions I am going. Some of the time can be used to re-evaluate and do some soul searching. And to catch up with culling and filing and processing.
If you are doing intense physical training it is critical to plan in rest days. Otherwise your body breaks down and you do more harm than good. Likewise if you are doing intense mental activities like studying for finals, you have to take breaks to let your brain catch up and process information.
I think it is the same thing with art. We love doing our art. We want to do it. But we need to realize our body and mind need to rest sometimes.
Go off and do something unrelated. Take walks without a camera. Read a book. Write letters – remember paper and pens? Start a journal. These are good for your mind and your creativity. It recharges us and prepares us for the next intense push.
I consider my experiment of leaving my camera at home on that last trip to be a success. Sometimes it is more productive to not do anything.
The image
The image today is one of the ones I shot on that day I described when I took the excursion in eastern Colorado. I like doing portraits of weathered old houses like this. It was probably abandoned during the Dust Bowl days. Nothing but clouds to the horizon.
I didn’t show any pictures from the trip where I didn’t take a camera, because, well, I didn’t take any. 🙂
I have written before on learning to see. This is a follow on to that and talks about a psychological tool that works for me to see more and move to actually making images. When I pick up a camera, that is a license to see.
We forget to see
I have made the point many times that as adults, we become so busy and caught up in daily life that we protect ourselves by closing our world down around us. Our interest and curiosity doesn’t extend much beyond our immediate problems of every day life. Job, kids, kids activities, paying bills, maintaining the house and car. It seems like there is not much room for anything else.
Yet every day as we go to work or kids activities or shopping, we pass through a beautiful and interesting world. But mostly we don’t pay much attention to it. It just doesn’t seem important because we are focused inward.
We are robbing ourselves of a lot of joy and good mental health. Learning to see more of what is around us is great for our head and our attitude.
We have to relearn to see
I hate to repeat myself, but I think this is important. Seeing more of what is around us is a learned skill. One that can be developed with practice.
We used to do it. As kids we were interested in everything around us. This gets beaten out of us as we grow up. But the fact that you used to do it means you still could. It’s a matter of relearning and practicing.
It’s also a matter of valuing it and increasing its importance. If you are an artist, I believe it is a vital skill. Isn’t that one of the important things that distinguishes us from non-artists? We observe, we see things, we see things different. To see things different, we have to first see things.
Awareness comes first
Seeing, in my view, starts with 2 things. First is curiosity. Curiosity helps us eagerly seek to find out about things. It gives us the motivation to see. Second is awareness. Curiosity is necessary, but it can be directed inward. We can get lost in our head and not do anything external. Awareness helps get us in touch with the world around us.
In more flowery language than I usually use, Eden Maxwell says: “To be aware is the prerequisite for experiencing life beyond illusion, your own, or the cumulative self-consciousness amassed by society.”
Awareness requires us to be, well, aware. Sorry. It seems too simple and obvious, but do you actually practice it? We can practice doing it. Driving to work tomorrow, after you pass a car ask yourself: what color was it? What make was the car? What color shirt was the driver wearing? When you go for a walk stop and look at a tree you pass all the time. Did you ever really notice the pattern of the branches and the shape of the leaves? Did you see that bird’s nest? Pay attention to the reflections in windows you go by.
All these things add to your awareness of things around you.
My hacks
But these things require work, or worse, thinking. It seems most people don’t want to do those things anymore. Everyone wants a quick hack to make it seem like they can do something.
So let me present 2 tools that work for me. I will call them “hacks”. For me they are a license to see. They trigger action.
The first is picking up a camera. Yes, that simple. With a camera in hand I become immediately focused on making images. It amazes me how this works, but it usually does. I may think I am being aware and thinking like an artist, but a camera in hand focuses me. Most often I fall into the zone and flow and move toward actually making images instead of just thinking about doing it. The camera is compelling. This usually works even with an iPhone in hand.
There are times, though, when my head just doesn’t seem to be in it. Then I have to go to the next hack: take a picture. Something happens to me mentally when the shutter clicks. The sound triggers years of muscle memory and behavior. It breaks the fear of not being able to find a subject. I am in motion now. The mental block is removed and I can go on creating images. This first frame may be intentionally a throw-away. It doesn’t matter how good it is. Now I am across the barrier and actively making images.
Artists
As artists, we have to be more aware of the world around us. We have to see better to help interpret life and the world to other people. Seeing is a learned skill that can be practiced and improved.
I hope these simple “hacks” – picking up a camera and taking a picture – work for you. They are tools I use all the time in my own life, especially when I am not feeling motivated. It gets me out of my head and actually moving and doing something. Once in motion things seem to roll along better.
Today’s image
Following my own advice, one day sitting, bored, in a car wash, I decided to pick up my camera and see what I could do. I am happy with the result. It was not planned, it happened because I held my camera and looked around. The world is rich in images and interest. We just have to see.
Photographing the unseen? That is impossible isn’t it? If you can’t see it, how could you take a picture of it?
Ostranenie
Osranenie is a concept. It is based on showing things in a new way, from a new point of view. I have written on this before and I want to circle back to give some practical applications. No, I still don’t know how to pronounce it.
Central to the concept is that the artist tries to force the reader or viewer outside of their normal state of perception. The goal is to make you break your normal habits and look at things different.
A unique ability of photography
Photography is uniquely suited to help see things outside of our normal perception. Other types of art, like painting, are generative. That is, you start with a blank canvas and what appears is what the artist envisions.
Photography is totally the opposite. It is basically subtractive. The camera captures everything in its field of view. It is up to the artist to be selective in framing and composing to restrict the image to what he wants to present.
That is well understood, but in addition, the camera settings and attachments allow exploration of states that we cannot perceive with our normal sight. Without any special tricks, my camera allows shutter speeds from 1/8000th of a second to 30 seconds. And the long exposures can be extended to any length I desire. I can also change lenses to give different perspectives on a scene.
Photography may be, at heart, a mechanical and technical based art, but that technology allows us to peek into the world in unique ways.
Camera vs eye
As humans, our marvelously designed eyes work in a totally different way than a camera. We constantly scan around and “snapshot” small slivers of our field of view. Our minds seamlessly stitch this constantly changing stream of images together, kind of a real time panorama. We don’t notice it happening. What we think we “see” is actually a model built from these scans and our interpretation of its meaning and our experience with similar subjects.
The camera has no built in biases. It just represents what it gathers in one exposure.
If I adjust my camera to take a frame at 1/8000th of a second, it does it. The result is a frozen slice of an instant that we cannot perceive with our normal vision. A cascade is a classic example. Shooting at a very short shutter speed freezes the motion of all the water and allows us to examine what is truly happening in an instant. All the complexity and the turbulence we cannot perceive.
On the other extreme, if I expose it for seconds, the water will blur into streaks that give an impression of the overall motion going on. We sort of understand that this is what it might look like over time, but we can’t actually see it unless we take a picture.
Here are a couple of (not very good) examples. Actually, I seldom use short shutter speeds on water so I had to go out to the local river and generate an illustration.
Short shutter speed, 1/4000th secondLong shutter speed, 1/10 second
In the first case, the water seems crystal-like, frozen. In the second case there is a distinct impression of motion and flow. The point in each case is that this is not what we actually see when we’re looking at the waterfall. Each is a bending of our perception, revealing new views on the world to us.
Space
Our cameras also have the ability to give us different perspectives on the space around us. Our eyes have a fixed focal length that is around 40-50mm equivalent for a 35mm camera. And we see the world in a horizontal format. But we can put a variety of lenses on our cameras to give views from extreme wide angle to extreme telephoto. And we can rotate our camera in different orientations.
We’re used to seeing our “normal” point of view – that’s why 50mm is called a “normal” lens. A wide angle stretches our view, Things converge in unexpected ways. Lines make distinct new compositions. Buildings “bend” in funny ways. It brings together much more width of view than we are used to seeing.
And the opposite, a telephoto lens, compresses our view. It narrows in on a small area, like when we look through binoculars. It gets us closer to something we would not normally be close to, such as a wild animal. And it lets the artist draw our attention to details of small parts of a scene.
Each of these effects is a distortion or exaggeration of our perception. It is not what we actually see, but it allows us to discern the world around us in new ways.
Motion
Our perception of motion is another effect the camera can record but that we perceive much different. Try an experiment: move your head rapidly from side to side. You don’t really notice much as your head is moving. As soon as you stop you have a clear view of the scene before your eyes. Our mind kind of “skips over” the motion.
Or try another experiment: stand beside a road and start straight ahead as cars go by. What do you notice? Something obscures your vision briefly, but we tend to ignore it. It’s more of a distraction to what we are watching.
The camera, though, sees all that passes in front of it. It doesn’t know to ignore some things as immaterial. I often use the technique knows as intentional camera movement (ICM) to achieve reality distortions to show the world in new ways. The image at the top of this article is such a motion capture. You know what the scene is, but you also know that you have never actually seen the world like that. It helps you think of it is a different way.
Color
Another thing we have excellent control of now is color. More or less, change the hue or saturation – it’s easy with our tools. These things could not have happened in early photography.
I feel the need to single out one significant category of color manipulation that we are very familiar with. Black & white. This is not the way we see the world. By presenting an image without color information, our perception is changed drastically. It keeps us from getting distracted by color and helps us to really look at the shapes and tones and forms in the scene.
We don’t produce a black & white print now because we are limited by the medium. A black & white print got there by the artist deliberately deciding to remove the color. We may not think of it this way, but black & white images are a deliberate distortion of our perception to help give us a new point of view. It is an alternate reality.
Bending reality
Photography has the ability to bend reality in many ways. That is one of the things I love about it. I am not ashamed of it. It is not cheating or an artifice. It is using our creativity to create art.
I think this quote expresses it well:
In our time it seems entirely appropriate that the widest choice be open to artists. Those using the camera or other photographic means to produce works of artistic merit should seek to exploit their medium in the most adventurous ways … The derogatory use of the term artifice is more often than not a bugaboo. Art is artifice. Its reality is of another nature than that of the purely physical world.
I really appreciate that photography has abilities to give us different perspectives on the world. I am tending to push in these directions more and more in my work. Of course, artists in other media can do most of these things, but they would have to either have an amazing ability to visualize the unseen, or they would likely take a picture to show them the unknown and then paint it. Photographers do it directly.
Maybe it is stretch to call this bending of perception ostranenie, but I don’t think so. I doubt if the term will ever catch on. Probably a good thing, because then I would have to learn to pronounce it.
There are few actually new things in the world. The idea of ostranenie was penned in 1917 – 106 years ago as I write this. But I am happy that photography lets us push the boundaries into new visualizations of reality. It is a uniquely capable art form.
Let’s go out and shoot the unseen and impossible! Keep on bending! Get outside of normal perception.
I firmly believe exploration is a foundation of art. Without it, we become stale and stagnant and eventually just start repeating the same things over and over. Exploration leads to growth and creativity.
Many ways to explore
I consider myself an explorer. It is a fundamental activity that I pursue. But I seldom go off to uncharted lands. There are countless ways to explore. Many without even leaving my studio.
Exploring often involves travel, but it also encompasses the ideas of searching and inquiry and discussion and evaluation. It is more a mental activity than physical. Just being in an exotic location does not automatically classify, for me, as exploring. That depends on what you bring from the experience.
When I read books by artists or view videos about artistic technique and thought, that is exploring. It is an inquiry process. I ask questions of myself and attempt to answer them. The process stretches us. Once stretched, we don’t come back to the same shape.
I sometimes spend hours at a time “exploring” on my computer. No, I don’t mean watching TikTok. Exploring editing possibilities and compositing possibilities. Reviewing images and trying to discover new things in them.
When I go out wandering in my local neighborhood, that is exploring. I do it with an open mind, seeking to see things in a new way. It is amazing that I can usually find new sights or see familiar ones in a different way. That is exploring.
Feed your creativity
At the heart of exploring is curiosity. Curiosity is the fountain that waters art. We need to have an active and healthy curiosity to sustain us.
Most people aren’t overly afflicted with curiosity. Is your curiosity a living and active part of you? We have various needs that have to be met, things like food and shelter and emotional satisfaction. I consider my curiosity almost on that level. I wouldn’t die physically if it died, but mentally and emotionally I would be very damaged.
Curiosity can be fed and nurtured to help it to thrive. There are many ways and I’m sure each of us responds in different degrees to each. Some that work for me are reading, learning new things, looking at good art, listening to intelligent people talk, a change of scenery, and play. All of them are consciously done activities that stimulate my brain. I believe this is very important for a healthy, creative life. The fact that you are reading this means you probably feel the same.
The one that probably seems out of place to most people is play. Are you too serious and grown up to play? I hope not. It is actually very important. In a newsletter, Srinivas Rao once said “When we play, we return to a childlike state of curiosity”. I believe this attitude is important for artists. Through play we discover opportunities to extend our artistic vision.
If you believe something is interesting, you are right. Go with it. Follow it to see where it leads. Considering something play lowers the barriers of expectation. No big deal if it is a failure – we were just playing. Brilliant!
Get out of a rut
Without experimentation that is driven by curiosity, we get stuck in ruts. We repeat the same old way of seeing and thinking all the time. Do you have any self imposed “I always do it this way” limitations? We need to view life fresh. Spend a certain part of your time just playing and trying random and ridiculous things. Do something silly. Have fun.
Brooke Shaden once said creativity is curiosity + experimentation. I think that is a good viewpoint. Experimentation helps us discover new things to encourage us to climb out of the rut. Curiosity drives the experimentation. I think most exploration begins with “what if…”.
Head in the clouds
Has someone told you you have your head in the clouds? They were probably not complimenting you. Most people are so focused and pragmatic that anything other than today’s goals seems useless. As artists, we can’t be that. We are on a lifelong quest to create and see the world differently. Sometimes that is best to do from the clouds.
If I can reframe “head in the clouds” to mean healthy exploration backed by wide-ranging curiosity, then I want to be called that.
Be an explorer
Become an explorer. That doesn’t necessarily mean we have to jump on a plane to a remote corner of the world. Your attitude determines it. It may just mean going outside with a fresh, new attitude. Let your curiosity guide you. Give yourself permission to play, to experiment, to do silly things. Shoot something new. Go extreme in post processing. Find new themes. No telling where that might lead.
I consider myself an explorer. It is the way I live my life. It has nothing to do with how many frequent flier miles I have. Wherever I am and whatever I’m doing I’m looking at interesting sights, examining compositions, thinking about themes or possible projects. Curiosity compels me to always be seeking.
Today’s Image
I love this image. It is built on some things most people would never stop to look at, much less photograph. It was put together in a playful way with some post-processing magic thrown in to flavor it. Complete play. It is a joy to me. I hope you enjoy it.
