Ed Schlotzhauer

An artists journey

Category: Uncategorized

Bored
How do you react to being bored? Boredom is a great fear to many people and modern society seems to treat it as a disease. But what if there are good aspects of being bored?
Fear of boredom
We live in a society that constantly tells us that busyness is good and expected and that boredom is bad and scary. So, we must be constantly on the go, scheduled to the max, trying to multi-task so we can do multiple things at once.
I have heard of psychological studies where subjects chose to inflict physical pain on themselves rather than being bored for a time period. In one study almost half the participants chose to give themselves a mild electrical shock after being left alone for 15 minutes. That sounds extreme to me. But many people today fear being left alone with their thoughts.
Why is that? Is it because we are no longer taught how to handle it, or is there a deeper level? Many people fear their thoughts and the questions that come up in their minds when not distracted.
Boredom isn’t really emptiness. It is an opportunity to see and confront things you have spent so much time blocking out from your mind.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Constant entertainment
To combat boredom, and its disquieting thoughts, we immerse ourselves in entertainment. Our always on, always connected life allows us to have 24/7 distraction numbing our minds.
It seems like everyone is on their phones all the time. Whether walking down the street, waiting for a bus, grocery shopping, or driving, most people are on their phone. If not, they have their headphones on listening to music or podcasts.
At home, if people are not on the phone, the TV is on. The hundreds of streaming channels provides limitless distraction.
In a life saturated with constant stimulation, we forget how to simply be.
Fear of missing out
Fear of missing out is a very real thing that society had trained us to know. We usually think of it as needing to always be connected so we do not become irrelevant. But let me turn that around and ask what are we missing out on by not letting ourselves be bored?
That sounds strange, but if we cannot exist without constant external stimulation and if we cannot stand to be alone with our thoughts, that sounds like a drug addiction. That is a very dangerous state to voluntarily put ourselves in.
Somewhere along the way, we stopped seeing boredom as a natural state and started treating it as a problem that needs fixing.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Need quiet
Being uncomfortable with being bored, especially being alone with our thoughts, is not something to be feared. It is actually a signal showing us we have ignored our inner self too long.
Our brain needs quiet time occasionally. We need to reflect, listen to our thoughts, daydream. This is a self-organizing time for our brain. It lets us subconsciously evaluate and make sense of things. We confront and understand our thoughts and our brains weave together new understanding.
It also stimulates creativity. This is one reason I highly recommend it for photographers and other creatives. I believe it is important for us to be self-aware. We need to understand our motivations and beliefs. Artists bring our vision to other people in our work. It is important to understand what is behind our vision and what we want to do and create. And who we really are.
Coping
I frequently advocate mindfulness as a necessary component of the creative process. Mindfulness is being self-aware. Being self-aware comes from spending time alone with our thoughts and feelings. Call this meditation if you like. But when you start out, meditation = boredom. Within the boredom you discover things.
My definition of mindfulness involves being very aware of what is around you, what it looks like, and what it means to you. You cannot do this effectively if you are pumping entertainment into your head all the time. Mindfulness generally thrives in quiet.
Another facet of coping with boredom is exercise. When we move our body without stimulation from music or TikTok clips, our mind is also energized and can wander its own path. It can lead to interesting ends, or to nothing special. Either way, though, it is good exercise for the mind, too.
This sounds a lot like some of the advice I like from Jay Maisel: get out there, move, go out empty and find what is there. This all involves being outside and reacting to the world. Our head needs to be engaged in the creative task. And being out in daylight has mental benefits.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Creativity
Artists constantly chase creativity. Perhaps photographers more than most, because our field is so overcrowded. Can boredom help?
It sounds counterintuitive, but research shows that boredom creates a mental space and opportunity for us to turn our thoughts inward. To reflect, daydream, and make connections that cannot happen easily when there is too much “noise”.
One study found that after being given a boring task, people were more creative. It is thought that the boredom allowed their minds to wander, to use their imagination in new ways.
I know my experience is that if I say, “I will be creative now,” the results will be fairly disappointing. Not entirely uncreative, just not up to my expectations.
But when I let my mind wander without pressure or demands, if I do some simple tasks completely unrelated to photography, of perhaps read a book, then I am much more likely to do or discover something I would call creative.
Photography
I find that creativity in my photography must be tended and coaxed, not forced. It is like planting a seed. You water it, fertilize it, and wait patiently for it to grow.
I tend my creative ideas by spending alone time with myself, by letting my mind wander, by stimulating myself with new ideas and new knowledge about unrelated things. Browsing art and writing by other people I admire helps fertilize the soil. Then picking up my camera and going out wandering, to see what I find lets the ideas connect. Sometimes I discover a new way of seeing or new sights I never noticed.
I believe that even when our mind is wandering, we have control over it. Not to direct it, but to oversee. We are participating in the process, not just being a spectator. I view it like someone inspecting fruit. The conveyor belt is going by with fruit (ideas) on it. As they go by, we glance at each one, throw some out as bad, set some aside as small, but OK for making jam, and pronounce some as very good to keep.
More exciting than plants, to me, is that our creative output is often completely new and exciting. We never know what will come up, or when, or where. We must just accept it and be ready to use it. This is when our photography is elevated from the technical to art.
Explore boredom. It has benefits. You never know where it might lead. Creative ideas pop up unexpected, often after a spell of boredom.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
My situation
It is easy to preach to others about what seems easy to us. I am an introvert and an only child. Those things make it easier for me to handle boredom. I grew up practicing it. I like people, but I am also comfortable being alone. Sometimes I prefer it. Not that I want to go off on a month-long solo wilderness journey. But I am happy spending a day alone with myself. No radio, no TV, no internet.
From observing other people, I realize some are terrified of being bored. That is to be expected in our society. If you are, I advocate practicing handling boredom. Start small if necessary. I believe the benefits are worth it.
Note
Boredom is a huge and complex subject. I have not and cannot deal with it in depth. The boredom I am describing is not part of any mental disorder. Neither is it an existential situation where you find no meaning in your life. Seek help if you find yourself there.
August 13, 2025
Life Is Happening
Life is happening right now. it is not something you hope will happen someday. Make the most of it, now. This includes your photography.
Now is all we have
The past is gone. The future is uncertain. The present time is what we have. Use it. Use it up. Wring it dry.
Time is a scarce and fleeting resource. We can’t slow it or bank it or save it. It passes, whether we want it to or not. It moves at the same rate for all of us. Use this very moment wisely. Once it is gone, it can never be reclaimed.
I don’t mean to be all Zen or depressing. But this is true and should be top of mind for all of us. Time is a resource we cannot control. All we can do is use it wisely.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
We don’t get a “do over”
We only have one life. I won’t argue reincarnation with you.
The choices we make on a day to day basis shape our future. When we decide not to do something, it is rare to get a second chance. How many opportunities do we let slip by to do something that would make us better?
Deciding to spend our time watching TV or playing games or hanging out on social media is wasting one of our most valuable treasures – our time. Solely my opinion, of course. Only you can decide what is the best use of your life.
Do days seem to slip away, disappear into a fog of sameness as we repeat the same actions every day? Why do that? That is the result of having no direction. Of letting external voices control our lives. Those voices do not have our best interests at heart.
It is commonly documented that when people are asked on their death bed what they regret, one of the most common regrets is that they did not take the chances they wanted to. For instance:
I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honored even half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. – Old Colony Hospice
Fear caused them to miss out on the opportunities to lead a different life. This is what they regret at the end. It is so easy to do and it seems like the safe path. But who said everything should be safe or easy?
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Don’t just live for the future
On the other hand, we sometimes see people who seem to live entirely for the future. They have a “plan”. Their current time and energy and money is being banked for what they plan to do “someday”.
This is another way of avoiding living your life in the present. It is great to have goals. Even great goals that will take years to achieve. But what about now? The goals should direct the trajectory of our lives and influence how we spend our time. But they should not shut us down. No matter how important our long term goals seem, we are still living our life right now.
Even if you’re an entrepreneur and are starting a business from the ground up, you still have a life to live Maybe you decide it is in your best interest right now to be working 100 hours a week and pouring all your money into this business. But at least have an exit plan. It’s got to be a temporary agreement with yourself. Know when to call it quits. Think about what it is doing to your life and health and your family. Some things are more important than making a big bundle of money.
There is a saying “if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” One point of this is that we are not as in charge of our plans as we sometimes think. If we cannot control the future then it is foolish to pin our entire life on an uncertain outcome. Live for now, too, while we are working for that future.
I had a friend who worked and saved to retire early. He had great plans: extensive travel, learning languages, doing good works for charity, etc. A great list. A few months after he retired, he was dead. Didn’t see it coming.
Wouldn’t he have been better off doing those things when he had the chance rather than putting them off to “someday”?
Be in the moment
That probably seems very heavy and perhaps depressing. It shouldn’t be. It really resolves to a theme I come around to a lot – mindfulness.
Mindfulness simply means being present, in the moment, aware of things around you and what you are doing. It helps us to live our lives now rather than fretting about the past or worrying about the future. A mindful attitude encourages curiosity. It leads us to learn, to explore, to experiment.
As photographers, these are skills we should always be practicing. Are we really seeing what is around us? Are we open to the opportunities that are there? Do we see past our preconceptions? Are we able to see the things around us for what they are and what they can be? And are we willing to put it in action by going out and photographing it?
Compared to the life experiences I was talking about this may seem trivial. But it is all related. When we are mindful – when we can really be aware and in the moment – we will be more successful living in the present. Think of photography as training for living a more rewarding life.
So I believe it is at least a double reward. Being mindful in our photography will keep us more engaged. We will be more creative and we will likely be happier with our images. Isn’t that one of our purposes in photography? What is really more important than growing creatively and being pleased with our work?
But, too, as we practice mindfulness in our photography it helps discipline us to be mindful in our daily life. Just thinking and being aware and in the present helps us to consider what is important. It helps us to decide how to make better use of this moment.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Moderation
Am I suggesting that you should quit your job and go do whatever “fulfills” you at the moment? Of course not. Living your life means you have responsibilities. Some things are urgent, some are important, some are just necessary. Being mature is knowing the difference and deciding what to do when.
You have bills to pay. You have a career, a family, housing to provide, people have to eat. Your government wants you to pay taxes. Unfortunately, we do not just get to do anything we want. We will do what is necessary because we are responsible adults.
But we have a hundred moments a day to choose what to do. When we can choose to drift instead of doing something useful and constructive. To be on automatic and just do the easy things. Practicing mindfulness is a great help in being aware of what we are doing and deciding to choose better things to do.
Mindfulness in photography is practice that helps us lead a more mindful life overall. Photography can help shape our life. Who knew?
Life is happening all the time. We can’t call a time out. Let’s not let our life drift away without giving it the best we can do.
I don’t want to come across as “preachy” or judgmental or having all the answers. I am a fellow traveler, looking for my path. Perhaps I am further down my path than you are.
Please take this as encouragement to practice a more mindful life. Remind me, too. When we are mindful we can take joy in where we are and when we are.
January 22, 2025
Do You Take Pictures?
Do you take pictures? Well, of course. We all do. I suggest if we are serious about making art that may not be the best attitude.
Take pictures
It is estimated that about 2 Trillion pictures are taken a year. That is several hundred pictures for every person on the planet. Probably 99.999% of those are shot on cell phones. Nothing wrong with that. Cell phones have gotten amazing. But realistically, most of the shots taken are selfies or predictable tourist pictures. Again, nothing wrong with that. If the picture makes them happy, it is good.
Everybody takes pictures. Do you know anyone who has never taken one? I don’t.
But I am writing to an audience who admires photographic images and probably aspires to make much better ones themselves. What makes a picture good?
There are obvious qualifiers like being sharp, well lit, subject easy to see, things like that. Those are things that, if you do not do them, it probably will make the picture bad (unless you did it deliberately). But, as you have figured out from experience, eliminating the problems does not mean your pictures become “good”.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Taken by pictures
The concept of being taken by pictures is one I picked up from John Barclay. It resonates with me, because I have seen it working in my art.
What I have seen in my photo shoots is that sometimes something special happens. We no longer are looking for pictures. We have found a subject or place that captivates us. It releases some kind of creative energy within up. We are not just trying to take a picture, we are trying to capture the magic we are feeling. We have to shoot this. There is no choice not to.
It may be very easy or it may be hard. That is, the scene may present itself to us complete. We have found a treasure. We just have to compose it, set the camera, and take the picture. It is already perfect. Don’t mess it up;
Sometimes it teases us. We know there is something great hiding there, just out of reach. Maybe we have to walk around to look for the right angle. Perhaps it is zooming in on the right piece. Or waiting for the right light, Maybe it is a matter of thinking about it to figure out what is calling to us. Whatever it is, we usually know it when we see it. The inner voice guiding us says “Yes!”. Then we know we have captured the essence we are searching for.
When this happens it is very rewarding. We know we have glimpsed something great and good and we feel like we have captured a view of it.
What is the difference?
The difference is taking a picture vs making art. Taking vs giving.
When you’re at the Eiffel Tower and you think “I like that and I should shoot it”, you probably know how to make a good record of it. You and 50,000 other people that day. When anyone sees it they say “yep, that’s the Eiffel Tower”. No passion. It is just a fact. You might even want to hang a print of it on your wall. But you could get the same thing from any print on demand web site.
But when we are taken by a scene, there is an intensity and passion invoked in us. It is a personal experience. With luck and skill on our part, some of the feeling might be shared by some of our viewers.
We did not take the picture to show it to you. We had to take it for us. It was something we were drawn to. It is like it was a gift given to us.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
If it does not captivate you
I use a recent trip to France as an example a lot lately. It is recent and fresh in my mind.
I was unashamedly a tourist. That means I shot a lot of pictures because I felt I needed to record where we were and what we were seeing. Just like everyone else with their smart phones. Even though I was using a nice mirrorless camera, they were still mostly tourist shots.
Some of these are nice. That is, they are sharp, well composed, and show what I want of the scene. I will keep too many of them, but just for my own private memories.
But a few were moments where something spoke to me and drew me into an image. These times were meaningful to me. As far as images go, these were the Wow moments of the trip for me. Whether anyone else ever sees them or appreciates them doesn’t matter. They are special to me. When I go back and look at them I remember the feelings of the moment.
It’s about emotion
A common theme that recurs is that it is about passion, emotion. Did I feel anything deep or special about this, or was it a record shot? Record shots are pretty and a few will go into a slide show or book of the trip.
The really meaningful images weren’t shot to a plan and were not shot primarily to record the event or place. They may be random occurrences. But these are special to me. Times when I was truly engaged and excited by what was there.
If I wasn’t excited about what I saw, why should you be?
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Don’t settle for just taking pictures
So take pictures. But don’t settle for just taking pictures. Let’s turn up our sensitivity to hear when something is calling to us. If we are not actively listening, we will probably miss it. We know something great is there. Now we have to find it. Work the scene. Peal away the clutter. Follow your instinct. Let yourself be taken by pictures. It is worth it.
When we get caught up in a situation like this, it doesn’t really matter if all we have if a cell phone. Use what you have. But follow you passion. Figure out what is really there and get the shot. Take the gift. Appreciate it.
January 15, 2025
Slow Editing
What’s your rush? Personally, I find my editing process is improved by what I term slow editing. I let images age for a while before making final decisions.
What’s the rush?
I see a lot of photographers who seem to be tied to daily production quotas. After being out shooting all day, at night they feel compelled to edit the day’s shoot and post some to social media.
I don’t. If that is your need, I can sort of understand, but I don’t agree with you. It is a much better use of my time to go out and have a relaxing dinner with my wife. Later that evening I may sample a few images – in camera only – just to make sure I am getting reasonable results and there are no technical problems. After all, it is too late to do anything about the day’s shoot at that point.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
As a matter of fact, I no longer even backup my memory cards while I’m traveling. I seldom bring a computer anymore, so I don’t and can’t do any processing. This is part of my newfound minimalist attitude for photography. More on that later. It’s not the subject today.
My point is that I am not pressured to rush updates out to anyone on any schedule except my own.
Aging helps
More and more, I find that aging helps the quality of my curation process. That is, if I edit immediately, I don’t make the best decisions. Now I usually deliberately build a lot of delay into my process. This is what I mean by slow editing.
Why would I slow it down intentionally? I find that time helps me distance myself from the emotions of the moment when I took the image. These emotions can often promote a picture to prominence it does not deserve because of what I felt. Time helps the emotions to subside. I can look at the images with cool objectivity. Well, I can do better. Can we ever truly be objective about our own work?
There is a double standard that we must apply to our work. I believe that emotion is a key part of making a great image. If we did not feel something special, how can we bring an excellent image to our viewer?
But during editing, emotion is a hindrance. We have to be brutally objective. We may have loved the moment and captured something that is extremely important to us. But if it is not as sharp as necessary and well composed and well lit, and if it did not capture a moment that shows other people what we felt, it is no good except for our private collection.
Time helps me get the emotional distance I need to realistically cull out images I love. It’s still painful, but a lot easier.
Editing takes time
I find editing to be a very time intensive process. Maybe I do not have a good process. Or maybe I am just inefficient. Or maybe this is just what I must do. But that is where I am. My process works for me.
I have seen people who are able to burn through a large shoot in minutes. Never spending more than about a second on any one before flagging it as thumbs up or thumbs down. That usually does not work for me.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Here is an example of my high-level editing workflow: First, let it sit for a while. One to 2 weeks is usually a minimum. Longer if possible. Then make a pass through marking obvious rejects and doing some quick editing on some of the ones kept, making sure they have a good chance to turn out well. I seldom spend more than 2 minutes editing an image at this point and I do it in Lightroom Classic.
At this point I have probably eliminated 1/2 of the original images. My next pass is “housekeeping”. I make sure the keepers are tagged with location metadata and some preliminary keywords.
Slowing down even more
The next pass, when I get around to it, is a “grading” scan. At this point I allow myself to assign 1 to 3 stars to each. My informal scale means 1 is worth saving, 2 if better than average, and 3 is a possible winner – but it still needs more work.
In another pass I concentrate a lot on the 1’s. These are sort of on the edge. I ask myself if any should be promoted to 2 or should they be eliminated. Quite a few may change. It is always my goal to try to eliminate when I can. I used to keep almost everything thinking I might need them someday. I don’t.
Now I go back and look just at the 2 or higher rated images. What other editing needs to be done? This can get very time consuming, with edits in Lightroom and/or Photoshop taking hours in some cases. Ones I feel very good about at this point might get promoted to 4 stars. A very few rare ones maybe to 5. I do more keywording on the best ones.
But here one of the weird twists of my editing comes in. In reality, stars mainly mark how I feel about the image. Not how highly I rate it. The real rating comes as I sort them into collections.
By this point I have rigorously shredded and thrashed the image set. I am now ready to file the survivors into permanent storage locations and gather some into collections. At this point a lot of the survivors are tagged for copyrighting. Fewer are “promoted” into my quality hierarchy.
This promotion process is lengthy and takes several passes. I currently have 6 levels of quality. It may take months and many reviews for an image to rise to the top collection.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
A recent example
As I write this I am about a month past an excellent trip to the south of France. Awesome; do it if you get the chance.
Over the trip I shot about 4000 images. I loaded them in my computer immediately on getting home, but waited 2 weeks before even looking at them seriously. After another 2 weeks I am about halfway through the first pass, eliminating a lot and doing some preliminary edits on the ones not immediately rejected. I figure it will be at least another month before I have my final picks. Even then all the editing will not be competed.
Yes, I am very slow. It takes me forever to get through a large edit like this. But when I get done, I can be confident that the higher rated ones are decent to show people without embarrassment. I know that the only low ranked ones I need keep are for some textures and backgrounds. I never go back through the low ranked ones to select images for a show or project unless I need a filler to tell a story. That doesn’t stop me from keeping a few of them “just in case”. Emotional attachment leaks in. But they are filed separately.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
My experience
I am being candid about the workflow I have evolved to. This is slow editing in the extreme. All I can say is that it works for me. This is true of any workflow, no matter how famous (or unknown) the instructor is who is recommending it. Your workflow is highly idiosyncratic. Experiment to try alternatives, then do what works for you no matter what anyone else says
As I am going through these images from France, I find that I am disappointed with a lot of them. Just tourist shots. Of course, I was a tourist. But some, a few, capture my feeling and interpretation of a place or event. Those are a joy to find.
I have to let the emotion of the experience drain off to make good judgments about my images. This takes time. Luckily for me, I do not have to be on anyone else’s schedule. I’ll get there when I get there.
Today’s images
All the images in this article were shot in France on previous trips. After all, I haven’t finished this year’s edits yet.
January 1, 2025
They Told You Wrong About ISO
Many of us have a wrong idea about ISO settings. I will just say they told you wrong about ISO. It was a misunderstanding. Whoever “they” are.
Statement of faith
It is stated as a “strong suggestion“, especially when we are learning landscape or portrait work. Never shoot with ISO over 100. Maybe it is stated as only shoot at the native ISO setting for your camera. Either way, these are given as rules.
I hate rules, especially for my art. Rule of thirds. Rules of composition. Never put the subject in the center. Never shoot at midday. Always use a tripod. The list goes on.
Like with religion, most of the so-called rules are based on good ideas, but over time they are repeated as commands and the underlying reasons are lost. Just do it. (I don’t think that is what Nike meant.) The rules become a statement of blind faith that cannot be challenged.
What is noise?
All digital cameras have noise. Noise is randomly generated in the sensor and in the electronics of the signal path until the pixels have been digitized by the analog to digital converter (ADC). The noise is a fundamental property of physics.
The question is how much noise is there relative to the desired data. This is called signal to noise ratio in engineering. When we amplify a signal by increasing the ISO setting, all the signal including the noise is increased. This is why images shot at high ISO settings tend to look noisy. The image is usually not less sharp, but there is more noise obscuring things.
It is true for a low cost point and shoot camera or a high end medium format camera. What changes are the relative amounts of noise and the limits the image can be pushed to.
What is ISO?
You’re familiar with the exposure triad: the combination of aperture, shutter speed, and ISO that determine exposure. That’s it. Many other things affect the composition and quality of an image, but only those 3 control the exposure.
Aperture is the size of the diaphragm opening in the lens. It controls, among other things, the amount of light coming in. Shutter speed is the length of time the shutter is open to let light come in. And the ISO setting is kind of like a volume control. It sets the gain or amount of amplification of the sensor data.
Going way back to early film days, there were no agreed on standards for the measure of how sensitive film was. So a couple of the largest standards organizations (the ASA and DIN scales) came together and created a standards group under the International Organization of Standards. They adopted the acronym of the standards organization (in English) as the name. By the way, officially “ISO” is not an acronym, it is a word, pronounced eye-so.
Long way around, but now there are defined standards for exposure. For a given combination of aperture and shutter speed, the ISO settings on all cameras give the same exposure.
Why use higher ISO settings
OK then, in concept, the ISO setting is a volume control for exposure. Turning it up (increasing the ISO value) amplifies the exposure data. But as I mentioned, it is not free. Amplifying the exposure also amplifies the noise in it.
It is true that low ISO settings produce less noise in the captured image. Modern sensors are much better than early ones. This is one of the wonders of engineering improvements that happen as a technology matures.
Then, we should not use high ISO settings, right? Well, everything is a tradeoff. We need to use a minimum shutter speed to avoid camera shake when hand holding or to stop subject movement. We need to use a certain aperture to give the depth of field we want. These decisions must be balanced in the exposure triad, often by increasing the ISO.
Can’t I just underexpose?
When you accept that we must use the lowest ISO setting, the logical conclusion is that you could massively underexpose the image and “correct” it in post processing. Unfortunately this doesn’t work well. You are still boosting the noise unacceptably.
The camera manufacturer knows more about it’s sensors than your image processing software does. The camera’s built-in ISO amplification can take into account it’s characteristics and do a better job. And modern sensors and electronics do a very good job.
Are you wrong about ISO?
If you are following a rule dictating you must or can’t do something, yes you are wrong. There are no rules in art. No ISO-like standards body specifies what your image must look like. There are always groups wanting to do this (are you listening camera clubs?), but they have no authority.
If you are hand holding a shot, it is better to boost the ISO to steady the movement than follow a rule about using low ISO. The noise will be secondary to the reduced shake. Or I sometimes use the lowest ISO setting in my camera to create blur. I enjoy intentional camera movement (ICM) shots and will occasionally force an artificially slow shutter speed.
If it is night and you want to shoot stars or street scenes, are you not going to do it because you would have to violate a rule by the ISO police?
Use the ISO setting that lets you express what you want to do. It is your art. There are no rules. Besides, luminance noise looks like film grain. It can be an interesting artistic technique in itself. Do what feels right to you.
Apology
I used fairly strong language about this. The reality is that most photography writers have softened their recommendations on ISO. Most of them freely recommend using high ISO. This is healthy.
But I know many of us were “imprinted” by early mentors who left us feeling there was something dirty about going above 100 ISO. I want to free you if you still have those self-imposed limits. Using even a very high ISO and getting the shot is always better than missing it because you wouldn’t want to chance increased noise.
Today’s image
Since I’m advocating it, here is an extreme case that I’m happy with. This was shot hand held with an old Nikon D5500 camera – at ISO 22800. I have corrected out some of the luminance and chromance noise and I am perfectly OK with what remains. Getting the shot made me happy, even if the noise is high.
August 28, 2024