Monte Cristo Grade Road Sunlight
The road across the river from my home turned to magic as the fog cleared on an early autumn morning
Monte Cristo Grade Road Sunlight
The road across the river from my home turned to magic as the fog cleared on an early autumn morning
Your Interests and Your Imagery
IF YOU ARE GOING TO ENJOY PHOTOGRAPHY and produce meaningful images you’ll have to find subject matter that interests you, that excites you, that draws you in and involves you. I was particularly lucky in this respect because I already enjoyed hiking in the mountains, which drew me into photography, so my initial area of photographic interest was predetermined.
You may not be that lucky. Perhaps you are interested in the idea of photography because you’ve seen a number of photographs that you like, and you want to produce some yourself. Perhaps you’ve been photographing for years with a degree of pleasure, but you want to improve the quality of your work. You may have picked up this book hoping that it could help you along that path, which is actually my goal in writing the book. So let’s try to travel down that path together.
First, however, I want to engage you in a short five- to ten-minute exercise. I believe that this can be a very useful, perhaps even pivotal, exercise. Please pull out a sheet of paper and a pencil, or your computer, and list your three favorite photographers, followed by a sentence or short paragraph explaining what it is about each photographer that you like most. If you only have two favorites, just list two. If you have more than three who are all real favorites, make the list a bit longer, but don’t let it get too long; confine it to your real favorites. Because I think this is an important enough exercise, I urge you to put this book aside for a while, give the issue a bit of thought, and then write down your choices and your reasoning. I’ll return to this at the end of the chapter to explain why this exercise is so important.
Now, with your list completed, we’ll start down the path of finding your interests, with the assumption that you don’t yet know what really excites you. (If you do, you’re already part way down the path.) How do find out what it could be? My suggestion is to try a variety of different things. Try portraits, either in a makeshift studio, perhaps as simple as one side of a room in your home, or on the street; in front of stores at shopping centers or at bus or train stops; or any other place where people are likely to congregate. You’ll have to be pleasant and maybe a bit assertive when asking people to pose for you. Most won’t, but some will. You’ll have to wait patiently to find the few who will say yes. You may even ask if some of them would pose nude for you (a bold leap forward, but some will say yes, though probably not on the spot), or you can hire models to pose nude for you. Nude photography has always been a very popular pursuit, just as painting of nudes prior to the advent of photography had been popular subject matter for centuries.
Ask friends and family members if you can photograph them, and if you can photograph their young kids, not only as portrait subjects but as they play and interact with one another. Action photographs are popular, challenging, and a lot of fun for those on both sides of the camera.
You can try driving to the countryside, the seashore, a nearby forest, the mountains, or to any other natural area to see if you like photographing nature. Try exploring a range of subjects, from the biggest mountains to the tiniest flowers; from the cows grazing out in the farm fields to birds perched on tree branches; from the isolated farmhouse in the small valley between the hills to the waves of the ocean crashing on the beach. There are lots of different things to see out there, and some may truly resonate with you.
You can walk the streets of large cities and see if unplanned events prove exciting to you. Watch what individuals or groups of people do on the streets, and try to photograph those special moments when things come together in fascinating and unexpected ways.
You may find that the architecture of the town or city is of interest to you. For me, this tends to be true of older architecture rather than new, but not always. The third section of my first published book, Visual Symphony, dealt largely with with photographs of huge, generally ugly, downtown office buildings. I included several buildings within a single image, thus concentrating on their geometric interactions and the play of light and shadow upon them, rather than the general drabness of each individual building. To my eye, most of the buildings were uninspiring when looked at individually, but the abstract geometric interactions among them fascinated me (figure 2–1). I’ve continued to photograph such subject matter over the years. Yet it is the old architecture of Europe, or that of the Maya or the Incas (think Machu Picchu) and other places that I’ve visited—and many more that I haven’t visited—that are the most attractive to me.
My general interest in older architecture indicates my leanings, but as noted above, I’ve delved into modern architecture quite often. Architecture that is old, new, or anything in between can be fascinating. It depends on you, the photographer. Modern architecture can be fantastic subject matter—not just structures like Frank Gehry’s wonderful buildings, but even supermarket structures from the 1960s, or a beat-up industrial warehouse. Old architecture—from Machu Picchu to European towns and cathedrals to Ankor Wat—draws almost everyone to it. But it’s you, the photographer, who is drawn to subject matter. As acclaimed photographer Frederick Sommer once noted, “subject matter is subject that matters.” It has to matter to you.
Growing up in Chicago, I marveled at the tall buildings clustered in the downtown area. My fascination with skyscrapers continued into adulthood, even as buildings became progressively more box-like and less tapered and organic. My photographic work started in downtown Calgary, Canada, and continued in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, and other North American cities with concentrated downtown skyscrapers. The most compelling images to me are the ones that force a double-take because the combination of structures is so puzzling and confusing.
Some people have taken to photographing old barns, some abandoned, some still working, some in serious disrepair, and some in the process of collapsing. Barns are fascinating subjects, and you may be able to photograph the landowners as well. These structures are in rural and even some suburban areas all around the country, so unless you live somewhere like downtown Manhattan, there are probably some within striking distance of your home. In fact, from Manhattan, you’ll find some in nearby Connecticut, New Jersey, and not too far north of New York City within the state.
Try some sports photography, perhaps at local high school games or even games in your neighborhood playgrounds and ball fields. You may be able to up the ante by getting into some college or professional events as you begin to get better at it.
Street photography is another genre that may interest you. Some people like to wander through the streets of big cities, finding great meaning in the daily activities that others tend to ignore or take for granted: the person walking briskly down the sidewalk, suddenly stopping because he or she remembers something of great importance that needs attention; the person looking intently into a window display that everyone else is passing by with no interest; the two people discussing or arguing about something as others avoid them on the way to their destinations; the person who dropped a package and is frantically trying to gather it all up before others trample it. These are human interest issues that can be photographed with great affect by the right photographer who finds the angst, humor, or joy conveyed by those involved.
These are just a few suggestions. You’ll come up with many more. Subject matter is anything that you can see and that you feel has some real, intrinsic importance. Try any or all of them, or anything else a friend may suggest. Some suggestions may be so unappealing to you that you won’t even consider them. That’s to be expected. Consider others. You’ll try a few once or twice and find them boring, but one or two others will prove to be attractive, perhaps even exciting. When you start going back to the same type of subject matter over and over, that’s a sure sign of where your interests lie. It’s that simple. You’ve got to try different things to see what draws you in time after time, and what you’ll avoid at any cost.
Start looking more carefully and thinking deeply about what you see in a scene and what you want in the final image. Pay attention to how the visual relationships within your picture frame are working with one another (figure 2–2). These are the relationships among lines, forms, colors, textures, etc., that I discussed in chapter 1. You’ll work at making them relate even better by noting that moving to the left or right, up or down, forward or back can subtly improve those relationships. In time, you’ll start finding that camera position sweet spot almost instinctively. Your compositions will become stronger and more assured.
Along the way, try to analyze why you’re attracted to the subject matter you’ve chosen. This may seem like an exercise in psychological silliness at first, but I think that over time you’ll find that the answers you come up with—however amorphous or inarticulate they may be—will help you make stronger images as you proceed.
I’ll bet that Ansel Adams could have explained why he was drawn to the landscape. Ruth Bernhard could have explained with great clarity why she was so drawn to photographing nudes, women in particular. Mary Ellen Mark can easily articulate why she photographs street people. Diane Arbus could have fully explained why she was drawn to photograph the “losers” in society. These are photographers who have pushed the limits of their specialization, and they fully knew (or know) exactly why they were drawn to those things they do so well. I’m sure they would agree that understanding why they were drawn to their chosen subject matter has served to strengthen their imagery.
Where can you find good subject matter? Everywhere. You just have to look and keep an open mind to all possibilities. This ice formation was in a low point in my gravel driveway (one of many such potholes). Every winter we get enough cold days to turn puddles into sheets of ice, and often the forms within them are amazing. This rather bizarre configuration reminded me of plasma clouds in the universe, while the comical form at the bottom center reminded me of a small dog. If subject matter can be found in a gravel driveway, it can be found anywhere.
As I’ve already stated, I think that fine photography is a product of interest, keen observation, intelligence, and planning. Intuition and creativity spring from these basic foundations. So it’s hardly surprising that I’d ask you to articulate why your areas of interest are pulling you in. I am convinced that it will help you produce better images because when you reflect upon your interests, you begin to understand them better and you can determine what it is you want to say about them.
For many people—photographers and viewers, alike—a photograph is simply a record of what was in front of the camera. There is really no thought given to interpretation. But for those of us who see photography as a creative, artistic, and personally expressive endeavor, the scene in front of the camera is always a starting point for your journey. The creative photographer has to find the scene that she responds to and recognize its potential for personal interpretation. This is not an easy task.
Few understand the difference between snapshots, with no interpretation, and real photography that entails personal interpretation. This is the reason we so often hear the phrase, “you were in the right place at the right time,” a comment based on the false idea that the photograph represents exactly the scene that the photographer encountered. It’s a comment devoid of the concept of personal interpretation. For the photographer striving to be creative, the recognition of the vast difference between the scene in front of you and the photograph you can produce is the beginning of your transition from recording a scene photographically to expressing how you feel about a scene emotionally.
Think of it this way: the scene is your palette, and the print is your canvas. This is not dissimilar from Ansel Adams’s famous statement that the negative is the score, and the print is the performance; however, it starts at an earlier point—when you’re at the scene, not in the darkroom with the negative, or at the computer with the RAW file. If you look at the scene as the starting point for your artistic statement, you give yourself the leeway to alter it; to expand upon it; to emphasize some aspects of it and subdue others; to increase or decrease the contrast, both overall and area by area; to increase or decrease the color saturation; or to alter the colors themselves. If you look beyond the scene and consider how you can portray it to express why it moves you or how it affects you, you are thinking creatively right from the start. You can go even further and think about how you may be able to use it as part of a multi-disciplinary collage, which could include painting, drawing, magazine cutouts, or anything else that contributes to the final artistic statement.
Photography is inherently different from the other arts. If you’re a painter, sculptor, writer, composer, or virtually any other type of artist, you start with a blank slate and create your painting, sculpture, novel or poem, or your musical work. The subject or scene that inspires you can be imagined, remembered, or found. In photography, on the other hand, you must start with a “found object”—whether it’s a landscape, portrait, sports event, architectural subject, street scene, or virtually anything else you can imagine—and respond to it with a negative, transparency, or RAW file that you can then interpret in your own creative way. You generally have to start with what is in front of you, rather than invent something new with your imagination. Counterexamples exist, as they always do, such as creating abstract art by shining light directly onto photographic paper, without any use of a camera or scanner. But aside from such arcane pursuits—which can be absolutely wonderful, and are surely very creative—most photography starts with an object or scene. The interpretation begins with the exposure itself, where you see what’s in front of you, and simultaneously imagine what you can do with it. The great exception to this may be studio portraits or still lifes, where the photographer creates or poses the subject to be photographed, in which case the creativity may begin with the set-up itself.
In studio portraiture or still lifes, you can pose the portrait subject or build the still life as you desire; you can set up and alter lighting to suit your desires; and you can set up a backdrop as you please. In outdoor portraiture, you may be able to find the appropriate setting and the lighting situation you desire, or you may be able to alter it with reflectors or fill flash or other such controls, but it’s not quite as fully controlled as it can be in a studio. In either case, however, the unexpected may still occur—a seemingly uncomfortable position that the sitter assumes, a lock of hair that springs upward, a wrinkle in the clothing that proves distracting, a strange conflict between the sitter and the carefully chosen background—so you have to see these problems and deal with them on the spot.
With landscape or architectural subjects, sports photography or street photography, you have to work with a changing scene, with the ambient light, and you have to do it with few controls. You have to see how the light works for you, and if you have the time you may have to move your point of view to optimize the composition.
A painter does not have the same restrictions. The painter can ignore the lock of hair springing upward or the conflict between sitter and background. The painter, perhaps basing the painting on a real scene, can put anything into that painting that does not actually exist in the scene, and can remove any undesirable aspect of the scene from the painting. Photoshop and other digital apps may allow you to do the same thing, but let’s not debate whether that’s still to be considered photography, for a debate like that solves nothing. It’s still part of the creative, expressive process, so I’ll defend it as perfectly acceptable.
In general, the photographer has to see the distractions and figure out how to eliminate or subdue them to the point of insignificance. Sometimes it’s as simple as moving the location of the camera so that the relationship between the forms of near and distant objects is better revealed—perhaps moving the camera just a few inches—and sometimes this has to be done quickly before conditions change. This requires skills of quickness in seeing and responding that are quite different from anything required of a painter. Most important, you’re thinking about the final image while standing behind the camera, and making sensible decisions based on your vision of the final image. You’re not just recording the scene. You’re now elevating the seeing of the scene to the same level of creative importance as that of your subsequent processing of the exposure.
Let’s assume you’ve found the subject matter that really interests you, and you’re looking at the scene with an eye toward finding interesting visual relationships within it and interpreting what you see, rather than simply recording it. What does that really mean in practice? Photography, as with all of the visual arts, is a non-verbal language. In order to express yourself adequately, you have to learn how to communicate your thoughts to the viewer, for communication is truly the essence of fine photography.
Light and compositional relationships are the tools used by the creative, imaginative, and thoughtful photographer to convey the message he wants to convey. When used well, these tools may provide the most universal language on earth, far more ubiquitous and understood than any spoken language. People throughout the world are able to respond to imagery in similar ways, even when they have no common spoken language. They will be jolted by visual imagery featuring jagged lines, extreme contrasts, and intense color saturation, and will be soothed by softly curved lines, dominant mid-tones, and pastel colors. This makes photography a very powerful language, indeed. To employ this language in an articulate manner, you have to fully understand its recognized meaning.
Applying appropriate lighting to your chosen subject matter and composing your image in a thoughtful way allows you to control the emotional impact of your image on the viewer. Photography is a communication between the artist and the viewer, just like the communication between a composer and the listener. Just as you can viscerally connect with certain pieces of music, you can connect with photographs. And of course, if you’re the photographer, you want to know how to effectively connect with your viewers.
To translate your passion for the subject matter that means so much to you into an image that captures the viewer’s attention and makes him sit up and take note of what you’re saying, you have to concern yourself with the nuts and bolts of composition. You have to figure out how to arrange the elements within the scene, and of course, make use of appropriate lighting, so that all of your emotions are translated into visual language.
That’s not an easy transition or translation. How do you channel a multitude of feelings into a visual experience? This is especially difficult if some of those feelings are thought-based (such as my deeply held feelings about how global warming is affecting all life on our planet) rather than sensory-based (what you see, feel, smell, etc.).
Consider the following compositional basics, some of which I’ve already mentioned, and then consider how they can affect your initial seeing and your approach to translating the scene in front of your camera lens into your photograph in front of the viewer’s eye.
A photograph composed with a number of vertical lines tends to impart a feeling of strength and stability, like that of tall conifer trees or buildings. Horizontal lines tend to impart restfulness and quiet. Diagonal lines have an inherent kinetic energy, as if a vertical line is in the process of rising or falling, and they imbue an image with a strong sense of dynamism and activity.
A photograph that features sharp, broken or jagged lines, or lines with tight curves, will have far greater impact than one that features gently curved lines. This is true for both color and black-and-white images. So if you’re looking for immediate high impact, it will serve you well to look for those broken, jagged, or tightly curved lines. If you’re seeking a quieter mood, it’s best to compose the image with lines and forms that are gently curved, sort of soft and squishy.
Highly saturated, deep colors will have far greater impact than soft pastels. If the colors are on opposite sides of the color wheel, such as deep blues and flaming oranges, the image will jump out at you aggressively. On the other hand, if your imagery is dominated by light beige and soft blues, it will have a very pastoral or gentle feel.
In black-and-white images, high-contrast juxtapositions of bright whites against deep blacks have a high impact, whereas mid-gray tonalities bordering on one another tend to impart a much softer, quieter, and perhaps reassuring feeling. You have to be careful not to cross the line from quiet to boring. Your choice of tonalities in a black-and-white image parallels the choice you may make between deeply saturated and pastel colors in a color image. This basic choice goes a long way toward setting the mood of the image for the viewer.
A high key image (i.e., one dominated by light tones or pastel colors) tends to impart a more positive, optimistic, or perhaps dreamlike feeling, whereas a low-key image (i.e., one dominated by deep, dark tonalities and colors) tends to impart a more dramatic or mysterious mood, perhaps a pessimistic or even a frightening feel. This may mirror our basic feelings of fear or trepidation that arise when we think about walking through dark city streets or on a forest trail at night, where it’s difficult to know what’s hiding in the deepest shadows. This has been a scary prospect for millennia, and it’s still very much part of our psyche.
Now let’s give some thought to what these basic compositional elements mean when you’re standing there at a scene with your camera in hand. You are drawn to a scene that you probably did not create, and now your task is to make that scene into a meaningful photograph. Looking carefully, you may notice that an object in the middle distance with an especially nice line at its edge will be repeated like an echo or a shadow by another form in the far distance if you move a few feet over to your right. So changing your camera position will create a stronger relationship between the elements in your image. Therefore, you move to make that relationship more apparent.
Perhaps there is something in the far distance that is visually irritating in an otherwise wonderful scene, but if you step forward a full step and to your left a few inches, something in the foreground will block it without changing the overall composition. By blocking the irritant, you strengthen the composition.
Depending on the subject matter, you may be able to angle the camera a few degrees off of true vertical, or even turn it wildly off axis, to make the forms flow more dynamically and create a stronger image. For example, if you’re photographing conifer trees, you’d better keep the verticals vertical, but if you’re photographing sand dunes or oak trees or the sandstone undulations of Utah, verticality may be meaningless, giving you leeway to move away from formal “plumb line” photography. In a portrait, putting the subject at an angle could bring about a very different dynamic, and is likely to say something about the person’s personality.
You may be attracted to a scene, but quickly realize that by zooming in on a smaller portion of it, you really get to the heart of the issue without being distracted by the the pleasant but extraneous material around it. Alternatively, you may be attracted to one specific subject, and then realize that the more you include around it, the better it becomes. So you zoom out or use a shorter lens to include more, which may bring in additional relationships that strengthen the visual experience.
These are just a few of the many decisions you can make in the field to strengthen your imagery, once your mind is focused on the compositional possibilities. I’ve been involved in every one of these situations in my career, along with so many more, and you will encounter them yourself in your photographic endeavors. These are some of the considerations that separate “seeing” from “photographic seeing.” These are the things you have to think about and act upon when you’re photographing, no matter what the subject matter is.
Together with the many compositional choices you have to make, you must also consider one overriding issue: light. Whether you’re using a digital sensor or film, the only thing it records is the variety of light levels within the image area. Light is your tool, so you must use it wisely. You have to keep in mind that it’s not the objects that the camera sees, it’s the light levels. So you have to determine whether the light in your scene leads your eyes to where you want the viewer’s eyes to go. Or, thinking through the entire process, you may be able to determine if there are processing options that would help the light work for you.
If you’re using black-and-white film, you may be able to use appropriate filters to brighten or darken portions of the scene that have a color dominance, in order to better interpret your feelings. A red filter will darken a blue sky, as will a yellow or orange filter, but to a lesser extent. A green filter will darken lips or a man’s ruddy complexion, enhancing either one. Digitally, you can achieve much the same effect in postprocessing by using color sliders to lighten or darken portions of the image.
Perhaps you can burn or dodge portions of the image, alter the contrast, enhance or subdue the colors, or whatever else it may take to direct the viewer’s gaze where you want it to go. Actively thinking about these things when you’re out there with your camera pushes you far along the path toward a meaningful, expressive image.
In a studio, you may have complete control of the light, but if you are doing landscape work, you have to work with the light that exists. Is the light strongly directional—perhaps sunlight coming in from the left or right—or is it soft and directionless, which you may encounter on a foggy day? Is it drawing your eyes toward the portion of the scene to which you want to draw the viewer’s attention, or is it pulling you off to the side or to something of relatively limited importance? You may be able to exert some control with reflectors or fill flash if the subject matter is close enough, but those controls won’t work for a distant mountain range or seascape. In all cases, you have to recognize if the light is working with the compositional elements, and if you can work with it further in the darkroom or with photo-editing software to bring out the effect you want.
Figure 2–3: Gathering Storm, Lofoten Islands
It was really the latest in a series of violent winter squalls screaming through the archipelago of islands just north of the Arctic Circle in Norway. The clouds were brilliantly white, with sunlight hitting them directly. They were also deeply black, or so it seemed to me. They certainly felt black on that day in March 2013, perhaps because I knew that within minutes we would again be assaulted by screaming cold winds and pelting snow. (Following that was another period of calm and sun before the next squall came roaring in.)
Suppose you make a portrait or a landscape exposure under bright sun. Do you have to print it as if it were a bright, sunny day? Not necessarily. You can “turn down the lights,” in essence, to create a lighting situation that more closely fits a darker emotional mood. You can’t change the direction of light, and you probably can’t make it look like a foggy day (although with the proper exposure and development you can come surprisingly close), but you have a remarkably high degree of latitude in your presentation of the image, giving you a high degree of control (figure 2–3). It’s yours. Use it.
In the studio you can control the intensity of light, the directionality of light, and the sharpness or softness of light. For portraiture, the interpretive possibilities are endless. You can use different types of lighting to bring out the cragginess or smoothness of skin. You can work with the subject to bring out the wry smile or the irritated scowl. All of this goes a long way toward conveying the personality of your subject. This can be used to altruistic or devastating ends; the choice is up to you. This is where your creativity springs into being.
Without considering composition and lighting, you’re simply snapping pictures. You have to engage your mind from the start, and ultimately you have to think the process through to the very end, to your final photograph. You have to think about the steps needed to get from the scene that you didn’t create to the photograph you want to create while you’re standing there with your camera. In other words, the whole process must be part of your thinking from the start.
Now let’s look at a few images to see how these ideas work in practice.
Deception Pass Bridge (figure 2–4) features three key elements: the upper right black square, the lower left triangle, and the strong line of the girder dividing the two. There is a feeling of stability laced with some kinetic energy from the many diagonal lines. Beyond that, everything slowly fades away into the fog in a series of geometric lines going in every direction. It was necessary to carefully place my camera to bring out those key relationships in the strongest way.
Radiator Rocks, Alabama Hills (figure 2–5) is related in many ways to the studies I did of the English cathedrals. The columns, vaults, and arches of the cathedrals are replaced here by a parallel series of vertical-to-rounded boulders that creates a feeling of quiet stability and strength, yet also alludes to infinity, since the viewer’s eye-mind combination projects this series of forms to go on forever. I used my longest lens (500mm) on my 4×5 camera to focus on this set of giant granite fins, eliminating everything else around it, but still maintaining an interesting relationship between the foreground fins and the distant background in the upper right. The photograph was exposed just prior to sunrise, when the light was directional but soft. Minutes later, when the sun rose, the harshness of the bright sunlight and deep shadows turned the scene into an uncontrollable cacophony of intense blacks and whites.
Figure 2–4: Deception Pass Bridge
The bridge, which links Whidbey Island with Fidalgo Island in the Puget Sound, was surrounded by dense fog at sunrise. Standing immediately beneath the roadway, I set up my camera to photograph the supporting structure—seemingly random in many ways—disappearing into the fog. Within 45 seconds of exposing the negative, the fog abruptly disappeared, and the feeling it imparted disappeared along with it.
Figure 2–5: Radiator Rocks, Alabama Hills
This remarkable series of round rock fins in the Alabama Hills, immediately east of the Sierra Nevada, reminds me of old radiators from my childhood apartment in Chicago. At the same time, it reminds me of the series of columns, vaults, and arches I photographed in the English cathedrals in 1980 and 1981—almost a mathematical metaphor on infinity.
Ghosts and Masks (figure 2–6), part of my “Darkness and Despair” series, is dominated by dark tones with tightly curved highlights that look like grotesque faces, imparting a brooding, scary feel to the image. Many have likened the image to Norwegian painter Edvard Munch’s The Scream, which I have always taken as a great compliment. I made this image with my 6×4.5 cm camera with extension tubes, which allowed me to do macro work on a portion of a log that was no more than five inches on a side. The scene was photographed under soft, evenly lit, cloudy conditions. I increased the contrast both in negative development and during printing.
This image is part of my “Darkness and Despair” series, which was triggered by the devastating loss of an environmental battle in which politicians illegally gave a permit for an aggregate mine after its permit was denied in court. I funneled my anger and frustration into photographs of burls on a small log I found in the forest on my property. Its grotesque figures peer out from the blackness within the image and that within me.
Into the Center of the Earth, Buckskin Gulch (figure 2–7) jumps out at you powerfully, with it’s brilliant reds and oranges glowing against the deep purples and blacks of the enclosing walls in the deepest portion of the slit canyon. The light was coming from above and around the next bend, causing me to audibly gasp when I emerged from an even darker segment of the canyon into this paradise of brilliance.
Font’s Point, Anza Borrego Desert (figure 2–8) is a dramatic landscape image that I took under rather striking lighting and weather conditions. Yet it is softened greatly by the pastel beiges and browns of the badlands, and by the light, unsaturated blues of the sky.
Figure 2–7: Into the Center of the Earth, Buckskin Gulch
In the deepest portion of Buckskin Gulch, 400 feet below its top and only 10 feet wide, the dark, foreboding walls suddenly give way to brilliant sunlight reflected off of walls ahead and around the next bend. It was a knee-weakening sight to unexpectedly come upon such brilliance down in the depths of this 11-mile long crevice in the land.
Figure 2–8: Font’s Point, Anza-Borrego Desert
The badlands of the Anza-Borrego Desert east of San Diego shimmered below storm clouds that were blowing in and blowing out simultaneously. It was a striking landscape and cloudscape, yet it was strangely softened by the pastel colors that dominated the scene.
When exposing any negative or digital capture you have to concentrate on the main subject matter and the relationships in your composition, which is entirely obvious. What seems so counterintuitive to beginning photographers, and to many intermediate and advanced photographers as well, is that the “unimportant” areas of the image are just as critical. I’ve found that so often when I try to photograph the landscape—particularly when I’m not out in an undisturbed wilderness area—there are inevitable distractions or undesirable objects lurking somewhere within the frame I’ve chosen. Somehow, I must eliminate those distractions.
Consider how you would feel about Ansel Adams’s famous photograph Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico (figure 2–9) if there were a bulldozer in the lower left corner. That would probably be enough to kill the photograph for you. The rest of it is great, but that distraction, taking up no more than one percent of the entire image, is deadly. If something that small can ruin a photograph as wonderful as Ansel’s iconic image, it’s a certainty that equally undesirable intrusions into your images will ruin them as well. Therefore, you have no choice but to eliminate that distraction.
Sometimes you can literally remove that distraction yourself. Maybe it’s the small branch of a nearby tree intruding into the edge of your image, or a blade of grass at the base of that tree that can be bent out of the way or pulled out. Maybe it’s a strange wrinkle on a portrait subject’s sleeve that can be cleared away. As previously stated, sometimes moving the camera to a slightly different position—maybe a bit to the left or right—is enough to put the distraction behind something in the foreground or middle ground without compromising the composition. But what happens if you can’t remove the distraction from the scene and still maintain the good compositional relationships?
The next option to consider is whether or not the object can be removed during the printing or finishing. Using traditional methodology, I’ve sometimes been able to remove an unwanted object by carefully drawing on the negative with pencil to effectively remove that object from the negative, or by spotting directly on the print to remove the unwanted object at that stage. Sometimes I’ve worked partly on the negative and partly on the print to eradicate an unwanted distraction.
This is where digital technology offers the best solution: the clone stamp tool from Photoshop or its equivalents in other applications. Oh, how I wish that that tool were available in traditional photography. At times it would be invaluable just to remove dust specks or spots on the negative that appear as black spots on the print, and that can only be removed by etching the surface of the print. With the clone stamp tool, you can replace a lot of distractions with a similar color or tone drawn from a nearby area. In some cases you can even use the tool to fill in empty areas, such as an absence of foliage in a portion of a tree where a bright sky peeks through. Here you may be able to copy a section of foliage from another part of the tree and plunk it into that empty space without it being noticed, even upon close inspection.
Figure 2–9: Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941 Photograph by Ansel Adams.
© 2013 The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust.
Photographed seconds before the sun set, this iconic image has captivated viewers for over 60 years. It draws us in and holds us there. Yet it is a dramatic departure from reality, and a dramatic departure from the early printing of the same negative. Years after making the exposure, Ansel intensified the lower portion of the negative, giving the foreground, church, and cemetery more life and brilliance. He burned (darkened) the sky to total blackness, obscuring the clouds above the moon that were visible in earlier printings. He lightened the ground, which in earlier printings was darker than the sky and clouds. In essence, the photograph that has become an icon bears little resemblance to the scene Ansel photographed. It is, to be sure, a dramatic abstraction and personal expression of how he felt, at least in retrospect, but it’s not meant to be reality. Yet most viewers worldwide view it as reality, as if he was simply “in the right place at the right time.” It turns out that “the right time” never occurred; it was created.
The clone stamp tool is a fabulous tool. But it can also be a double-edged sword. I have noticed that digital photographers are relying on that tool more and more, and are not taking the time to look for distractions within the frame before exposure. This promotes sloppy seeing from the start. Yes, you may be able to remove distractions later in the process, but it helps to be aware of them from the beginning so that you can factor that requirement into your complete strategy for producing the final image. The availability of digital tools like the clone stamp tool often make people think that virtually anything can be fixed later in Photoshop or another application. Some people feel they can even change the lighting later in the process, which you really can’t do.
While I wish the equivalent of a clone stamp tool or some other “fixit” tool that could be applied to an image at a later stage were available in traditional photography, the fact that such tools don’t exist forces me to look more carefully at the scene. I am convinced that this extra-careful looking—even if done quickly—has improved my ability to see and understand a scene more deeply.
The reason I stress the need to carefully look from the start (aside from Yogi Berra’s wonderful statement that “you can see a lot just by looking”) is that it strengthens your composition. I see photography students who have become oblivious to bothersome elements in a scene because they feel they can rely on fixit tools or apps to rectify the problem. But this thinking produces a second problem: they fail to see the distractions in the final image. I have learned over time that it’s usually the insignificant things within the rectangle of your image that destroy the photograph, not the main points of interest. Most photographers are so involved with the main points of interest that they ignore the backgrounds, the image edges or corners, or anything of non-importance that can pull the viewer’s eye away from those primary points of interest. You have to see the distractions right from the beginning, and do whatever you can as early in the process as possible to avoid them, including devising a method for removing them at the appropriate point in the process.
The discipline of using film, and particularly large format film, is one that every serious photographer should avail themselves of. It sharpens your observation and seeing. With film you have to look carefully—even if conditions warrant speed—to see if the prime subject matter works compositionally with the other elements in the image. You have to see if the light is working to your benefit. You have to look for distractions more carefully. You have to do this because you can’t quickly review the image and delete it. Once exposed on film, it’s permanent (figure 2–10).
Too often it seems that when shooting digitally, the photographer is thinking something like, “beautiful tree...click,” or “pretty face...click,” or “crashing surf...click,” without seeing the light, the other elements within the frame, or the moment when the action is at it’s height. There is clearly a higher skill level that is required to capture the “decisive moment” (think Henri Cartier-Bresson) in a single exposure than there is to go through a virtual moving-picture set of frames to single out the best image among many. I believe that film forces a type of discipline and keen observational skills on a photographer that digital does not. I consider that level of discipline to be invaluable. I’m convinced that whether your specialty is street photography, landscape, sports, architectural, portraits, or anything else you can think of, it’s better to start with a strong sense of discipline, rather than develop a habit of making an exposure too rapidly and then deleting it immediately upon a second glance.
Figure 2–10: Liquid Land, Coyote Buttes
In an area at the Arizona/Utah border often referred to as “The Wave” I photographed the undulating, flowing sandstone, which almost seemed to be moving rhythmically beneath my feet. It was a cloudy day, so I had none of the problems associated with bright sunlight and deep shadows, which could have interrupted the flowing forms. Soft light was perfect for my intent, which was to bring out the remarkable fluidity of a landscape that seems unearthly even as you stand within it.
Some readers may think that I’m overemphasizing this issue, beating a dead horse, if you will. I’m not. It really can’t be overemphasized. If you want to improve your seeing you have to do it right from the beginning. If you can proceed with the knowledge that you’re already aware of the pitfalls and distractions within the scene—and even better, if you’ve already avoided or mitigated them—your images will improve markedly. By incorporating that level of discipline into your thinking, your images become stronger because you instinctively see things at the start that you wouldn’t otherwise see. You may have read research that shows that people working on fast-moving computer games become better at quick reactions to unexpected situations while driving. This is much the same thing; the more it becomes part of you, the more your imagery improves from the very start.
I credit a great deal of my own seeing to working with a view camera. Even when I use my digital camera, I seem unable to just snap away with the thought that I’ll look for the good frames later. View camera work has instilled a sense of discipline in me that pervades all of my photographic work. I have heard the same thing from others who have worked with view cameras, even those who now shoot only digitally. They all say that the view camera work helped their seeing, their sense of discipline, and their entire approach to digital work. Interestingly, I have heard from those who have made the switch from digital to traditional work that the change forced them to see more carefully, and therefore their seeing has improved. It leads me to believe that some grounding in traditional photographic processes—and especially some use of a large format camera—has lasting beneficial effects in honing one’s seeing.
This corresponds to the type of careful seeing and discipline that Pablo Picasso’s father forced on him as a youth when he showed that he wanted to be a painter. The elder Picasso had him paint pigeon feet to look realistic. Pablo did it over and over and over, more than 100 times, until his father felt satisfied that he was seeing and translating the imagery correctly. At that point, Pablo’s father allowed him to proceed. You wouldn’t think that a guy who did cubist paintings and so much more would need that type of discipline, but he went through it. He could have painted anything in a realistic manner, but he went on to create new paths, producing a lifetime of art that ranks with the very best. It’s that discipline that I feel many photographers lack today.
For digital shooters, it could be helpful to spend a couple of hours every month or two shooting with film, as a sort of training regimen for careful planning and seeing. If you don’t already have a film camera, you can often find inexpensive, used ones at local camera shops or online. A 35mm camera would be sufficient; 35mm film can be purchased at virtually any camera outlet. You can have the film processed at a lab or process it yourself. The objective here is not to learn film processing, but to learn the discipline needed to more carefully and objectively look at a scene—without the instant feedback you’re used to getting with a digital camera, and have become dependent upon—so that you understand the concept of looking, seeing, and analyzing more clearly.
Let’s go back to Ansel Adams’s Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico for a moment. Would he have made that photograph if a bulldozer had been there in the lower left corner? Perhaps. Maybe he could have aimed the camera slightly to the right to eliminate the bulldozer, and still produced an equally powerful image. Maybe he could have simply cropped it out. Maybe he could have tried spotting it out later. If digital processes had been available to him, there would have been no hesitation. He could have made exactly the same composition and cloned it out. That would have been the simplest solution.
Figure 2–11: In Peekaboo Canyon
Although this image was made with a 4×5 camera, it was placed on the ground rather than a tripod, making it difficult to focus and tricky to prevent the camera from swiveling as I put the film holder into it.
I print the image small—about 6×8 inches—even though it is quite sharp. For me, the upper corners work well in the small size, but would turn into large, dark, boring areas in a large image.
I’ll guarantee this much: if I had been Ansel Adams and had digital tools at my command, I wouldn’t have hesitated to make that photograph.
I also feel that print size is closely related to compositional elements in creating the final feel of an image. I generally produce 16×20-inch prints for display. Sometimes, assuming all the technical issues fall into place (e.g., sufficient sharpness and smoothness of grain), I can print some of those images even larger, up to 20×24, 24×30, or even 30×40. But sometimes I print images at smaller sizes, no larger than 11×14, 8×10, or 5×7. Why? What are the considerations for making a print 16×20 or larger, or as small as 5×7?
Figure 2–12: Road to Monument Valley
Despite being a vast landscape, the image is printed in a small size because I feel that the dark sagebrush expanses on either side of the road would be oppressively ponderous in a large image. My decision to make a print large or small is independent of the size of the scene in front of the camera. Instead, it’s purely a function of visual considerations of the final image.
Figure 2–13: False Solomon’s Seal
The delicacy of the False Solomon’s Seal, its stem, its narrow leaves, and the surrounding leaves from a different plant pushed me toward making this a small print—little more than 5×7 inches. In a larger size, everything seems overbearing to me, and the dark, out-of-focus leaves in the background, which seem immaterial in the small size, become bothersome distractions in a larger image.
Of course, an overriding consideration would be technical issues. For example, an image that I feel requires extreme sharpness may appear sufficiently sharp at one of the smaller sizes, but is unsharp at 16×20 or larger. Another consideration would be the size of an area with low tonal variation. It may be quite acceptable in a 5×7 image, but it becomes boring or oppressive in a larger size (figures 2–11 and 2–12). Sometimes, the image may hold up technically in every way, but I simply don’t want a large image because it negates the delicacy of the feeling I want to convey (figures 2–13 and 2–14).
The major considerations in my decision to make figures 2–13 and 2–14 in smaller sizes can be better explained by allegory to music, particularly the classical music I’m drawn to. I feel that some pieces of music are specifically composed for a full symphony orchestra, while others are composed for a string quartet. I want to hear Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 played by a full orchestra, but not by a string quartet. It simply wouldn’t work for a string quartet; it would sound thin. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to hear a piece written for a string quartet played by a symphony orchestra. It’s delicacy and intimacy would be smothered by 100 musicians. Similarly, I feel that some images work best as a large, 16×20-inch image or larger, and some work best as an 11×14-inch image or smaller.
As I’ve already stated, photography is a non-verbal form of communication between the photographer and the viewer. If you have nothing to say, nobody is interested in listening. Making meaningless photographs is right on par with producing meaningless sounds. Sure, you can take pictures of a family gathering or club party and pass them around to family or club members who will enjoy them, but those photographs will probably have little meaning to anyone outside of the family or your group of friends.
So if you want to say something that will appeal to a wider audience, it’s good to know what you’re trying to say. Just as great speakers must know what they’re trying to communicate verbally, great photographers must understand what they’re trying to communicate visually. This isn’t exactly rocket science, but in many ways it may be just as difficult. Trying to understand and articulate what you want to communicate visually is not an easy task. But if you can come close to doing so, your images will undoubtedly improve.
When determining whether you are successful in communicating your message, it helps a lot to get periodic feedback from someone who knows something about visual imagery. Friends and family members can and will comment on your photographs, but they’ll be especially kind, largely because you’re part of the group or family, and also because they may understand little about the elements of photography. You need feedback that’s truthful and insightful. A good college-level class or a good workshop can be very valuable in this respect. That last recommendation may sound utterly self-serving, since I conduct photography workshops, but I have also attended one as a student—the two-week Ansel Adams workshop in 1970—so I know from both sides of the fence just how valuable some knowledgeable, intelligent feedback can be.
This raises a very interesting philosophical question: Should you always go along with the recommendations and critiques of the “experts” reviewing your work? Let’s face it, if van Gogh had listened to his critics, his marvelous paintings would never have been produced. Monet, too, was criticized mercilessly throughout the first several decades of his career. In response to my first major photography exhibit, a critic from the Los Angeles Times referred to my images as third-rate Ansel Adams attempts, and specifically pointed to my most popular image, Basin Mountain, Approaching Storm, as the quintessential example of the shallowness of my work. Six years later, in a critique of another exhibit of mine, the same critic wrote about the power of my work, and pointed to the very same image as an example of that power (figure 2–15).
The initial negative criticism hit me like a ton of bricks. I was devastated and I didn’t even want to look at the photograph. However, it sold multiple times during the exhibit, forcing me to to print it over and over and over to fulfill the many orders. Somewhere along the way, while inspecting one of the prints in the darkroom, I suddenly came to grips with the issue, realizing that I really loved the image and I didn’t give a damn what the guy said about it. I’ve continued to love it and show it ever since. I’ll stop showing it only when I get tired of it.
The answer to the question of whether you should go along with what a reviewer recommends is “sometimes yes, sometimes no.” You know what your goals are. A reviewer may or may not understand your goals or recognize your message as you want them to. It’s up to you to determine whether that reviewer is pointing out salient defects in the work that you can strengthen, or if the reviewer is just plain wrong.
That’s exactly what I tell students in the image review sessions at my workshops: we’re giving you ideas and suggestions about the imagery (“we” being the other students and the instructors). You’ll remember every one of them because you’re on high alert when your work is being reviewed. I’ve never seen a student fall asleep while his work was being reviewed. So, now you have a set of ideas that you can evaluate when the real critique takes place, which is when you take your images back home and review them yourself. It is up to you to decide if one of your images needs to be altered in some way, is quite effective just as presented, or really belongs on the scrap heap. Since you know your goals, you’ll decide which suggestions to discard, which to accept, and which to accept in part.
Of course, if you are going to convey emotion, you have to be in tune with your own emotions and those you want to express. It’s generally useless to make a photograph with the hope that someday it will say something, but it’s not impossible. I have found many years after creating an exposure that the photograph suddenly means something to me, something that I had overlooked over the years. Maybe I was ahead of myself when making the exposure, perhaps feeling something deep inside that I didn’t know how to express, and now I’ve finally caught up with those feelings. So I never dismiss those possibilities. As a result, I’ve never thrown out a negative that seemed useless (except for a few that were physically damaged and impossible to print), knowing that someday in the future, all of it or a cropped portion of it may suddenly strike me as quite worthy of printing.
Figure 2–14: Grass and Juniper Wood
The graceful delicacy of the strange Blue Gramma Grass with its full circle of seeds at the top captivated me. Usually the top forms a crescent, but the complete circle of this blade made it unusual and irresistible. I found it in Northern Arizona, and then found the piece of juniper wood with a narrow cleft in it a few steps away, providing a lovely stand for the blade of grass. I photographed it against a black background, which was my focusing cloth (the cloth large-format photographers use to cover their head and camera to block out ambient light so that they can see the image in the ground glass clearly).
Although I have printed the image successfully at 11×14 inches, I prefer printing it about it at about 6×8 inches to better preserve the delicacy of the grass.
Figure 2–15: Basin Mountain, Approaching Storm
Photographed in November 1973, as storm clouds gathered and built over the high peaks of the eastern Sierra crest. The ranch and fence just north of Bishop, California, provided the perfect foreground. A dramatic photograph, and a popular one—always my best-selling image—but critically derided...until things changed and it was critically applauded. Throughout the criticism and acclaim, I showed it, and I still do, because the image means a lot to me.
After I attended the Ansel Adams workshop, I was welcomed to contact Ansel at any time and schedule an appointment with him to review my work. I was so impressed that he offered this option to all students that I have always offered the same option to all of my workshop students. I visited him twice after the workshop. The second time I showed him not only a set of black-and-white mounted prints, but also a set of 35mm color slides. He reviewed both thoroughly and thoughtfully, and said to me, “If I were you, I’d stop shooting black-and-white.”
I immediately knew that I had to stop shooting color. This may seem like an odd reaction since Ansel had just recommended exactly the opposite. My thinking went like this: He was telling me that my color work was stronger than my black-and-white work. But I knew that I wanted to produce really good black-and-white images. So, in order to learn to see black and white more clearly, I had to put color aside. I had to concentrate on learning to see in black and white.
Up until that time, I was often shooting scenes in both color and black and white. I was making no distinction. Furthermore, I was doing professional architectural photography for several prominent architectural firms in the Los Angeles area, and they always wanted both color and black-and-white images of everything. That reinforced my basic procedure of photographing virtually everything both ways. Ansel effectively threw cold water in my face, saying that I was seeing color better than black and white. But my goal was to produce excellent black-and-white photographs. Hence, I had to remove the distraction of color from my shooting.
Ansel Adams made a recommendation; I feel that I took the appropriate action. I didn’t get upset by his words. I didn’t go into a depression. I acted. I heard what he said, and I did what I felt was needed to achieve my goals. I stopped shooting color for a year or so before starting again. Looking back, I think I did exactly the right thing. In the year or two following my decision, I greatly strengthened my ability to see in black and white. I created Basin Mountain, Approaching Storm six months after I stopped shooting color, and I believe my black-and-white seeing was already improving, and continued to improve beyond that.
I’ve never been upset with Ansel’s recommendation. I have to admit that the other thought that went through my mind when he made his suggestion was, “I’ll show you, you senile old bastard!” Yes, those exact words went through my mind. Of course, I always held him in the very highest esteem, and harbored no ill feelings whatsoever for his recommendation. It told me precisely what I needed to do, and I recognized that. In fact, I’ve always thanked Ansel for his words. Even then.
The thing that Ansel Adams didn’t do during that review was ask me my photographic goals. I probably would have said that I wanted to make outstanding black-and-white photographs, on the level of his or the Westons’. Perhaps if he had known about my desire to succeed and excel in black-and-white photography, he may have made a somewhat different recommendation. But either way, I think the end result would have been the same for me. This is the reason that I ask each student in my workshops what their goals are, and what they’re trying to say, before discussing their work. I don’t just look at the photographs they’ve produced, but I put those photographs in context with their goals. Only then do I feel I can make the most constructive suggestions.
So it’s important to get feedback about your work. You have to take the bad with the good, and combine this with your knowledge of your goals. Then you have to make sensible, adult decisions based on the comments you hear from others. Only you know your goals, so only you can take—or leave—the recommendations of others. If someone gives you a harsh assessment, don’t get upset; instead, take appropriate action. It turns out that both van Gogh and Monet ignored their critics, stubbornly proceeding with their vision, and today the art world is far richer for their stubbornness.
I was probably fortunate in that I understood my goals at that time, even if I was unable to articulate them. Most likely I couldn’t truly articulate them, or if I could, I probably would have been too hesitant or timid to say to the great Ansel Adams, “I want to produce black-and-white prints as good as—or better—than yours.” Yet, deep down, that was my goal.
If you’re struggling with finding your subject matter, you are probably far from articulating your goals. Latching onto your subject matter is obviously the most important first step. But if you have already found the subjects that really excite you, your next step is to try to articulate why those things turn you on.
Once you’ve reached that point, you can then go into the third step, which is how to improve on your imagery. How can you make your statement stronger? Can photography be part of a wider artistic vision that includes collages with other materials? Can it be meshed with other art forms—music, poetry, dance, etc.—as part of a wider creative effort? Can you create new and different forms of imagery that have never been seen before? And of course, can you get some sensible, constructive feedback that can help you achieve your desired goals, and perhaps even add some new wrinkles to your ideas that you hadn’t thought of yourself?
I strongly recommend seeking opinions from others. The more competent the opinion-giver, the better. But you still have to fall back on your goals, once you understand them. You have to get the feedback, but process it for your purposes. You can’t just blindly follow the advice of the critic. I didn’t when Ansel recommended that I quit taking black-and-white images. I reacted to his advice based on my goals. You have to be true to yourself and your goals.
Now, let’s turn back to the exercise that I recommended at the beginning of this chapter, in which I had you list your favorite photographers. If you haven’t written them down yet, along with a sentence or two about why each is on your list, please do so now before reading further. Okay, you now have your list written down. Save it. Your list of favorite photographers and the reasons for your choices will likely point toward your own photographic interests.
Why did you choose these photographers? Obviously you like their work, which usually means you also enjoy their chosen subject matter. You probably like how they deal with that subject matter from a technical point of view, whether it’s the brilliant colors or the soft subdued colors; the high or low contrasts; the dark, mysterious tones or the light, optimistic tonalities; the heart-wrenching scenes or the scenes of ecstasy. Those photographers’ images have special appeal to you for a reason, and I’ll bet those reasons closely align with your own interests.
My two favorite photographers are Ansel Adams and Brett Weston. My reasons for both have already been laid out: Adams for the way he saw the landscape in such powerful terms, and Weston for his fantastic abstract images. Both are part of my own output. Beyond these two giants, there is a large group of photographers whose work I am attracted to for a variety of reasons, but none of them rank up there on the same level as Adams and Weston.
Adams’s work drew me in and helped peak my interest in landscape photography, but I must admit I wasn’t connecting the dots very well. I wasn’t analyzing why his work struck me as being stronger than that of other photographers. I wasn’t focussing on his use of light or weather conditions or anything else. I simply liked it. Only later, starting with his two-week workshop that I attended in 1970, and later that year when I quit my job and turned to photography professionally, did I begin to understand why his work struck me as being so wonderful.
With Brett Weston, it was quite different. I was already pushing at the door of abstraction when I saw a number of his photographs in his home. Brett’s work opened that door wide for me. In essence, he made abstraction legal for me. So he’s on my list with Ansel because I love the work of both photographers, and they both influenced my work in a very direct way.
Look at your list once more too see if the work of the photographers you’ve chosen provides the inspiration and ideas for your own.
