Photography and a spicy brain

Fun Fact I have started writing this a number of times, been distracted, and also rewritten a bunch of it a number of times - it’s still bad.

I enjoy taking photos (this has already upset a lot of people, as there is more to photography than pointing and shooting, and the preferred terms seems to be making photos, or making images). I think I have even made some good photos, some photos I am proud of.

One of the things I struggle the most with when taking photos is knowing what is a good subject or scene.

I think that’s why I enjoy (or fell into the habit of?) taking photos of birds so much, they are an easy subject to identify.

Within Without - James Turrell in the Skyspace Garden at National Gallery Australia, Canberra

Same with photographing bands. The subject is clearly defined, it’s also people and people are a fantastic subject to photograph, you might also get some great light to work with. You might also get some terrible light, but hopefully you enjoy the band either way 😁

Side Note including people in an image is a great way to add a sense of scale.

Skógafoss

The other thing I struggle with, and where I think my brain gets in the way of me, is defining context (this probably creates a feedback loop with the first thing - is this scene a thing?) Is there enough context in the scene? Does the subject need additional context?.

My brain loves context. I need all the context for all the things all the time.

Cape Shank - Ricoh GR IIIx + Ricoh Recipe Royal Supra

When I am looking at a scene I want to make sure I am capturing all of it. All of the context. All of the nuance. I am afraid of removing or cropping out anything that might be needed for context.

I look at photos, good photos, photos I like, and they have elements that are cut off on the edge of the frame. I know if I was trying to create an image like that I’d have tried to work out how go wider or include more in the frame so the elements weren’t cut off, and in turn, created a worse image. One that included too much stuff that didn’t need to be there.

Then comes the lighting. Letting blacks fade to black. Letting highlights blow out. The danger of ((modern digital cameras + modern digital editing software) × high dynamic range processing baked into phones) is flat neutral images with zero contrast.

18% grey across the whole scene.

Lightroom sliders 😒

It is all too easy to pull information out of the shadows. Is it needed in that particular photo? Do I need to provide that extra context in the scene, or is it distracting and taking away from the main subject?

I think I am getting better at leaving shadows alone, but the next step is learning when to add in some more shadow, take away some information or context that was previously there, in the pursuit of highlighting the subject.

Enlighten

Anyway, I have been falling down a very deep YouTube hole recently on the topic of photography. This is a good thing. Specifically film photography. I know I said I wasn’t going to turn into a film wanker, and I maintain I am not, even if I am enjoying the process even more.

That process and the practice of film photography tends to lead to a different sort of YouTube video (also a bunch of 4:3 videos?). There is much more of a focus on images than gear (though there are plenty of videos on gear, plenty, no, I don’t need another 35mm camera … ).

I think the shift in focus towards images comes from the process where someone will go out for a day (or three) and shoot a roll of film (or six) and they want to share and talk about it, but there there is still the whole process of developing and digitizing that slows the everything down, in a good way.

Autumn Leaves - Pentax Super Program, Pentax-FA 77mm 1.8 Limited, Kodak Portra 400

Side note: With scanning all these negatives I am absolutely loving the look of the tiny not pixel-perfect black board around the image. I think it adds context and says: ‘there is nothing outside this edge, this is where the image stops, nothing was cropped or removed from here’.

Side note: gear is a useful tool for achieving an outcome. I can’t take a photo of a fairywren way off in the distance with a 28mm lens. Likewise, I can’t take a 600mm lens to gig at the pub. But without knowing what photo you are trying to make (vision is a strong term, but I think that is what others would say) all the gear in the world won’t make a good picture.

Wait, this paragraph wasn’t a side note at all! Silly, spicy brain.

Early Autumn Leaves - Olympus 35RC, Kodak Gold

Some of the photographers that have found their way into my YouTube algorithm include:

• grainydays - who when summarising a roll of film will comment on the number of keepers (good photos), and the number of portfolio worthy photos, sometime there are none and that is OK. Also, the dry sense of humour and understated delivery are very much my thing.

• Karin Majoka - I really enjoyed the series of photo walks in Japan and Berlin Subway shot on Cinestill 800T - if only Cinestill wasn’t complete out of stock at the moment 😒

• Teo Crawford - the incredibly relaxing vibes of going for a chill walk while being read a relaxing and yet engaging story.

• guywithfilm - his video vlog of a family trip to WA from Singapore was fantastic. Coming from Singapore suburban Perth is quite a contrast and it was great to see how he saw it.

• Courtney Victoria - this was one of the first channel that broke through the algorithm with a real focus on images and not gear. I was genuinely inspired to go find some mushrooms. I have yet to find any mushrooms.

Coolart Homestead - Ricoh GR IIIx - Ricoh Recipe Royal Supra

(Yeah, I am still absolutely addicted to this look. I know the turquoise and orange thing was big a while a go and is now out of vouge again. I am clearly behind the times.)

That idea of vision and working out what scene is worth making a photo of is hard. This isn’t about abstract photos, or photos that focus on shapes and lines and colours. It does come back slightly to context and what can be ignored or removed from a frame. It also goes straight to trying to get out of my head when thinking about an image.

Not every photo needs to be, or will be, amazing, or even good. Not every photos belongs in a portfolio.

There is nothing wrong with a good photo you like.

That should be enough to define a scene or a subject.

I think I just need to get out of my head more, and make more photos.