Postcards from the Creative Journey

The Last Surprise, for Now, Maybe

Near John Day, Oregon

I don’t know if I enjoy photographing in the autumn because it’s a wonderful time of the year, or because I am used to photographing in the early autumn as a result of the photo safaris. The sun is no longer directly overhead and the heat of summer has given way to “shirt sleeve weather.”

We found this harvested field near John Day, Oregon and stopped because a large herd of deer (brilliantly lit by the afternoon sun right in front of the shaded hills) were grazing on the stubble. I madly rushed to get my view camera set up but, I was too late. Even walking deer are faster than a large format camera, so a photograph with nice herd of sunlit deer against the dark background of the hills was just not to be. The photograph I made was still a nice composition. When I got home and developed the negative, I notice a white mark in the upper left corner. This usually means the negative was damaged in processing and was useless. I made a proof print anyway and that was when I noticed the white crescent in the corner was the moon. The animals didn’t cooperate but the moon was there to surprise me.

I Didn’t Plan That, Either

Unruly Branches, storefront, Idaho City, Idaho

Many years ago (1986 according to my negative numbering system), I participated in a photography workshop in Idaho City, Idaho. The tiny town was a wonderful subject for many large format photographers. I spent a considerable amount of time in setting up a wonderful geometric arrangement of artifacts in a shop window. The rule in large format photography is to focus at the maximum aperture and then “stop down” to the proper aperture to expose the negative. I followed this rule but couldn’t see the ground glass clearly at f/32. The resulting surprise was two incredibly sharply focused branches along the left edge of the photograph. What was invisible at a large aperture was brought into focus when I stopped down to the desired aperture. At f/32 the ground glass was so dark I did not see the branch. Sometimes the surprises are good surprises. This time it wasn’t.

Maybe someday I might try to photoshop the obvious flaw with some less than obvious healing brush or content aware fill editing.

I Didn’t Plan That

The Ark, Unplanned self portrait

When I first arrive in North Carolina, I went looking for photography groups, hoping to find a group as dynamic and supportive as the Portland Photographer’s Forum. I found a group that met at Duke University and I attended a few meetings. While the group eventually folded, I fell in love with one of the old campus buildings. 

Ted Orland’s take on the Zone System was to “expose for secrets, develop for surprises.” This photograph developed as a surprise with me in the far right side of the negative. Photographing with old cameras and lenses is great for surprises because technically, old cameras are far less precise than current equipment. The visibility at the edge of the ground glass was so poor I had no idea I was actually in the photograph until I looked at the developed negative. It seemed to work as part of the photograph, so I considered the surprise a good one. 

Whys and Whats

Door, Peeling Paint in the Johnson Cottage, Cary, NC

We are all concerned about composing our photographs. Putting all the right pieces in the right places is of prime importance when creating a photograph. There is no substitute for seeing the photograph in the strongest way possible. While good composition is important to the photograph, I think there might be something more important than the subject.

It’s the “Why” of your photographic composition. Figuring out what the photograph is about should begin and end before thinking about composition. Why you are making a photograph will be the governing factor of what is included in the composition. Sometimes we spend a lot of time overthinking the composition without considering just why the photograph is being made in the first place. 

Tori at Fort Stevens

Tori at Fort Stevens

Family vacations are really not the best place to make Fine Art Photographs, but sometimes you get lucky and it does happen. We were giving my brother a tour of the Pacific Northwest (see post on selfies) and we stopped at one of my favorite photographic haunts, Fort Stevens at the mouth of the Columbia River. People think all sorts of things about this photograph because of the symbolism of a child, the stairs, menacing concrete structures and the smallness of the child in a huge space all exaggerated by the extreme wide angle lens.

My daughter started to run down the stairs to begin her exploration of the fort. When I saw what was going to happen I told her to stop because I needed to change to my 17 mm lens. Because I am a photographer, I moved her around a little bit to put here on the “right” stair, line her up with the shadows and extend her arms to touch each of the railings. A few frames later, she finished running down the stairs and began exploring the fort and generally having a good time.

Sometimes a photograph tells a story; sometimes a photograph lets the viewer make up their own story. Sometimes the two stories will agree.

And speaking of stories, the story of this blog began on Sunday, January 3, 2010. I have been creating weekly blog posts for five complete years. I haven’t run out of photographs and will try not to run out of interesting things to say. Thank you so much for looking at my photographs and reading what I have to say. Y’all come back, now and set a spell.