Postcards from the Creative Journey

562 There Is No Perfection In Addition; More From Harvey Penick.

Another thought from Mr. Penick that has stayed with me for decades. It’s the title; perfection is achieved by subtraction, not addition. Removing the superfluous is the route to perfection. I guess in the most elemental form, a stone sculptor personifies this. Stone is removed until the sculpture is revealed. Haiku uses only seventeen syllables. There is no room for clutter there, too. Only the essential words to convey the poet’s message.

So the same should be for a photograph. Simple is always better. Visual clutter gets in the way of the message you are sending. Strive for simplicity in composition, restraint in editing and brevity in writing.

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Another partial wreath from Duke of Gloucester Street, in Williamsburg, Virginia. In keeping with the blog theme, this is only a quarter wreath. 

561 Concentrating or Thinking?

When I go out to photograph there is no other motivation than to capture the beauty that appears before me. There is incredible joy and happiness that comes from finding something beautiful and capturing its image with my camera.

There is no deep, thoughtful preparation and mystical revelation in this act. It is purely satisfaction of the desire to be in the presence of and record my reaction to this situation.

There is no intellectual rigor in this activity. In fact, nothing could be further from that. It is strictly instinctual, moving around, setting the edges of the photograph and making sure I don’t “muck it up.”

A long time ago I read Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book of Golf Instruction. A sage bit of advice from Harvey was that while on the golf course, “concentration is good, thinking is disastrous.” The same goes for photography. Think about what you want to do before you pick up the camera, once you pick up the camera, concentrate on what is in front of you.

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Christmas decorations on Duke of Gloucester Street in Colonial Williamsburg. No neon, lasers, on giant snow globes. Natural items that would have been available in the 1770s.

560 How Quickly We Acclimate

As part of a photo workshop I used my iPad mini’s camera as a teaching aid to illustrate suggested compositions during field sessions. That part worked very well.

Well, here’s what didn’t work well. Some of my teaching examples were actually recorded on the iPad’s camera roll. Holy Moley did those exposures get deleted quickly once I got home. I don’t think I ever saw as much camera shake, blurs and out of focus images since I had my Kodak Instamatic almost fifty years ago. It was readily apparent I have become dependent on my Panasonic’s dual image stabilization.

Something I didn’t have a few years ago is now a necessity. We acclimate quickly to the new technology and the changing looks of photographs. Earlier this year, the Ansel Adams gelatin silver prints at the NCMA looked soft and flat because we are now used to the sharpness and contrast of digital prints. Now I have to have dual image stabilization to keep my hand held photographs sharp.

I’m now a participant in a battle between advancing technology and aging. As long as the technology can advance faster than my aging I should be OK.

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Cloud Chamber, NCMA Museum Park. This is a functioning camera obscura created in the NCMA Museum Park, created by artist Chris Drury.

559 The Second Hurdle

Photographers have two hurdles to overcome when making a photograph. The first is technical. Can one make a technically competent photograph? With the sophisticated camera  and lens technology available to us, technically perfect photographic images are almost guaranteed every time we press the shutter release. We see a scene that captivates us and we respond viscerally, subconsciously and without a lot of examination record what we saw. The camera handles the technical details of focus, exposure and stabilization automagically.

The second (and sometimes insurmountable) second hurdle is to persuade the audience to be reminded of an experience of their own by looking at a group of photographs and  reading some words. This is the tough part of creating art. Trying to connect to the audience's experiences or thoughts to establish a common bond through the photographs and text.

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Back to my roots with the Grand Landscape, this time it’s Smith Rocks in Central Oregon. A very popular place for rock climbing there are usually lots of climbers on the rock faces. One of the things we noticed during this year’s Photo Safari is scenes of natural wonder are now much more regulated (that means fenced off or paved over) than they were thirty years ago.

558 Wish I Had Thought of That Sooner

Thinking a bit before photographing is a really good thing. Not just about a single photograph, but about a single situation. The thought to be thunk was “What am I going to do with the photographs of what is front of me?” Knowing what you are supposed to do before you do it makes life so much easier when you actually wind up doing something with your photographs.

Here’s the inspiration for this thought (or lack of thought), when Brooks Jensen and I began photographing the Erickson Airplane Collection, Brooks had a project in mind and after a few minutes of thought knew exactly what he was going to do. He then went out and did it. His little project using the airplanes was a unique view of the airplanes and the women who riveted them together.

I was in love with the visual experience of the airplanes and began photographing the airplanes, making portraits, capturing details, looking for the abstract details and trying my best to isolate each airplane in a crowded airplane hangar. I was worried about individual images, not an overall theme.

While putting a project together after the fact, I discovered I didn’t have all the images I really wanted to complete my story.

The lesson learned is to begin thinking before beginning to photograph.

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On the outskirts of Madras, Oregon we passed a sign for the Erickson Airplane Collection. The following day we decided to stop in and take a look. We spent the day photographing there. This abstract design is the underside of a North American P-51 Mustang.

557 Don’t Show Me Your Camera

A few weeks ago I attended the annual Hart Square Festival, an absolutely wonderful event for those of us that are very interested in creating art based on history and historic preservation. While standing in queue waiting for opening time, I was discussing photography with one of the volunteers. We were discussing the things he liked to photograph, how his family was supporting his efforts and his plans to continue with photography in college.

Behind us, a couple of obvious photo buddies were loudly discussing the relative merits of their full frame DSLRs, their lenses, all the gear they were carrying and how they planned to employ every bit of it during the day’s shoot.

I noticed the young man looking over my shoulder at the photo buddies. I caught his attention and said to him, “Don’t show me your camera, show me your photographs.” He nodded and smiled. He is a kindred spirit, a person that knows the photograph matters more than the equipment which captured the image.

We all like good equipment. While you should find and use the best equipment you can afford, remember this; good equipment makes you better because it does a better job of showing your mistakes. 

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My project from last year’s Hart Square festival is “Hand Made.” This year I continued to seek out the hands at the festival. This fellow hand carved cooking spoons from wood.

556 Convenient Light

Convenient Light is the light that shines any time other than the “golden hours.” I love Convenient Light because I can sleep a few more hours and it’s not crowded because those “golden hour photographers” aren’t around. After all, isn’t it our job as photographers to look more closely at the world around us and see opportunities where others do not? At those times we look for the opportunities other photographers choose not to pursue.

I am aware the shadows may be different during the hours when the sun is high in the sky, but it is at those times we photographers just have to look a little bit more carefully at how light strikes what we are photographing.

Right now, in the Northern Hemisphere we are approaching the season of Convenient Light. Winter light is always directional and the shadows are always long because the sun is lower in the sky. Even in the middle of the day the light will cast some nice shadows. Here in North Carolina, the winters are not that severe, so we have great light and great weather for most of the day. It’s a great time to create some photographs.

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Double Cabin Lake,  Ochoco National Forest

The EXIF data says this image was captured at 2:00:25 PDT, so it the light here was pretty convenient I would say. Another image from this year's photo safari where we were wandering about Central Oregon scouting locations, enjoying the day and sometimes photographing. 

555 Inconvenient Light

Light is a constant in our lives. It rises in the east and sets in the west. It is there all the time, even when filtered or obscured by clouds.

But it's the light at the edges of the day, the "golden hours;" when the light has the most color, the most direction and is most gentle on the land. We seek it out and plan our photography around these hours of optimum illumination. Photographic magic can happen during those times. 

I prefer the hours just before sunset because it is a fitting way to end a day of photography. Many times I spent watching a sunset with camera in hand enjoying the experience. Why, I've even given the Almighty a standing ovation for a particularly beautiful end to a day. While He does not need our encouragement, I don't feel it too presumptuous to offer thanks for a job well done. After the sun has gone for the day, a dinner is quite welcome because (as your stomach will remind you) you have photographed right on through the cocktail AND dinner hour. We take solace in the fact that while hunger is temporary, our artistic creations are timeless. It is a mild inconvenience for artistic achievement. 

Sunrises are particularly inconvenient because you need to be in position to photograph a sunrise, you need to be there before the sunrise happens. That means you are awake at zero dark thirty and must be functioning on both physical and artistic levels driving on the way to some remote spot in the dark. This requires the consumption of prodigious amounts of caffeinated beverages in preparation for the event. We embrace the inconvenience (reluctantly) because we must create.

A final thought. Henri Cartier Bresson talks of the decisive moment, that time when everything comes together in the viewfinder of a camera. As a street photographer, HCB was the acknowledged master of capturing that moment. There are also decisive moments at the edges of the day and we must be aware of them and capture them with our cameras. Sunrises and sunsets are momentary events and we must pay close attention to them lest they pass us by. How wonderful they are when we do capture them with our memory as well as our cameras.

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Moonrise, Newsome Creek, near Post, Oregon.

It was early evening when we were coming back from Steens Mountain after a wonderful day of photography. We had seen nothing but blank blue skies all week. Everyone but photographers loves cloudless days because nothing is more boring in a landscape photograph than a blank sky.  These were the first clouds we had seen in many days and they almost begged us to photograph them.  We stopped several times to make photographs of the clouds in a place where there is more sky than anything else. More than anything else except sagebrush, maybe. 

554 More on Lightning Bugs

You might want to read the first post on Lightning Bugs first. The following might make more sense if you do. 

If you exercise your photographic muscles every day one of two things will happen. You may get better at making photographs. This is what you want to happen. But, there is no guarantee you will get better. Because the other thing no one wants to hear about is that after a lot of work, some people don’t progress and then they quit in frustration.

This used to happen a lot with film based photography because of the demanding technical requirements. It took a great deal of work and commitment to learn darkroom processing. It took a real commitment and practice to gain (and maintain) a level of competency in developing and printing film and prints. Many people gave up photography because of the difficulty of doing this.

The frustration level with photographic technology and equipment has decreased dramatically because digital photography is orders of magnitude easier than analog photography. With “auto everything” we can create digital photographs that are technically acceptable almost without fail. It’s tough to have a technical failure with a digital camera.

The big difference between quitting analog and digital photography lies in how soon the practitioner realizes what the photographs are about is important. Because the analog photographer had huge technical and handicraft issues to surmount to create viable artwork, they could spend years attempting to perfect their skills without worrying about what their photographs were communicating. With digital photography the technical issues are very quickly dealt with and the realization that communication is paramount comes much quicker. It is the point where the photographer realizes that the art is more important than the artifact is where the decision to continue or not happens.

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The Art Institute of Chicago is a fantastic place to visit. We only had a few hours to devote to this huge place before we had to go to a friend's wedding. We punched all the tickets for the great paintings and sculptures (and photographs, lots of photographs) in the few hours we were there. We took a few moments to catch our breath and just absorb the scale of the building when this wonderful photograph appeared before me. Out came the iPhone and a photograph was made. 

553 Lessons Learned from Photo Safari XXXII

There are always things one learns while out photographing in the field. As a public service to the world of internet savvy photographers, I offer the following factoids established during Photo Safari XXXII.

1. On the topic of Henry Weinhard’s Private Reserve beer:
   1. Blitz Weinhard Brewing, Milwaukee, Wisconsin just does not sound right
   2. Can a premium beer be sold for $8.88 per 18 pack?
   3. My homebrew clone of HWPR Beer is pretty darn close to the real thing.
2. It’s tough to find good restaurants in small, rural towns. It’s tough to find even acceptable restaurants. I think this is why franchises are very popular in small towns. It provides a recognized level of quality. Delivering on that quality is yet another story.
3. If you expect to do more than chimp your EVF to sort out your images while on the road, having the right cables is of primary importance aspect of using digital cameras on the road. In other words, getting images off the memory card is the start of the whole process. If you can’t do that, you can’t work while on the road.
4. Fast WiFi in small town hotels is a myth. Personal Hotspots are much more reliable.
5. Adobe has all sorts of options for using their software on the road. The only warning is that you have to have a strong internet connection to make any of it work.
6. Woe unto you if you have a question on a Lightroom product. Who designed the architecture and kewording of AdobeLightroom help? The only answer I can ever find is, “Yes, we can answer your question, but not with the version of Lightroom you are using.”
7. Souvenirs? I brought home a couple of pounds of Eastern Oregon dust – mostly in my sinuses.
8. Spending accumulated coins is just like getting something for free. It doesn’t feel like you are spending any “real” money when you buy something with coins.
9. Photo technical discussions should be relatively short and fact based with decisive answers. They are usually not because everybody wants to make one little change to an assumption or a condition to make their opinion the unassailable internet truth.
10. YouTube has lots of talking heads making pronouncements on new cameras. Have you ever seen any of the photographs they made by the people who deliver pronouncements on these cameras? Me neither.
11. Levi’s are city jeans, Carhart jeans are worn by people that actually have to work.
12. One really must do a couple of things each morning. One is to make sure that your lenses are clean. If your camera renumbers files, do that every morning, too. That way each day's photos live in their own little folder and they will be easier to sort out when you get home. 

This post concludes the blog entries for Photo Safari XXXII. We don't know where we'll be next year, but it will be a fun time for sure. 

Next week I'll resume the usual blogging pattern and topics. 

Photo Safari XXXII Day 11, A Day in the Garden

We made it to the Japanese Garden in Portland just after noon. We had lunch and then spent the next four hours photographing Portland’s Japanese Garden. There is no shortage of subject matter there and the question to be answered is how to frame the objects in front of the camera. When photographing a place such is this the photographer is the last in a line of artists. The designers, architects, constructors, gardeners and the maintenance people have all made their art well in advance of the photographer’s arrival. It is our job to do homage and honor these people through our photography and  not to muck it up the beauty with some poorly selected compositions.

 

The Garden was crowded because it was a lovely day and rain was predicted for later in the week. In Portland, you have to take advantage of sunny days because the perma-rain will soon be here. Just about everyone in the Garden had a camera, be it a smartphone, point and shoot or a big bodied DSLR. Everyone was enjoying the beauty around them and felt it necessary to capture the beauty around them. While we were all restricted to the walking paths and the same vantage points, we did not make the same images. Portland’s Japanese Garden clearly demonstrates what one sees, not the device used to capture the image is the most important part of the creative process.

 

This was a fitting end to Photo Safari XXXII, starting with the wild, rambling and unstructured land of Eastern Oregon and finishing with the perfectly laid out, compact and populated landscape of the Japanese Garden.

Photo Safari XXXII Day 10, A Day Without Memories

There days and then there are days. This one was the latter (see yesterday’s post). We took off from Prineville to explore the Maury Mountains. It was an absolutely beautiful day, a comfortable temperature, sunny skies and the usual low humidity - and the craic was good. It seems, though, I can’t remember anything being memorable about this day. It seemed like we drove a lot, saw a lot, but not much of it was truly remarkable.

Photography by Wandering Around® is like that. Lots of driving, lots of looking, lots of trying to figure out just where you’ve been and where you’re going and spending a lot of energy on travel and not much attention to photography. This is probably why we evolved our photo safari tactics to Destination Location Photography®. Less driving around time means more time for photography.

Maybe we are just getting jaded by the grand landscape and what is merely really good has been overshadowed by the great scenery we have experienced earlier in the safari. Maybe we are just taking the photography for granted and not paying attention to how much we created. Maybe we’re just (perish the thought) getting tired of photographing all the time. (Gasp. Heresy, heresy!)

Tomorrow morning we head back to Portland in the morning with the intention of photographing the Japanese Garden in the afternoon and we’ll have the traditional farewell sushi dinner. (After photographing a Japanese Garden why not have sushi?) Tuesday Brooks heads home, I spend a day with friends in Portland and this year’s safari is in the record books.