The Rules – Page 3 – Just another WordPress site

April 30, 2012

Rule 33: Check Your Settings

Sometimes I let enthusiasm get the best of me. Case in point: yesterday, I hit three cemeteries in one afternoon, ’cause, hey, I love a good cemetery. There was only one small issue: Well into shooting at the third cemetery, I realized that the shutter speed was suspiciously high, even taking into account the broad daylight on gray and stark white stones. Since the last time I’d used the camera was a couple of nights before to shoot a school play (no white stones, low light), I’d had my ISO on 1600 the whole time.

That doesn’t seem like a big deal at first, since 1600 is within acceptable limits as far as noise goes for my particular camera, and you’re not going to see too much noise in daylight anyway. When you stop to think about it, though, the higher ISO leads to loss of detail, which is hard enough to get sometimes when the light is harsh, and which is also a bad thing when you like your photos sharp.

So. Before you shoot, check your settings. During your shoot, check your settings. Oh, and by the way: after you shoot? Check your settings.

Taking a camera in and out of a camera bag can lead to things being inadvertently set to something other than what you would’ve wanted, especially if, like me, you’re all thumbs. All those buttons, knobs and dials are great when you need to set something on the fly, but it also means that it’s that many things that get poked, turned, or prodded unintentionally. Suddenly, you’re shooting on manual focus at an insanely low shutter speed with a wide-open aperture, when that wasn’t what you wanted at all.

The kicker is when it’s not even your fault. Sometimes, due to a camera’s firmware, changing one setting can lead to a cascade of other settings changing, as happens with mine when I go from JPG to RAW and back; all of a sudden, the camera decides that I’d like to shoot smaller, lower-quality JPGs, when I have other thoughts on the matter.

But then, sometimes you’ve nobody to blame but yourself. I haven’t yet had the chance to go over every last photo from today’s shoot. And if push comes to shove, I could go back to any of those locations and reshoot. But let’s face it: on one hand, that isn’t always going to be possible. Sometimes you only get one shot. On the other, even if and when you can go back, that’s taking time away from other places you could be exploring instead. Don’t do that to yourself. Make sure you’ve got your settings right the first time.

April 23, 2012

Rule 32: Don’t Take Unnecessary Photos

So you’re finally on your way to figuring out this whole photography thing. You already know you should have your camera with you; you’ve shot photos by the hundreds, if not the thousands, always working to hone your craft; and you’ve trained your eye to look for a photo opportunity in nearly everything you see. All well and good, right?

Maybe not.

Here’s the thing: there is such a thing as trying too hard. Mind you, I’m not talking about the effort that goes into getting the composition you want, or making sure your settings are the optimal ones for whatever you’re shooting — that’s time well spent. What I’m referring to instead is… well, trying to make chicken salad out of chicken shit. Sometimes, whether it’s because of the lighting, the weather, or even just the subject itself, there’s something in front of you, but there’s just no photograph there.

I understand that itch we all get, and the need to scratch it. You know the one I’m talking about; you’ve been walking through a location for what seems like hours, and you’ve yet to see a single thing worth photographing. Everything looks flat and dull, and before you know it, you start to feel a bit flat and dull yourself. Your shutter finger gets itchy, maybe your eye starts to twitch a little because it’s been away from the viewfinder for too long. You’d hate to spend a perfectly good day out with a perfectly good camera only to come home with an empty memory card. So you compromise. You settle on shots that, on a better day, you wouldn’t bother with, or you start trying to compose interesting shots of topsoil.

If you’re really struggling with the shot, to a point where it’s not simply a matter of getting the basics right (composition, lighting, settings, et cetera) as much as it is a nagging feeling that maybe you’ve got your subject wrong, listen to what your instinct is telling you. Let it go. Trying to find the right photo at the wrong time, or in the wrong place, is like trying to find an Eames chair at Wal-Mart. It probably isn’t going to happen, and if it does, it’s probably going to be a pale imitation of the real thing. There’s no shame in leaving the camera at your side, or putting it in its bag. Nor, for that matter, is there anything wrong with waiting ’til something comes along that’s really worthy of your, your camera’s, and your audience’s attention.

April 16, 2012

Rule 31: Smash Your Idols

Ringwood Buddha — If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. -- Lin Chi

I got to thinking recently about many religions’ prohibition against idol worship. Judaism and, by extension, Christianity both caution against idolatry (the Ten Commandments explicitly warn against graven images. Islam takes the prohibition so far that neither Allah nor Muhammad may even be depicted in art. What’s this got to do with photography? Well, hold on a second. I’m getting there.

The Buddha was famously supposed to have said to one of his disciples, “My teachings are like a finger pointing at the moon. Don’t mistake my finger for the moon.” Some photographers, unfortunately, engage in this sort of idolatry all the time.

Let’s start with the gear worshippers, shall we? Never mind that your average photographer wouldn’t think, even for a second, of waxing rhapsodic over a ratchet screwdriver, cordless drill, or even one of those little rubber thingies you can use when the lid on a jar of pickles is too tight. A good many photographers* get a little woozy when they talk about the gear they’ve had, have, or have yet to purchase. The virtues of bodies and lenses are debated as though their spec sheets were an arcane form of scripture.

Then there’s an even higher echelon of gear worship, wherein the penitent swears fealty to only a particular type of gear. One may “only” shoot with primes, or certain speedlight setups, or with the proper medium format back. All others are proscribed, and must be forsaken.

Then, of course, we have the photographic Calvinists. Digital, to this lot, is an abomination. To them, film is the only medium worthy of consideration by a “serious” photographer. Certain subsects will take this a step further, and insist that the sacrament of film must be placed in a Holga or other suitable plastic vessel, preferably with duct tape affixed to keep out the light leaks.

And lest we forget the fundamentalists of style. They know all the rules for their genre of choice, and they are thoroughly convinced that no matter what your intention, if you’re not doing it their way, you’re doing it wrong. Don’t think they’ll neglect to call you out on it, either.

Gear, ideas and techniques are belabored as if they’re fine wines, with the unspoken assumption a little too often being that these things aren’t what they are — tools — so much as objects of awe and veneration. If you’re going to focus on something, focus on the simple act of making a good photo. No more, no less. If you fall into one of the above categories, here’s a clue: you’re a photographer, not a freakin’ Gnostic. Get over your obsessions, get over the mistaken assumption that gear makes the man, and most of all, for the love of all that’s holy, get over yourself.

Ahem. Sorry, got a little carried away. Let’s circle back to the original point. All the talk of idols doesn’t just apply to worshipping objects in stone or wood. It also means the idolatry of our own ideas and fixations. This isn’t an altar call; I don’t expect my comments section to be flooded with sudden remorse over gear obsession, or the fact that you told someone on a street photography forum that they’ve violated the spirit of Bruce Gilden by not getting close enough to their subject to constitute adultery in 35 out of 50 states. All I’d like to suggest is that if your photography is a labor of love (and really, it ought to be), make sure that love’s going in the right direction.

*Mostly male photographers, to be fair.

April 2, 2012

Rule 29: Don’t Forget The Love

Once the amateur’s naive approach and humble willingness to learn fades away, the creative spirit of good photography dies with it. Every professional should remain always in his heart an amateur. – Alfred Eisenstaedt

Each of us has any number of reasons that we pick up a camera. Our skill level (absolute beginner or professional), frequency (every day, or infrequently enough that we have to ward off the dust bunnies with a machete), or ultimate motivation (that is to say, whether we expect to one day become rich off our efforts, or we don’t expect to ever see a penny) can all change over time, and sometimes over the course of a single day’s shooting. I’d like to speak to the motivation, however, because I’ve had times where mine hasn’t been “all there,” and I know I’m not the only one. What keeps us shooting, not only at the times when we’re up to our eyeballs in beauty, but also at those times when everything we see before us seems dull, not even worth a second look much less a frozen moment in time that we’ll want to return to again and again?

We need amateurs, or at the very least an amateur spirit. Let me get semantic about this for a second, since for once the semantics actually make a difference. Nowadays, lots of people use “amateur” more or less interchangeably with “beginner.”* Well, no. A beginner is just that; someone who’s just getting started. That covers some of your amateurs, but there are also amateurs whose work outshines that of any number of professionals.**

Why is that, and what can you learn from that kind of amateur? Well, let me explain by way of a bit more semantics. If, like me, you took Latin, you’ll recognize a Latin root in “amateur.” Time to dust off those verb declensions: amo, amas, amat… Got it yet?

Right. Whatever you do (and this also applies to pretty much anything else you’d care to think of, from acting to cooking to relationships), do it out of love.

Everything else comes and goes, waxes and wanes. Gear? They’re only tools. No matter whether a lens cost $79.99 or ten times that, it’s a lens, not a unicorn that farts rainbows. Inspiration? If you haven’t already figured out exactly how fickle your Muse is, you will soon enough. Money? Even that, sooner or later, isn’t enough by itself. The love of something, and that alone, will keep you going when the rest isn’t enough, or when you realize that the things that once motivated you are things about which you no longer care.

Do it for the love of it. Love it enough to want to try and keep trying. Love it enough to do it, and keep on doing. Love it enough that no matter how badly you fuck up, how far or how hard you fall — and you will — you pick up again, keep going again.

And because it’s not enough to pass off crap as your best work because, y’know, you’re “just” doing it for the love of it, love it enough to do it right, or at least better than yesterday. Neither be satisfied with, nor discouraged by, the work of a single shoot, a single day, or a single year (or the one after). Be encouraged by the love of the craft, whatever that craft may be, and wherever it finds you, secure in the knowledge that if you honor all of it — the love, the craft, the mistakes and successes and most of all yourself — you will grow in these things, and want to keep growing. The ups and downs, such as they are, won’t last… but if the love abides, you will.

*It probably isn’t coincidence that many of the same people also use “it’s” when “its” would be more appropriate, and insist that it’s fine. I’m told that this is acceptable because it’s “common useage.” Well, so’s heroin, and I don’t agree with that either.

**And here I define “professional” as someone who’s earned the right to the name by virtue of the fact that they earn a living at what they do because they do it very well. Shooting your niece’s wedding and giving her a set of uncorrected prints from CVS, even if you own a “professional” body and lenses isn’t professional; it’s the photographic equivalent of using “its” and “it’s” interchangeably.

March 26, 2012

Rule 28: Go Back To An Old Passion

Upward — I suppose it applies to escalators too, but c'mon, that's not exactly rocket science.

If you asked me twenty-five years ago whether I thought of myself as a photographer, I’d have looked at you funny. If you asked me now whether I could see myself on stage, giving a speech, or sitting behind a mic on the radio, I’d probably look at you just as funny. My interests have changed over time, and I’d wager that yours will soon enough, if they haven’t already. You might not still do all the things you did when you were younger — maybe time, money, or a bum knee won’t permit it — but don’t turn your back on them altogether.

I bring this up because I spent a good couple of hours yesterday shooting at my niece’s school musical. Granted, there’s the usual photographic business — figuring out the best sight lines, fiddling with settings and exposure, keeping fingers crossed that you’ve brought along enough memory cards — but beyone that, it was the chance to revisit something I’d done a few times in my own past.

It’s a good challenge to go back to things you’ve done in the past. For one thing, you have a different (and, I’d dare to say, somewhat deeper) understanding of something having done it yourself, even if you’re far short of an expert. Let’s face it, someone who’s been on the inside of something can bring an understanding to photographing it that an outsider might take a bit longer to pick up.

For another thing, it’s easier from a photographer’s point of view to “read” the goings on. There are rhythms, or at least a kind of internal logic, to how certain things unfold. It’s a lot easier to settle into that groove, to find or even predict the best shots, when you know how something works. It’s a bit like following a score or libretto, in that you can skip ahead a bit to anticipate what comes next, wait for it, and capture it versus sometimes shooting blindly and hoping for the best.

I’ve written before about cultivating interests outside of photography. Those things, besides being a break from photography and something that can give you a respite from shooting, can give you new subject matter and a new perspective on your photography, even if that isn’t why you took them up in the first place. However, it’s not all about looking ahead to the next new thing; sometimes, it’s just as productive — and just as much fun — to go back to something you may not have given a second thought in a very long time, just to see what develops.

March 19, 2012

Rule 27: Teach

When I came to teach, I was obliged to make precisely clear what I did for the most part unconsciously. –Paul Klee

It might be years since you’ve set foot in a classroom. You may not have given as much as a second thought to education, much less being an educator. But one of the best ways to do something better — no matter what it is you do — is to teach it.

I think Klee is getting at two very distinct, and important, things here. The first comes from making something “precisely clear.” I remember someone saying once that in order to teach something, you generally have to break it down to a level that’s so elemental you end up understanding it better yourself. There’s a lot of truth to that. After all, you can’t hope to pass on your understanding of something if your own understanding of it is foggy at best. I’m also reminded, time and again, that the steps I take for granted in doing something, whether it’s making photos or organizing those photos on a computer aren’t as self-evident to the person to whom I’m explaining something as they’ve become to me.

Which brings us to the other half of Klee’s little aphorism. When we do something long enough, we’re taking steps without consciously realizing that we’re taking them. Making a single photo can happen in only slightly less time than it takes to swing the camera in the general direction of your subject and press down the shutter button. If we look at the photo later, we can reverse engineer the steps we took to arrive at that photo, but we may not have been taking those steps very mindfully.

Therein, I think, lies the advantage of teaching. It’s one of the reasons that I write this blog, even though I’m by no means a professional or an expert. It’s a reminder that at the end of the day, when the camera’s had the day’s dust blown off it, the battery’s on the charger, and it’s time to look over what I’ve shot, I’m going to have to explain this stuff to someone. It’s a good means of holding yourself accountable, and of reintroducing mindfulness to your process.

If you’re not a teacher — even if you’ve never been much of a student — don’t worry about it. Wherever you are in your journey, however little experience you may have, and however much your knowledge has only served to let you know how much you have yet to learn, remember that someone somewhere is just taking those first steps. Since you’ve already been where they’re going, it can be an interesting and rewarding challenge to share some of your experience with them. As a fringe benefit, it can also send you off in directions you couldn’t have anticipated when you started.

March 12, 2012

Rule 26: Never Spend As Much Time Reading About Photography As You Do Photographing

Wow, that’s a mouthful.

It’s also the reason that The First 10,000 has been on something of a hiatus. Between the winter months, and life just being what it is, I haven’t been doing as much photography as I had been when the weather was warmer and I wasn’t quite as busy with… well, stuff. Which brings me to a broader point:

I find it hard to justify writing about photography when I haven’t been photographing much. And therein lies a nugget of wisdom (hey, humor me) that I’d like you to take to heart. Most of us have “day jobs” and other interests outside of photography. With that said, since the only way to be a photographer is by taking pictures, at some point you either have to start taking pictures, or put that whole calling-yourself-a-photographer thing on pause for a bit. It’s not the writing about, or reading about, something that makes you that thing; it’s the doing of that thing.

It’s all well and good to read up on your hobby (or profession, if any professionals actually read this thing). But without the craft itself, you’ve precious little about which to write, and the reading… well, again, it’s not the reading that’s going to improve your craft, since at some point the stuff you’ve read has to be realized — that is to say, made real. Why spend time reading about the great photos someone else is making? Get your ass out there and make your own!

With that said, and now that I’m out in the wild* again with my camera, I think it’s safe to say that we’re back, and will be posting on a regular basis again. Thanks to those of you who’ve been patient during the break, and those who’ve been kind enough to send encouraging thoughts in my general direction. Those little pokes — and the little reminders that someone does, in fact, read this stuff, are a great source of encouragement.

*If by “the wild” you mean “New Jersey.” There are those who’d argue they’re one and the same.

January 11, 2012

Rule 25: Develop Interests Outside Photography

Okay, I admit it. I love photography. But there are times that you just have to put down the camera, and try something else out for a change.

There can be any number of reasons to do this. First of all, while a passion can be a stimulating thing, it can also be draining if it’s your only outlet. One of the surest ways I’ve found to break a block is by getting the heck away from what’s got you blocked, even if only for a little bit. If you’re a photographer, this might mean taking some time to write, cook, sing (well or badly, it makes no difference) or do any number of other things. One of the surest ways to get something done, to paraphrase Robert Benchley, is to pretend you’re supposed to be doing something else (I once cured a case of writers’ block by convincing myself I was supposed to be learning Spanish, for instance).

Second, your photography doesn’t — or shouldn’t — exist in a vacuum. Inspiration isn’t purely a visual thing, even when you’re working primarily in a visual medium. After all, think of how many visuals work because they’re not purely self-referential. They draw on cues taken from design, music, literature, sculpture, or any number of other media. Being grounded in other disciplines and interests means never having a shortage of inspirations or subject matter.

Finally, it’s not just for your own sanity, but also for the sake of the others in your life as well. If you’re lucky, your friends, family, spouse, et. al., understand how important photography is to you. However, if your every conversation circles back to technique and gear, people will get tired of it — and perhaps, of you — pretty quickly.

So. What about you? What other interests have you cultivated, and how have they intersected with your photography?

January 2, 2012

Rule 24: Don’t Take Lazy Photos Just ‘Cause You Have Photoshop

There’s an expression in the recording industry: “Fix it in the mix.” Whether the guitar’s a bit off-key, the vocalist can’t decide whether she should be singing on, behind, or in front of the beat, or the drummer’s keeping lousy time, the logic is that you can always fix it later. That’s what ProTools is for, right?

By the same logic, some photographers don’t pay very close attention to things that are just as basic to their craft. After all, who needs to worry if the exposure’s too light or dark, the composition’s careless, or even that the photo’s not about anything in particular? You’ve got Photoshop (Picasa/Picnik/fill-in-the-blank), after all.

Please, for the love of God, don’t take careless photos just ‘cause you can, or just because you’ve got a program on your computer that you think will cover up all manner of ills. To borrow yet another term: Garbage in, garbage out. Yes, you can polish a turd, but all the gleam isn’t going to hide the fact that it’s still a turd.

If you’re still not convinced, let’s take this from another angle for a minute. Let’s say that you’re a beginning photographer. Let’s also assume (and it’s a safe assumption) that if you’re a beginning photographer you’re likely also a beginner at postproduction. Doing any kind of editing on your photos, if you want them to look good, takes time even (or perhaps especially) if you’re experienced. A single photo can take anywhere from fifteen minutes to a few times that, depending on your level of experience and the level of intervention your photo needs. Now contrast that with the amount of time that it takes to actually make a good photo. While there are times (like when you’re waiting for the right light at sunup or sundown) that this can be a time-consuming process, sometimes it’s just a matter of adding another thirty seconds to the 1/125^th of a second that it’d take you to get the shot in the first place.

That is to say, paying attention earlier in the process to what’s going on both within the frame and outside it, and then paying attention to your settings before you’re pressed the shutter button, can save you an awful lot of time later. You may decide to do a bit of sharpening, or crop something, or boost the saturation, but not every photo’s going to require the equivalent of major surgery. Taking time for the small stuff early on in your process is bound to save you time later, and also lead to a higher percentage of shots worth keeping straight out of the camera.