On the upside, I had a hard time getting my 50mm to have good vignetting, whereas this wider 35mm really came through nicely. You live and learn.
]]>Yes. Wait...no. Man, I don't know.
There are many answers to each of those questions. A photo may be worth a thousand words, but depending on the content of the photograph and the audience viewing it, just which words could be hard to determine. The photographer needs to determine what the message is and communicate that. If words are needed, use them. If not, don't.
]]> I remember my early impressions of Ansel Adams, probabaly the first photographer's name I ever remember remembering. I loved his work. It was...um...pretty.Recently, I watched a great special on public television about him and his work, and I never realized what he was trying to communicate or what he achieved through his photos, historically. Basically, the West was declared closed. We had tamed the wilderness. America had hit the West coast and civilized everything in between.
Ansel Adams felt that the wild was an essential part of America and being American. He did not want to lose that and so he proved otherwise with his photos. There was much untamed wilderness. His influence did much in the development of an environmental ethic, even when "environmentalism" was not a word.
Maybe that message was understood by the people of the time, but I am guessing it was not the "Such-and-such Mountain at Dusk" titles that communicated his message. They already understood or felt much of the context of his photography.
On the other side of things, most of my photos come from China and the cultures which live there. Without captions or some kind of communicated message, viewers would often have no idea what is going on in the photo, much less what the greater implications or story are behind the photo.
Basically, if you want to become an excentric artist, you can do anything you want. If, however, you want to communicate with your photography, you will need to evaluate the audience and how they will understand the content of your photos. You might even have some pity on later generations who will not understand the context at all and just go ahead and write a caption.
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On the upside, I had a hard time getting my 50mm to have good vignetting, whereas this wider 35mm really came through nicely. You live and learn.
]]>The topic came to mind the other day when I saw a contest with different categories for professional and amateur, where of course, they had to define the difference. The rules said that professional photographer are "people whose main activity is photography and who, consequently, have already sold, published and exhibited their work". The amateurs are everybody else.
]]> I really have to wonder if the confusion which as descended upon us is not just the "free film" of digital photography. In the past, the only the folks who spent lots of time shooting, had blown all that film on hundreds of mistakes, were considered professionals. Sure, there were amateurs, but I really would have to say that yesteryears decent amateur is nothing compared to many of today's amateurs.Now, though the equipment is expensive and there really is not an equivalent to that el cheapo, all-manual camera of the past, there is no doubt that once the digital camera is bought, anybody can afford to shoot any number of angles, perspectives, settings, and such. So, the former understood definition of professional as "really good photographers" has become much more blurred, I feel.
I really liked that contest's definition of professional, though. If I understand correctly, the strict definition is someone who gets paid. Professional athletes are paid to play their sport. Amateurs are not. Of course, those lines have blurred since the old days of the truly amateur Olympics, too.
I am much less confused when I look at the above-quoted definition. Is my main activity—notice they did not say occupation—photography? Nope. That is clear enough.
Something we amateurs can do, though, that is a luxury of learning photography in the digital age is hold ourselves to professional standards. We can afford to shoot all the photos they shoot. Well, almost. It still costs time shooting, processing, and evaluating. It is not cost prohibitive, though. If photography really is a priority, though, we really can learn more, faster, cheaper than film amateurs ever dreamed.
Strive for excellence.
]]>At first glace, this seems totally unrelated to photography, I know, but keep the title in mind. It has everything to do with photos and captions, and not only that, but applying our medium to the world around us in order to build others up instead of shooting just for some techy self-pleasure.
My brother and sister-in-law just adopted a nine-year-old girl from China. Before they left, my sister-in-law had the idea of using this cool little photo album they had been given to help their nine-year-old daughter acclimate to the her family. Each page in the photo album could record a ten second message to explain the photo. Then, when you just happen to have a brother that lives and works in China (enter ChinaCoop), that album can be narrated in Chinese.
Simply put, all I did was narrate captions (in Chinese) to a photo album.
]]> That turned some very everyday photos from random boring photos into something important. And captions are not always important: if I who already have the information view those photos, I know who the people are, what they are doing, and the importance of each person and situation. It depends on the audience.For my niece, this little narrated photo album meant more than almost anything else. From this situation, I have tried to challenge myself to use my photography for more than self-pleasing art, but to practically add value to the people and society around me.
Actually, though not my own photography, at the behest of my brother, I have realized that something so simple for me could mean so much to more than just my own family and my own niece. I could do this for others. So, I have put up the China Adoption Photo Album site as a service to other families who want to help their children adapt to a new family.
Photography in action. I love it.
]]>That is why the photos, though taken way back in February, are just now hitting the gallery. I had them online for the guests, and waited to give them more than enough time to browse through those, before I took them down and created the gallery. Just between you and me: it was taking up a good bit of space for the website, and I had to take them down sometime. :)
]]> It really did not add all that much to my workload. I must admit, I used the free and easy Picasa to develop the web pages for me. Then, I altered them just a intsy-wintsy bit so that it did not look like I used Picasa. Sneaky.I think the best decision was not a technical decision, but one of foresight. I printed out some business cards with the web address to which I would post the wedding photos. Then, on the day of the wedding, I could hand them out when folks asked or just let the program ladies hand them out as they wished. The site did not have any photos on it, of course, because I had not shot them yet, but that is really the only way I could think of to let people know when they would most naturally want to know.
Feel free to drop by the ChinaCoop Gallery and look through these wedding photos.
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I am a simplistic person. I loved my film days: one all-manual camera, one 50mm lens. I still think my old film photos are better than my digital photos of the past few years. It is as if the digital age has pushed me right out of my style, forcing me to buy an overly sophisticated camera and forget the perspective I found in my cheapo film camera. What was the difference?
Perspective. And in the past few days, I am feeling a new hope for my photographic vision. Back when I went digital—do not hear me wrong, that was a very wise choice for very clear reasons I have explained before—I did not know all the digital cameras had cropped sensors and that lenses would not act like I was accustomed to.
I had shot a 50mm lens for years, and decided that the first lens I would buy with my new Nikon D100 was an 85mm, so I could get a little tighter in to people's faces. What I did not know is that lens was giving me something closer to a 125mm range! That was too close, I soon found, but still did not know why. So, I bought a news lens, moving back to my trust 50mm length, not knowing it was giving me 75mm.
On top of all that, I had not shot my film camera for quite a while due to travel between countries and frustration with destroyed film, and when I bought my D100, I did not notice the smaller viewfinder. It took me two or three years to realize all these issues, and even longer to truly understand how it had affected my photography.
So, to fix all these problems, I recently decided I needed a full frame digital camera. Nikon just came out with the D3, but that is way bigger than simplistic me can handle to carry around. I figured I would just wait for Nikon's inevitable full frame, but not massive-sized camera to come out.
Then reality hit. When it did come out, I was not going to be able to afford it anyway. That was when the idea of buying a Canon 5D started knocking around in my head. I do not care about the megapixel count or any of the aging specs. And since I only have a couple lenses anyway, switching over is no big deal. So, being in the big city the other day, I was able to face a Canon EOS 5D mano y mano.
There is no turning back now. I still do not quite know how it will all come about...meaning, I do not know how I will round up the cash to make it a reality, but looking through that viewfinder was like stepping into a brave new world.
Looking through a 50mm lens on the 5D immediately rushed some of my favorite slides through my head. It is possible again. I am not confined by the viewfinder and not cropped by the sensor. I can shoot what I want to shoot.
The photo above is the hail of a new era in my photography. I will remember this simple and not so incredible photo—the perspective, the scene, the color, ...everything—as I wait for a 5D to become mine. Oh so fitting that the subject is trying to figure out what he wants in a new camera too. My feelings are much less of the possesive "I want a new, fancy camera" type and much more of the "Finally, I can continue my photographic journey left off five years ago."
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My wife, boy, and I enjoyed some great bar-b-que at Schoepf's in Belton, TX, all the more so because of guitarist Steve Dykes. He played a great variety of songs, took requests, and kept the off-stage jokes flowing the entire hour we were there.
In many ways, this photo is a big relief for me. I have felt locked up (outside of town) without a subject. Finally, after carrying my camera day in and day out, I finally captured something...rather, someone. I have some sunset shots and a few nature shots, but it just not feel like a photo to me without people. Well, that is not entirely true, but I really try to keep my focus on people. Other forms of photography are certainly necessary, but show me the people!
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At first, I wondered if I should post this photo online with Steve Dykes's phone number, but then I realized, it is really just free advertising. If anybody out there would enjoy a fun and entertaining guitarist, just give him a call. He kept my family, especially my clapping little 10-month old smiling for a good hour!]]>
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Without walking into the water and disturbing all those fishing nearby (by scaring away the fish), this was the best angle I could get on a nice, fishing-related foreground and the sunset. It is not all I would hope, but I wanted to at least give the scenic fishing theme a try.
I also shot a few of the guy to whom this pole belonged, but he was standing beside those trees to the left there. I would have asked him to move along the shore a little, but it would not have improved the shot any because of my angle. The best I could do was his rod only, which was jutting out into plain view.
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I have to admit, along with Captain Ramius in the Hunt for Red October, “I miss the peace of fishing." It is not the fishing itself that I love, but the peace that comes from being out in nature, maybe even cold in the early morning, and roughing it a little.
This day, however, I was enjoying other's peace of fishing by taking photos down near the bridge at Lake Bridgeport in Texas. I took a couple photos of a Vietnamese family there, and this is of the mother/grandmother pulling in a sand bass, undoubtedly headed for the dinner table!
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I was visiting some good friends out on their ranch last weekend, and was able to spend some time doing some daily chores. Among other things, we had to bottle feed this calf because his mother simply did not claim him. He was found trying to knick and little milk off another new mother, but was not allowed.
No mother ever stepped up to claim him, and strange enough, with only forty head of cattle, it is quite difficult to ascertain who did it. So, all that is left is to make up some calf bottle formula and wean him off to water as soon as possible. That is where I came in.
I would love to have a photo of it, but I had the honor of trying to convince the calf of sucking on my finger while I moved his mouth down into the water tub. Eventually, he will realize that the water is not all that bad and that he does not need to suck, but can lap it up anytime.
Man, that is the life. I just know I missed my calling. I really should be a rancher.
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I was waiting for my mother to finish the final financial details of her car trade and had to kill a few minutes around the used car lot. I took a few other photos, but this one was the one I liked the most, more for content than photo quality. If you could only see the car (a 70s Cadillac in a nice cream color), this Neil Diamond Greatest Hits 8-Track would feel comfortably out of place.]]>
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I loved the development of this lightning strike. It was not just a sudden zap, but more of a crawling, entangling strike. It was like several snakes came from a hole and were crawling around the bottom and up the edges of the cloud. Very cool.
Finally, I was able to catch this lightning shot even though I do not have a tripod. I just used my hands to clamp the camera down to the hand rail of the porch. I did not quite catch the horizon, because of the whole hand held thing, but it turned out well for this strike because it was a little higher up anyway.
I had already caught a few strikes, some bright and some dark, and was finding that my combination of f/stop and the intensity of the strike were really just luck. I tried f/8 and f/11, and eventually caught this one, which was both a decent looking strike and the right f/stop setting.
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I loved the flag hanging off the Blackhawk in the foreground and the Huey in the background. For me, these are two of the most important vehicles in the military, serving the same function but in two different generations. These get our men in the right place and take them home when they need out. They do not get much glory, but I am a softy for Huey's, especially, for some reason.
And below, I have one more photo, but of the helicopter which receives much of the glory.
I was able to enjoy the Central Texas Airshow in Temple a weekend or so ago. It was ok, but I think my memory of grandiose airshows from my childhood set a much higher expectation than they could achieve. Plus...it just ain't an airshow without the Blue Angels for me.
]]>Resplend.
Are we the seeing beings we think we are?
Do we know all we think we know?
I suggest a life beyond ourselves.
Transcend.
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