"Ooo, there's the REAL photographer!"

That is not false humility. It seems with every passing “serious job” I do, I realize how far I have to go. Sure, I took some pretty shots, but there were so many shots that I looked at and thought, “Hmph, that one was almost good.”

Funny, I knew so much when I did my first wedding. Maybe the good ones were lost or something, because when I looked back, all those killer shots just were not there. Strange. I certainly knew more when I started…or as some friends quoted to me recently from Bob Dylan, “Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”

I think to sum up my thoughts about what is limiting me — yes, I am going to blame it on gear…well, and that blasted spotlight at the banquet — I would say a full frame camera would sure be nice for an extra stop of light or two. That really does make sense; I will explain. I want to go a little wider, but I lose a stop or two getting a wider lens so it ends up where I want it on my crop sensor camera.

Example: I am shooting a 35mm f/2, which is acting like a f/2 50mm. I just lost a stop of light from the 50mm f/1.4 basically because of my cropped sensor. You have to blame something. Then, if I wanted to shoot at 35mm, which I do, I would have to go for a 24mm f/2.8, and I have just lost another stop of light.

Maybe on Nikon’s (and now other companies) new high ISO, low noise cameras, this would not be an issue, but I will tell you what, on my decrepitly aged D100, you notice plenty of grain just moving from 200 to 400.

I think to really say it more clearly, I would not say it is just that I need new gear to fix all my problems. It would be more accurate to say this: I feel like my eye is seeing a full frame view, but that blasted sensor keeps cropping my vision…but a little less grain would be nice for an alternative solution. Seriously, any full frame camera with the Ai-S Nikkor 35mm f/1.4…that would be great.

The Cops Are On My Ceiling

What is a camera obscura? I did not find out till too long ago myself. If you do not know, just go Google it if you want more answer than this: if you black out a room and allow light in through a small hole, you will have a live, color, (upside down and backwards,) movie of life outside displayed inside your room. It is like a giant eyeball or like you are inside your camera.

Oh, you are, though…inside your camera that is. A literal translation of “camera obscura” from Italian, is simply “dark room”. So, you are in your camera, i.e. room.

I did this as a fun aside from daily life for my son’s birthday, today. I knew it was possible, and with our new black out drapes, it could become a reality. Actually, to test out the idea, all I did at first was wrap the drapes around a toilet paper tube, and even with terrible light leaks, I got discernible images of cars and trucks rolling across my ceiling.

Once I spent more time blacking the room out (though we still had plenty of light leaks), and replaced the toilet paper tube with a folder with a one-inch circle cut out, I filled almost half the room (ceiling, walls, and floor) with the upside down, backwards movie of the street outside. I had to frame the ceiling fan in the shot above for proof, as if the wildly skewed, oddly colored police truck were not convincing enough.

Try it! It’s a blast. All you need to do to get started is steal the toilet paper for a few minutes.

“The best part of us is not what we see, it’s what we feel. We are what we see, we are not what we look at. We are not our eyeballs, we’re our mind. People believe their eyeballs, and they’re totally wrong. … That’s why I consider most photographs extremely boring–just like Muzak: inoffensive, charming, another waterfall, another sunset. This time, colors have been added to protect the innocent. It’s just boring. But that whole arena of one’s experience–grief, loneliness–how do you photograph lust? I mean, how do you deal with these things? This is what you are, not what you see. It’s all sitting up here. I could do all my work sitting in my room. I don’t have to go anywhere.”

I could not agree more with that middle section. I see lots of photos that show an excellent grasp on the technical aspects of photography or experience in post processing or, what I have before called, just another pretty picture. I look at it and think, “hm, that’s nice”, but the photo does not say anything, does not mean anything, does not emote, does not express, has no story.

And I am not just talking about art photography either. Documentary photography, my primary focus, is just the same. Open your local newspaper, and more than likely, you will find a wide variety of photographs that say absolutely nothing. “Well, this was my assignment, and there is the shot. Done.”

And as for me, sure, I take boring photos all the time. We all do. But I still strive to tell stories, to catch emotion in action, and to let life speak through my photos.

The update came from some friends in China whose young daughter had just successfully undergone heart surgery this morning. Obviously, that is scary, a lot of emotions are involved, and words alone are usually all we get through e-mail updates from friends. Ok, maybe we get some snapshot. This too was a snapshot, but a powerful one. Photography can be so incredibly powerful, if wielded well.

In the photo, a nurse is holding the six year old girl soon after surgery. The nurse and a couple more nurses behind the girl (in the center of the shot) and the mother are all beaming with joy, clearly saying with their expressions that the darkness of their fears has been washed away and the joy of the morning is dawning. The moment is perfect.

The photo is also dynamic. There is a subtle hint of movement in the mom, toward the girl, but the girl is fixed, clear, and the center of the joy. The blurred, far-background nurses make me feel that all else keeps moving, but for the girl and those around her, all time has slowed so they can drink up every joyous mouthfull of this perfect moment.

And it even has vignetting. Too cool. I am sure this is just the “inferior” qualities of the extreme wide angle of a compact camera, but it further brings my focus to the center of the photo.

These folks are not photographers. This photo is a total fluke. Anyone can take a wonderful photo, but we have to strive to capture all of this on purpose. That is a tall order. There is so much of that photo which cannot be made or forced. It has a lot to do with the settings being second nature so that when that moment comes, you do not think about how to capture it, you just capture it.

Anyone can shoot a great photo, but only the fearless can be great.

My current humbling experience all started a few days ago with a wonderful meal and talk with a photographer friend of mine. It was not him, but just watching some of the videos he has produced recently really reminded me what a two-bit punk hack I am. It was not the technique, but how he captured the power of the story.

Then today, I shot a very “ok” family portrait session. That is “ok”, as in, I do not want to say more of what I really think. The harsh sunlight made things tough, not only for lighting, but for the quickly wilting subjects. Excuses aside, though, I really want to know what happened. How do I improve? What can I learn here?

One of the key problems was a lack of familiarity with my lighting equipment. Well, more accurately, I was so focused on trying to balance the flash with the blaring ambient, I totally lost connection with the subject. I did not direct them. I did not let them know what they should do. And, to top it all off, I was not really even paying attention to them when I put the camera up to my face (or before then either).

Ok. How to fix it, though? What are some keys to making it different, and I mean small practical things?

Limit location/scene. In an attempt to give the mother a wide choice of background, poses, and set-ups (for lack of a better word), which she expressly stated she wanted, I ended up magnifying my difficulty at getting the lighting right. What I should have done is pick one or two spots, the ones I knew would end up best in the end, and spend more time there. Then, after the lighting was set right, I would be free to interact and catch that nice moment.

Be the director. To help them be at ease and to have confidence in me, I must direct. If I notice somebody is not smiling, find a way to get that out of them (well, if you need a smile, which this photo was certainly expected to have). If they are all just standing straight, hands to their sides, in the classic boring pose (because the photographer did not know what better to do), I need to help position them, pose them, suggest movement, or whatever.

Well, there may be more things, but every other “should-a” I can think of really falls into one of those two. Honestly, I really think I am going to call them up, let them know I have some “ok” shots, but nothing really nice, and I would be more than willing to set up another shoot in the next couple days.

And for the cold-hearted motivation, as if I were not already motivated enough to want to make this right, I found out during the shoot they will be printing this photo with some printer in the US to show as an example to other families here in town of that printer’s services. In other words, if I can really excel in this shoot, my work would be displayed before a wide(r) audience, and I would be first in line to provide photographic services for their family and group photos. I am not terribly concerned about that (because I live and work in a different country anyway), but it would be throwing away an excellent opportunity.

So, to add on the title of this post a little bit, it is good to be humbled, especially publicly. That reveals the weak areas of our photography and, if publicly so, gives us great motivation to improve.

Cooper Strange I feel like I am starting a whole new photographic journey. WHY do I shoot? http://bit.ly/klT7Y

****** I feel like I am starting a whole new photographic journey. WHY do I shoot? (via @CooperStrange) Whatever makes you smile and feel satisfied

CooperStrange @****** I sure hope my photography accomplishes more than making me feel satisfied. If that is it, I quit. Just find a good book.

****** @CooperStrange You’ll accomplish whatever you set out to do if you’re passionate about it.

CooperStrange @****** Not true. I can be passionate about the moon coming up every other day, but it will not happen. All is checked by truth.

And that was that. I sure do not want to be rude (thought the 140 character limit sure makes us blunt whether we like it or not), but this is just more of the the same pop-psychology babble I have heard so much (especially from Americans). We buy in without even thinking it through.

Sure, it is ok to be passionate about some things. Fine. And yes, I do enjoy photography a lot and that is a great side benefit, but it is not the purpose. I personally want my life choices to do more than just tickle my fancies. I strive to find the meaning in everything and to make sure every word and action achieves an eternal purpose. If I just want to be pleased in this life, I am headed for a meaningless and painful future…’cause it ain’t gonna happen.

Then, within a day, a friend asked me a question on Facebook that really challenged me. She hit the core of this whole topic, and I did not totally know how to answer because I am right in the middle of figuring it out myself.

“So, why the intense investment in the photographs and websites? Total hobby or more? I enjoy looking.”

And here was my nice sounding, but not so reasonsed response:

“Good question. Photography is more than just a hobby. I approach it professionally, but it is not a profession…in the sense that is does not make me any money and probably never will. I was about to say it is useful to others on this side of the world to help them communicate the local situation and just family portraits and such, but that is not it totally either.

“It is a form of communication for me. It is also capturing that which I know will soon be lost. It is about telling stories of life that are going on everyday, because those stories are valuable.

“Hm…I need to think more about that.”

These are just some of the thoughts from a guy who lives overseas, away from his family, and wants to communicate what life it like here. However, I also realize, this visual communication of mine is helpful in more ways that just between me and my family and friends. It does have a deeper purpose still, but putting that into words is the tricky part.

I used to think to myself, “I want to capture what life is really like for these people so future generations can have the record”. It was my gift to posterity. There is still an element of that, but now it is slowly evolving into something much deeper. For as I said above, if all photography does is give me some superficial satisfaction, I might as well grab a good book, because that is a lot easier and will take up far less time and energy.