ku # 467
Tuesday, April 3, 2007 at 08:42AM 
West Branch of the Au Sable • click to embiggenWhen last we spoke, Aaron mentioned that he doesn't really'think about composition AT ALL! ... I just like the way things "feel"...like deep down inside...it feels right...."
To which Ana added; "I think it takes time to learn to read your own work. My take on it, speaking only for myself, was that it did start out subconsciously. There were things that I was drawn to very strongly but I didn't know why and I didn't even have a mental framework with which to inspect what was going on. And a lot of my thinking about it was very vague and expressed in terms of just "having a feeling". But then after doing more and more work and being forced to confront it over and over again, I feel that I'm really starting to focus my own intentions. And a lot of my "revelations", as it were, are very clearly there in the earlier work it's just that it took time to be able to recognize them."
To which, Steve Durbin added; "... Some photographers seem to resist thinking about their work or trying to understand what they're doing. In my view, they're not only missing a lot that could be learned, but they're slowing their growth and diminishing their ability to make better photographs."
To which I would add, most amateurs seem to think think that the way to grow photographically is to 'learn' the rules, get the 'right' sharpening tool/RAW converter/software or camera/lenses/tripod/ball head, etc. - all the easy stuff. They pay little, if any attention to the 'mental framework with which to inspect what is going on' - they 'resist thinking about their work' in anything other than technical terms.
Which was why - back to Aaron - he grew very weary very quickly with online photo-site 'feedback' on his work. To quote Mike Lange, the NHL Hall-of-Fame voice of the Penguins, "How much fried chicken can you eat?". Or, to put a finer point on it, "How many times can you read, 'Wow. Love the colors. Nice choice of lens and post-processing.', without puking?
The point? Unless you're willing to dig deep inside yourself, all the How-To-Master-Landscape-Photography books in the world won't make you a better photographer.
Think about it.
Reader Comments (5)
great pictures, great words, But and this is driving me nuts, 'embiggen' isn't a real word. Can't you just say enlarge.
embiggen is a perfectly cromulent word.
To me it's more complicated. Of course thinking, talking and reading about photography in general and your own photography in special is essential, crucial in your development a photographer. You really need to think, to reflect, and consequently throw away real (that is many of the photographs you've been making) images as well as mental images.
At the other hand, while taking (or making, but that's another discussion) photographs there comes a point you have to stop thinking, you have to react, to act you just have to do it.
And afterwards you may be satisfied, or suprise yourself or dissapoint yourself.
And of course photography is not about technique, or about composition or form, but about depicting ideas.
Another thing Mark, I really like your picture today,Cannot figure it out why exactly. Maybe the feeling of worshipping nature that expresses it for me.
Jebediah Springfield put it best, when he said a "noble spirit embiggens the smallest man."
I think the photo is compelling due to its slavish adeherence to the rule of thirds, but IWO photoshopped a bald eagel with a fish in its mouth into the foregroud, accented with a ray of sunlight.