Finally it's clicked (I think)

[nickbedford]

I talked about this in my blog today! (and was the catalyst for my current portrait project).

I'll just quote it.

I learn a lot from other photographers, and I've learnt a lot recently from photographer such as Joe McNally, Joey Lawrence and David Hobby (Strobist). They are all portrait photographers who are use strobes and lighting tools consistently to shape their portraits. The other way I learn (besides experimenting), is by simply looking at photos and using my knowledge to figure out how they may have been created.

In some of my earlier lit portraits, I'd stumbled upon a lighting setup which worked wonderfully, but never really understood why at the time, and often the subject's pose and look of the environment was entirely improvised. There are some lighting setups which I understood worked, and some which were dramatic and dynamic but I didn't realise why.

After having a few "ah ha!" moments, suddenly things became a lot more clear. It clicked that the "back light" was separating the subject from the background; that the extra light I had on the side was "fill" to bring out the detail; that certain angles of the key light will produce entirely different looks with incident and reflected light. I wanted to premeditate on the lighting and composition I would be using in my portraits instead of leaving them up to chance and improvisation. My entire view of shooting portraits has changed in the last few months.

So, in the interest of my portfolio, and also to take these things I'd learnt and realised and put them to the test, I decided to begin an environmental portrait project taking people with a keen interest in something (such as a musician, for example) and lighting them in a dramatic way.

...

This "ah ha" was the best thing that has happened to my own view on photography. The more I think about the result I want, the more I can pre-visualise how I should approach it, what I may need to approach it and when. I've found myself constantly revising the scene, lighting and poses in my head up until the shoot now.

[SwissJon]

Thank you Nick.. I think that pretty much summarises my "ah-ha" moment... I take landscape shots, and I think I've pretty much figured out what all the controls on my camera do, an how they effect the photograph, the problem wasn't lack of technical skill, that's what I do for a living, the problem was that I thought that the art of photography was in not interacting with your environment, but being in the right spot at the right time, and finding that thing to photograph.

Partially it is, but having recently discovered "the other end" of my aperture range, I'm starting to shoot landscapes wide open at f/2.8, with some interesting results. And this has led me to thinking "Ahhhhhh.. Now I think I get it.." because, in reality, the scene presented to a photog doesn't neccesarily look like the photo that is produced.. The camera is much more than a picture recording tool, it's a painters brush. The way it's used is just as important as the thing it's recording.

My favourite painter is Monet.. Especially his moody sunrises and sunsets, and recently I've started looking at these paintings wondering how to produce some of them in photographic form.. And this is where I start to think about the "how" as well as the "what".. A sunrise is a sunrise, a sunset is a sunset.. Anyone can take them, they're there every morning and evening for the world to see.. So what sets one photo apart from another cannot be ONLY down to camera placement, there has to be some skill involved in the camera usage.. The photographer has to have applied some thought before taking the photograph, otherwise the photograph produced is no better than a lucky snapshot.. I'm not talking now about composition in the two dimensional sense, you know, up down, left right, I'm talking about putting depth, and so also "mood" into the photo.. To somehow turn this two dimensional thing into a three dimensional representation of the mood and feelings that draw one to a particular subject.

With portraiture, this is about speedlight placement to manage depth, with Landscape photography, this is about using available light, and depth of field to manage depth, but the end result is the same, you are managing the depth and mood of your photographs to add an extra dimension that sets them apart from snapshots.. This is a deliberate act, not a happy accident..

One hopes that this revelation will improve my hit rate.

[sk66]

Originally Posted by SwissJon

One hopes that this revelation will improve my hit rate.

LOL! It won't!
The problem is; when you set out with a very specific goal/idea you become even more critical of the results. So your "keeper rate" doesn't go up so much, but the ratio of "good/bad" does.

But it will improve your photography.

[SwissJon]

Originally Posted by sk66

LOL! It won't!
The problem is; when you set out with a very specific goal/idea you become even more critical of the results. So your "keeper rate" doesn't go up so much, but the ratio of "good/bad" does.

But it will improve your photography.

Thanks. That's what I'm hoping for. Anything that improves my photographic skills is a welcome change