Thoughts on Photography

40 Minutes in an Alley Changes Everything

"I don't do people shots."   I've said this so often, it has become a mantra for me.  I have never considered myself to have any skill with portrait photography, so I just avoid it altogether.  Well in a span of 40 minutes last week, that all changed.  Here's the story...

On Wednesday, I flew to Toronto to attend (and shoot photos at) the Year of the Monkey 68 CD Release Party, co-produced by my good friend Ron Lopata.  The CD is a compilation of Canadian artists, some well-established and others up-and-coming.  My photos are on the front and back covers of the CD as well as on the website, so there was no way I was going to miss this party. 

A couple of days before flying up, Ron sent me an email asking if I would mind shooting some portraits of one of the up-and-coming artists he is working with.  He said they needed some shots for use on his website and promotional material.  "There will be some time before the show to shoot some shots at the club" he said.   (The Mod Club for anyone who is familiar with Toronto).   I hesitantly agreed, while silently thinking to myself "I don't do people shots." 

At 3pm, Ron and I pulled into the alley behind the club and began unloading his keyboards and other gear.  I  looked around for possible shooting venues, but quickly realized that the bright sunny day was going to work against me for shooting photos outside.  Maybe inside the club, I thought. 

Saying that the club was a bit dark is like calling the Atlantic ocean a "pond."  Even with my fast prime lens there was little chance of getting any well-lit photos inside the club...now what do I do?   I guess I'll have to find something outside in the shade. 

At 5pm, Mike Eastick and I finally meet.  Through his accommodating demeanor and choice of words, I quickly realize that he has a much higher opinion of my potential to shoot portrait photographs than I have myself.  Ron must have told him I'm good at this, because he is treating me like I'm some kind of pro who knows what he's doing.  OK, I thought, I'll play along and see what happens. 

So off to the alley we go.  Over the next 40 minutes I find every sliver of shade in that short alley that I can.  I've previsualized some potential poses and speak confidently as to what I want Mike to do for each shot.  "Can he tell I don't know what the hell I'm doing?" I think to myself.   He couldn't.  In fact, the more we shot, the more he just did what I asked.  At one point, he even stood on a pile of trash in a doorway reeking of urine, only a few feet from a dead rat covered in flies just because I thought it was a good shot (it turns out it's my favorite shot of the afternoon).  What power I have!

Mike came prepared with a change of clothes and neatly primped his own hair in the side mirror of a nearby car.   I wonder if all potential subjects are so prepared?  This was actually easier and more fun than I had expected. 

At the end of the shoot, I felt pretty sure that I could carve out a few usable images.  It was only after I started to post-process them yesterday that I realized that these were better than anything I ever imagined I was capable of.  A professional could easily find things about the images to improve.  But for a guy like me that prefers shooting abandoned wine bottles to people, I feel pretty good with the outcome. 

In fact, I now find myself looking for more opportunities to explore the world of portrait photography.  I even caught myself flipping though some how-to portrait photography books at the bookstore this weekend.  That 40 minute photo shoot in an alley in Toronto has ignited an interest that I have long denied existed.  I guess that's where the saying "never say never" comes from. 

You can see all the photos from this shoot over on my website.  There you will also find the beginnings of the CD release party gallery.   Below is the image from the doorway I described above. 

Provide No Escape! The key to holding viewer interest. Part 1 of 4

Somewhere along the way in my development as a photographer, I realized that the "rule of thirds" was not the magic bullet of success I hoped it would be.  Many other elements are involved in making a successful image.  One which I find seldom discussed, but fundamentally critical is the concept of keeping the viewer's eye entertained within the borders of the image.  By this I mean, not letting the viewer's eye escape.  

I want to address four different concepts which I think are key to keeping the viewer's eye entertained, thereby keeping it from escaping the image.  This is not meant to be a conclusive list as much as just "points to ponder."  The four areas of discussion will be:

1. Blown Highlights & Blocked up Shadows
2. Too Much Information
3. Visual Balance & Rhythm
4. Cropping & Subject/Border Intersection

I will be using my own images for discussion on each topic.  So let's get started.

Blown highlights and Blocked up Shadows

The most common (and most easily correctible) way the viewer's eye will escape an image is through poor exposure which renders parts of the image with no details.  I'm talking about the pure whites and pure blacks you get when you blow the hightlights or underexpose the shadows.  This applies to both color and B&W photgraphy.  If these detailess spaces in the image are large enough, they become at best, minor distractions, but often are much worse.  Why?  This lack of detail means the eye has no visual information to hold it's interest.  Given enough dead space, the eye has a perfect escape route right out of the image.  Here's an image guilty on both counts:

Notice that your eye doesn't spend any time exploring the dark shadows on the upper part of the walls.  That's because there is nothing to see, just blocked up shadows.

It only gets worse.  The blown hightights in the background not only provide no visual detail, they are so bright, they are actually overpowering and distracting from the primary subject of mother and child.  REMEMBER THIS TRUTH:  THE EYE IS ALWAYS ATTRACTED TO THE BRIGHTEST PART OF THE IMAGE FIRST.  This photo just never had a chance. 

One last, unforgivable sin of this image is that the highlights provide an immediate escape route for the eye right out the top border of the image.  Whenver the blocked up shadows or blown out highlights touch the edge of the image, the eye will use these to escape the frame.  No debate, no appeal, you lose, three strikes, you're out, now go sit on the bench and think about what you've done.  (I'll write more about this in Part 4)

Anyway, who shot this horrible photo?  (oh yeah, this is mine from Venice in 1993).

Don't believe me on this stuff yet?  No problem, let's explore a similar, but properly exposed image:

So here, we are immediately drawn to the brightest part of the image.  (The photographer who made this was 12 years more mature than the one who shot the first image, so the highlights aren't blown in this case.)  After viewing the main subject, our eye follows the line of the steps out to the border of the image and then quickly bounces back to the main subject.  The shadows have just enough detail as to not be blocked out, but not enough to hold interest for more than a fleeting second (you may need to click on the image to see this in the larger version).  The eye moves in a back and forth pattern, but always returns to the subject.  No Escape! 

Let's look at a couple more images before leaving this discussion.

 

This is an image I made last fall in Florence that I really wanted to like.  I like the subject matter, the story, and the mood.  But it just doesn't make the cut.  And if you've read this far, you know why.  The eye travels to the brightest part of the image first.  Here that it is at the crossroads in the distance.  Now, that part of the image really has nothing to do with the subject matter and is nothing but a huge distraction.  I tried to burn in the details, but couldn't fully recover them.  I tried cropping in from the left to get rid of that part of the image altogether, but that leaves the photo unbalanced and does not provide enough space for the cyclist to "ride" into the distance.  So, poor execution on my part keeps this image from being successful. 

Here, I was a little more successful.  I used the concept of the eye moving first to the brightest part of the image to my advantage.  I was able to anticipate this man and dog walking into the light emanating from the store window and timed my shot so that they would be somewhat spotlighted in that space.  I choose a low-key exposure to keep details in the shadows while not allowing the ornate buildings too much light as to detract from the subject.  When looking at this image, the eye goes first to the man & dog and then explores the rest of the image briefly before returning to the man & dog.  This is caused almost exclusively because of the lighting of the image.  While this image is far from flawless, I think it illustrates the point of this post.

Stayed tuned for Part 2, where we will address the issue of "Too Much Information."

Slade Zumhofe's lesson on Tonal Balance

Recently I featured the galleries of Slade Zumhofe in a "Diamond in the Rough" post.  Since that time, I've had a couple of short online discussions with him that are well worth sharing.   The first of which concerns the concept of "tonal balance". 

When I first saw Slade's work, I immediately knew I was seeing the work of a very skilled photographer.  I remarked on his work as having a mastery of the concept of compositional balance.  As abstract a concept as this can be, his work seems to bring some concrete examples of beautifully balanced compositions. 

Slade's Manito Fog image above for example, has such a perfect visual weight to it.  The huge tree in the foreground with it's converging trunks and root structure is repeated, and balanced with the smaller tree in the background.  Notice how the background tree converges right at the horizon line, giving itself the same grounded feeling as the foreground tree.   This composition didn't happen by accident, and I doubt if it would have the same feel if the camera was moved even a couple of inches in any direction.  This is beautiful compositional balance.

Here I would like to share Slade's comment to my original post about his work:

"I was very impressed what you pulled out of my images....balance.  This is something that I have strived to express each time I create an image.  I get the opportunity twice a year to teach a one day seminar at the local college about "tonal" balance vs. "compositional" balance.  Many photographers work so hard at the compositional balance they forget about tonal balance."

What did he say?  "Tonal Balance?"  What's that?  I asked him to explain more about the concept.  Somehow I knew his answer would explain the very subtle difference between good B&W photography and outstanding B&W photography. 

Here is Slade's reply to my question about tonal balance:

"Well....from my experience, tonal balance is the most difficult thing to teach because there really aren't any rules.  The only method I have found helpful is a "before and after" comparison of images.  When I began photography I was drawn to several photographers work but wasn't sure why.  My images were just as sharp and I felt I had a few that compositionally were just as strong....but mine still lacked something.  The best way to learn and understand tonal balance is by continually looking at others work and seeing exactly what it was they did to create that image/print.  "Examples" by Ansel Adams is a great book for this as well as several books by John Sexton--he gives before and after examples in the back of his books....Bruce Barnbaum also has a book that shows how he interprets his images scalled 'The Art of Photography--An Approach to Personal Expression'.

Tonal balance has more to do with the print than anything else.  It is the pushing and pulling of tones (burning and dodging)--massaging of the tones that are already there.  I'm not talking about drastic changes to an image but it is VERY rare for an image to have that sparkle if printed straight."

Ah Ha!  Now I get it.  Now I can see it.  All of a sudden this light bulb goes on over my head and I am seeing in a entirely new way.  I'm seeing what I saw before, but with more mature eyes.  Tonal balance is the difference between "average looks" and "supermodel looks" (sorry, that's just a poor analogy that came to mind).  It's hard for me to explain, but once you see it, you know.  It's what makes the photographers' work that Slade mentioned stand out.  It's also what makes Slade's work such that I can look at it for long periods of time and see something new each time.

Our discussion continued:

"Compositional balance happens before exposure and tonal balance happens during printing.  I tend to put tonal balance into 3 categories and use them in this order (although I don't necessarily use all three on every image).

The first is correction--we all know film/paper sees tones much differently than the eye/brain does. The first thing I do is correct the overall tone with a contrast adjustment and then a few individual tones that either appear unatural or unappealing.

The second tonal adjustment I do is for "movement". Much the same as one would do compositionally, I try and create movement in the image by slightly altering tones--either darker or lighter--to move the viewers attention around the image. The simplest method of this that most printers do is an edge burn.  By darkening the edges of a print slightly it keeps the viewers attention towards the center of the image.

The last tonal adjust is the most difficult and I call it "visual appeal".  What do I want to say with the image?  What did I feel at the moment of exposure?  Or, what an awfully boring image so what can I do to bring it to life?  There are no rules to this one--I begin by looking at the image as a whole and try to accentuate certain tones and attempt to bring a 3 dimensionality to the image by setting darker tones against lighter tones.  You never know when you are done but you usually know when you have gone too far--the image becomes unrealistic."

Let's revisit the Manito Fog image.  I've asked Slade to comment on this image from the standpoint of tonal balance: 

"I've included the before and after image of Manito Fog for your reference."   

(ORIGINAL IMAGE seen below.  Roll mouse over the image to see the FINISHED IMAGE)

 

"It was a very gloomy day without much in the way of light or shadows.  I do enjoy photographing on overcast days but this was a bit much.  As you can see in the straight print, all the necessary tones are in place and there are some decent blacks and a good deal of light greys.  Normally this is what we are after, but the image really lacked brilliance.

You can see not only is there very little local area contrast, but overall the image is fairly boring-tonally.  The main tree trunk doesn't stand out as much as I remembered against the fog and the left side of the image really lacked anything at all.

I began by giving the image an overall contrast adjustment--equivalent to about a grade 3 paper.  This helped the local contrast but overall the image was still dull.  The main subject--front tree--was not jumping out at me as it had when I was standing in front of it with my camera.  I took the entire tree down about 1 zone and then began dodging all the areas of the trunk that had some form of light on them.  This began "forming" the trunk--giving it shape and visual appeal.  I also lightened the leaves at the very top of the hill to almost bring them together as to appear more of a carpet than individual leaves.  This is how I saw the image at the moment of exposure.

Now begins the third part of tonal balance -- I knew I wanted the background fog to keep its softness, but the left side was very bland.  Holding the image in front of me and squinting -- the whole left side of the image felt too light -- not in tones per say but in tonal weight.  I immediately knew I would need to darken the tree, which would not only help the balance, but give a more 3 dimensional effect as it produces another layer of detail as the viewer moves further into the fog.

As I stood there to take the image, that tree stood out beautifully and had wonderful form.  As you can see in the straight print it gets lost against the other grey forms.  I brought that tree down considerably -- even more so than it really was, but this is the freedom we have as printers.  The image needed that visual weight.

The last step was to move around the image and lightly dodge small sections to give the print some brilliance.  You may notice -- hopefully not before I mentioned it -- that certain leaves in the forground are lighter than they probably should be.  This keeps some interest in the foreground and keeps the viewers eyes moving in that circular pattern I intended."

Slade's thought process with this image reminds me how much more there is to think about beyond just subject choice and composition.  This truly beautiful image has been brought to life by the vision and talent of the photographer, with tonal balance being a key ingredient in the success of the final print.  After this lesson, it is worth another long visit to Slade's galleries to see just how this idea of tonal balance sets his images apart.

I want to personally thank Slade for taking the time to share his thoughts here.  He's a very busy bank executive along with being a terrific photographer.  In the middle of a very busy time, he made the effort to answer my inquiries in depth.  His generosity is much appreciated. 

The Power of Passion

About 18 months ago, I received an email from a guy who was essentially brand new to photography.  He was interested in some of my processing techniques (at least that's the way I remember it).  Given that much of what I had learned about photography and post-processing had been taught to me by other photographers I'd met online, I gladly repaid my debt and answered his questions in depth. 

After responding to his questions, I decided to take a peek at his online gallery.  To be quite honest, I could tell from his photographs that he was just starting out.  Some of his compositions just seemed too busy and his perspective and subject placement seemed predictable.  Without saying so, I decided that he was destined to become a photographer adept at creating really good snapshot vacation images, but probably would not evolve beyond that. (How judgmental of me!)

To my surprise, this guy just kept coming at me with questions and asking for critiques of his images.  I decided to tell him exactly what I thought.  This led to yet more discussions about every aspect of photography.  We didn't always agree, but from our discussions we both understood more about our own photography.  Very quickly, I began to see elements of his photography start to mature. 

Well, it is 18 months after that first email exchange, and I have to say that I have met someone more valuable to my own development as a photographer than I ever could have imagined.  This guy has a passion for photography like nobody else I have ever met.   I have seen him explore different genres and through trial and error take his photography to a level well beyond what I initially thought he was capable of.  He has long since surpassed my own skills and has become an inspiration for what is possible when you have a genuine passion for something.  For that is something he has had from the first day we exchanged email.  His passion has been there since the beginning, and continues on.  I've benefited by just being around this type of enthusiasm and sincere interest in exploring the bounds of creativity.

Our photographic styles have diverged over the last year, but my respect for what he has accomplished in such a short period of time has only grown.  Most of the visitors to this blog will know of who I speak.  But for fun, let me just link to photos in his galleries based upon the way I saw him develop as a photographer.  I think it might be interesting to see how quickly he has evolved.  (use the "BACK" button to return to this page after clicking on the links below)

One of the first images

Another early image

Yet another early image

The first project

A hint of things to come

Another project

A new genre to explore

Yet another genre

A new idea springs

Further development of the idea

Mastery of the idea

There is no way to give Lawrence Ripsher's photography the attention it deserves on this blog or with these outtakes.  The above links only serve as a testament to the incredible growth he has achieved in such a short period of time.  His sincere passion for the craft of photography has yielded worthy results.  At least for me, the photographer who shot that last linked image is completely different than the photographer who shot the first linked image in this post.  I'm thankful that I have been able to see his growth and hopeful that maybe, just maybe, I have captured an ounce of his passion for my own creative journey.  And I must say, I'm looking forward to seeing just how his work will evolve from here.

UPDATE 5/4/2007:

After revisiting this post today and going through the photos one by one, I realized what a HUGE understatement it is about not being able to give Lawrence's photography the attention it deserves. 

I have not necessarily highlight his best images here, but rather just a sample of his progression as a photographer.  He's too young to have a "greatest hits" collection, but already has more than enough images worthy of filling a gallery.  I think I'll spend some more time over at his galleries today getting inspired. 

My Photographic Purpose: Social Commentary

I finally dialed in on exactly what drives my photography.  I've had a number of tries with it before and never truly felt I had zeroed in on what it was that made me want to pick up my camera and create.  In short, my purpose, and I believe my calling in photography is to create images that communicate a social commentary. 

Over my entire photographic journey, I've tried on a number of different hats.  The list includes:

• Travel photographer
• Abstract photographer
• Urban Landscape photographer
• Minimalist photographer
• Wanna-be stock photographer
• Digital art photographer
• Street photographer
• Pet photographer
• Portrait photographer (this one was very short-lived)

I'm sure I'm missing a few, but the point is that now that I have tried on these different creative perspectives of photography, I find I have arrived at a much clearer view of what defines my motivation. I simply love to create and share images that carry a social commentary.   

I like to create images that say something about our time here as human beings.  The images I create tend to say what I want to say in the way I want to say it.  Or they ask a question I want to ask in the way I want to ask it.  Given this, the true test of whether or not I consider my own images or projects successful is to measure the degree to which they communicate a social commentary as I had envisioned that they could.

Knowing this about myself, also helps me to understand why I can quickly become jaded about other types of photography.   For me to be excited and interested a photograph, I feel like the image has to somehow be adding authentic intellectual value.  If it doesn't, I get cranky, dismissive, abusive and downright cruel in my commentary about it (as the few regular readers of this blog can attest).   This is a personal flaw, not a value judgement.  Ok, I just lied.  It is a value judgement...which is essentially my own strong opinion.  And this is neither right, nor wrong.  It just is.    

SO THERE!