Silence remains, inescapably, a form of speech. — Susan Sontag

True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment. — William Penn

Silence is a true friend that never betrays. — Confucius

Silence is a great source of strength. — Lao Tzu

Nowadays, most men lead lives of noisy desperation. — James Thurber

A nature photographer, I am not. I have never aspired to be. I have lots of nature photographs in my archives, but I never consider myself to be particularly interested in the notion. I’m not really sure why. Most photographers seem to really enjoy shooting nature and landscapes. For me, being there is great. Experiencing the location for myself is good for my soul. A photograph can’t and won’t replace that. It might be good for a memory or two, but it won’t replace the other dimensions of standing on a piece of ground and witnessing the sight first hand. If I make photos while I’m enjoying some random place, I can show my friends and family and say I was here. The photograph, however, won’t tell anyone how I felt at that moment in time. The true dynamics of the moment the shutter opens become flat and less inspiring for me upon later review. I suppose that a visual representation of a place I have been in the past just doesn’t provide me with enough inspiration to photograph it with any real intention.

One of my favorite photographers of all time made this statement:

The world is going to pieces and people like Adams and Weston are photographing rocks! — Henri Cartier-Bresson

This statement, even though it was made in the 1930s, is an idea that we could apply to just about any period of time. Photographers like Cartier-Bresson preferred to focus on the human element in their endeavors. After I started dabbling in sports and photojournalism, I could see my interests moving in that direction as well. My biggest stumbling block in this endeavor in the beginning was simply shyness. I wasn’t as comfortable setting myself up to interact with and photograph strangers. It didn’t take me very long to get over this issue. In fact, once I got over that hump, I found myself being able to approach anyone at almost any time to ask for photographs. Another thing I learned quickly is that people aren’t as afraid of photographers as photographers are of people :) People tend to be more afraid of photographers when the guy with the camera is working in stealth mode with a long lens and hiding from the action in some way. When I approach a group of people with my camera in hand, I’ll generally just start shooting photos and then answer any questions that may pop up, and they usually do. When the questions from my subjects start to come out, this is when I get something personal to carry with me. When I explain to people why I’m making photos, whether it be for journalism or personal reasons, I’ll usually get to hear their story and learn something extra about them that I would have never gotten otherwise.

The interaction I have with the people I photograph is much more interesting to me in terms of photography than the interaction I may have with a landscape or nature photo. When I look at the photos of people again in the future, the interaction comes back to me more readily than those from the nature and landscape images. That makes me happy.

I haven’t been into photography very long compared to a lot of people. I never know what to tell people who ask me what kind of photographer I am. I always seem to respond with something inconclusive and general. I have told people that I like to photograph lots of different things. That stops today… As of today, I’m a people photographer.

The newspaper sent me on another very interesting non-sports assignment this evening. In celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, the Catawba Science Center held a U2 concert and laser light show in the Millholland Planetarium. I wanted to get some photos of the laser light show but I didn’t want to try to set up a tripod in an environment with a lot of people. I went to the 6pm show in hopes of having less than a full house of people, and it paid off. I was able to sit in one of the recumbent chairs with an empty seat next to me. I set my camera bag in the seat beside me, put on my 17-40mm lens, and just set the camera pointing upward on the camera bag. I used my cable release with the camera in bulb mode to capture a series of longer exposures of the laser light show.

Sadly, today was my first trip back to the planetarium since October 5, 2007, when I covered the opening of the new facility with the planetarium and aquariums. I really want to go see some of the shows at the planetarium, and being back in there again tonight reminded me of this. I think I’ll try to catch a couple of their shows in the coming weeks…

In the mean time, I have a pint of Ben & Jerry’s “Willie Nelson’s Country Peach Cobler” ice cream staring me in the face… later :)

High school baseball season is rolling, and it’s renewing my hunger for the minor league season that starts up during the first week of April. I was in the dugout at a local high school game this evening and decided to look around for some type of photo opportunity that speaks of the season opening. This bag of weathered baseballs partially open with a few faces shining through seemed like a good image to go along with the idea.

This image also shows bias from the photographer ;)

“The Blue Dock” is one of those places that holds a lot of fond memories of my childhood and teenage years.  When I was very young, this is a place my parents would take me on a hot summer day to go swimming and to play in the white sand along the shoreline.  As I got older, this place became a hangout spot for friends.  As I got even older, this is a place I would go with a folding chair, gas lantern, a cooler, and a fishing rod to sit between midnight and dawn waiting for the elusive big catfish.  The baby blue paint that has been used to cover this dock over the years is the source of the location’s name, even though it is formally known as the Lakeland Park Beach Club.  When I was in high school, all you had to do was utter the words “Blue Dock” and everyone knew where to go.  It was not entirely uncommon for the police to run us off the dock late at night because of complaints from neighbors across the street.  I’m sure we weren’t always quiet down there at night.

Growing up in this neighborhood, it wasn’t unusual to spend a Saturday afternoon here with 10 or 20 other kids.  My dog was another faithful companion to the blue dock, even though he didn’t care much for the water.  He enjoyed playing in the sand.  On certain occasions, we would toss him in the lake and he would swim to the shore, go under the dock, and not come back out for a while.  On other occasions, we would call him out to the end of the dock.  He would come running, and if the dock was wet he would slide right off the end into the water, once again causing a retreat to the shore and pouting session underneath the dock again.  One of the only times I can recall him willfully getting in the water on his own was when a duck came a little too close to the shore.  He jumped in the water and chased the duck half way across the lake.  This was also the only time I ever feared for his life at the lake.  I thought he was going to tire out and drown before he made it back to the shore.

I thought this photo would be a good addition to my “My Town” series…

I have been reading some other photo blogs lately where discussions of approaching the subject have been discussed. Paul Lester started the thought process with his Avoiding First Impressions post. The idea behind the post is the common idea of working a subject until you come up with the shot you really want.  It’s easy enough to fumble around a subject, snapping from different angles, perspectives, and lighting situations. In many cases, a photographer can visit a location many times until the weather and light lend themselves to a worthy photo. Some of his reader feedback led to a second post where the question of is there one approach better than another? question comes to the table.

These questions are always fun to ponder.  It’s like we are trying to formulate an equation to guarantee results. I consider myself to be a decent photographer, even though my interests are not very concise. How can I explain a situation where I spend an entire day out with the camera and come home with a few hundred photos, none of which are worth saving? Is it because I didn’t work the subject? Definitely not…

I like to recall a few words of wisdom occasionally that I have heard many times from another photographer… The muse is fickle… The ability to effectively work any subject is going to be directly related to your personal interest in that subject. Some subjects speak with a stronger voice than others, making it easy to find your shots. Others are a little more quiet and subdued. When I find an interesting subject that doesn’t jump out at me and automatically guide my camera to proper angles and perspectives, I tend to just stop what I’m doing and spend some time looking rather than shooting. When something attracts my photographic interest, it’s always quite beneficial to determine exactly what attracts me before I start shooting. Getting back to the fundamental elements of image design, it’s easy to remember that shapes and textures tend to attract our eye as much as color and contrast. When I approach a specific subject, I tend to look in those directions more often that trying to create a photo that simply documents what I saw. The photo at the top of this post doesn’t very nicely describe the context of a Christmas Cactus, but it perfectly demonstrates the elements of it that catch my attention when I look at them. In this case, I didn’t work the subject. I loaded up my 50mm lens and a 36mm extension tube and shot two images after spending about 5 minutes looking around the flower and gathering a piece of black foam core to use as a backdrop. I did get a photo I like though…

What are the advantages of working the subject?

One advantage is that you might stumble across an idea that you would never have encountered otherwise. You might also catch a few worthy images of those ideas during the process.

What are the disadvantages of working the subject?

There probably aren’t many other than the possibility that you might never see what you are photographing…

This photo has been over two years in the making. It’s not a great photo either. This is a photo of the first orchid bloom from a plant I raised myself. Someone gave me this orchid over two years ago, and it was almost dead. The media in its pot had deteriorated into something that almost resembled black dirt, so the roots weren’t getting enough air and they were being over saturated at the same time. When I received it, I took it out of its pot and re-potted it with fresh sphagnum moss and started trying to revive it.

I have had other orchids in the past and never managed to keep them alive. Most of the time, I would simply forget about them and let them dry out. At this point, I have two orchids that I have kept alive for over two years, but this is the first one that has produced a bloom for me. This bloom is not nicely positioned on the stalk for photos, but I wanted to make the shot anyway. It’s been open for less than 24 hours, so it’s color will continue to develop. The bloom stalk has 10 buds on it at the moment, and I’m hoping it will have more later. It’s a rather large orchid so hopefully it will bloom for quite a while. The next bloom that will open on this plant will be in a lot better position to photograph, so hopefully I’ll have a nicer image soon…

I have still been experimenting with the extension tubes on my Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens.  This photo was made using the 20mm and 12mm extension tubes (Kenko) with the 50mm lens at f/2.0 with a shutter speed of 1/60″.  I used the Canon 550EX flash and bounced the light from a wall directly to the right on this image.  I started out playing with all three extension tubes stacked (36mm, 20mm, and 12mm) but quickly figured out that it was just too much for this particular composition.  I haven’t had an opportunity to spend much time playing with the extension tubes on the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L yet, but I need to try that out as well to see what kind of results I can get and add some working distance to the subject. 

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This photo is #30 in my current “Project 366” photo-a-day project for the 2008 calendar year.  This photo is the inside rim of my bird bath in the front yard.  I swirled the water a bit with my finger before I snapped the photo with my little point and shoot camera. 

I really like contrasty black and whites.  The sun was actually a benefit to me in this photo, unlike so many other situations where I wish it would go away…  This type of photo also takes me back to some of my core interests in photography.  Shape and texture seem to intrigue me as much as anything else. 

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I made another visit to Glenn Hilton Park this afternoon while taking a break from studying. I have been trying to get a few decent bird photos lately of birds that visit my feeders and birds in the local area. It’s easy to attract birds for close photography at this park just by taking a handful of sunflower seed and placing it along the walkway hand rails. I was about 10′ or so away from this Tufted Titmouse when he came down to check out the buffet I had left on the rail. I also shot a brief video while I was wandering around…

CLICK HERE to watch the video…

I read a lot of photography blogs.  I’m always more interested in what people are thinking rather than what they are shooting in most cases, but I occasionally stumble across something that really makes me cringe.  I ran across this quote from this post over on Ted Byrne’s ImageFiction blog the other day…

“The Moral: When it isn’t your idea in the viewfinder, Don’t trigger the shutter.”

I can’t find much agreement with the idea behind the statement (be sure to read the post on Ted’s blog for more context.)  The idea that I do agree with, even though it’s not stated in his post, is that photographers should always strive for something unique in an effort to differentiate themselves from everyone else who carries a camera.  The main theme that I disagree with is that it’s a waste of time and effort to duplicate an image that has been done many times before.  I suppose that self esteem and confidence may cause many photographers to avoid shooting a scene they have seen in pictures many times before, but there are several points of interest that surface when you examine the entire concept.

Have I seen it before?

If I travel to a new place that I’m not intimately familiar with, nothing I see will be overdone or cliche in my mind.  I’m experiencing everything for the first time.  I’m not going to spend time considering whether or not some other photographer has worked an interesting scene before I go to work on it myself.  If my personal muse speaks, I will listen without hesitation.

I have seen it before.

If I was to travel to Yosemite or some other site that has been worked over and over by thousands of photographers, should I just leave my camera at home?  I don’t think so.  If I’m inspired in some way to shoot a scene that I have seen before, there is nothing wrong with that.  The images I produce will be inspired by something other than a previously noted photograph in my mind.  The image I create, even if it is identical (let’s consider identical for the purpose of discussion) to someone else’s photo, is still my photo.  It’s my personal account of what was going on in my mind at the time I made the image.  Should I beat myself up if I discover that my image is almost identical to someone else’s?  No.

Besides the image…

A photograph is more than a photograph, or at least it should be.  This part of photography gets overlooked too often… not just in photography, but in other arts as well.  I don’t know what the most photographed subject in the world is, but I’m sure it has been photographed more times than I can imagine, and I’m also sure that a huge majority of those photos all look the same.  The missing link in all those supposedly identical photographs is the inspiration behind the image.  What caused the photographer to raise the camera?  If the sole reason was to duplicate a previously noted photograph, then Ted may be right.  If the inspiration came from some inner feeling, then no two images are really alike at all.  You, as a photographer, may be the only one who understands the differentiation. 

This small detail is the root of the problem.  Photographers tend to be egotistical.  We want praises from our work.  The last thing we want to hear from an observer is something like “Wow… that looks just like an Ansel Adams photo…”  We would rather hear “Wow… That’s amazing… I have never seen anything like that before…”  For some reason, photographers also tend to show their work to a lot of other photographers, which is generally a recipe for disaster in the long haul.  Those other egotistical photographers aren’t really going to spend much time pumping you up even if they do like your work.  They will probably hold back the “I wish I had thought of that” comments…  Those other photographers will be the first ones to tell you they have seen your idea many times before…

The reality…

Photography, as we know it today, was born in 1839.  Almost 170 years and billions of photographs, how unique do you think you can be?  You can spend all your time working on being different, or you can enjoy what you are doing and let your personal inspirations guide you.  If you aren’t having fun with it, then take up knitting…

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