For me, photography is a bit like golf. The goal of my photography is to create a strong photograph that fulfills my vision, like the goal of golf is to complete the hole and course in without exceeding a certain number of swings at the ball. You must focus on the pin in golf and drive towards it. In photography, you focus on the goal of a strong image and drive towards that. In photography, just like golf, we can make a mistake and end up in the rough or some other hazard, and now we must work a bit harder to get back onto the course and our ultimate goal.
Photography, like golf, also requires a bit of practice and the honing of our skills. It is important to keep our gear in working good condition. Sometimes, it is important to practice our photography skills just like a golfer may go to the driving range to practice their swing.
Don’t be afraid to practice and exercise your photography skills. Take your camera gear to the photography driving range and practice without having to worry about creating a magical image.
I didn’t become a photographer for fame, glory, or riches. While any of the three would be an awesome accomplishment any one of the three could be a scrouge as well. Let’s face it if you become any of the three the expectation is that anything you produce must be excellent.
I love creating work that achieves some level of excellence. I mean isn’t that the goal we all want to strive for? I’m just not sure I want to have my audience or the public expect that everything I generate is excellent. I know we can control what gets released to the wild and we should only release our best work. If you’re anything like me though having achieved fame, glory, and riches would cause me to put the pressure on myself.
As I write this I also realize, that while becoming famous, receiving glory, or becoming rich wasn’t one of my goals when I started I would take any of the three. I would deal with my internal pressure to generate excellent work. I’m not going to lose any sleep over it but isn’t it important to have a dream?
Now, to start down that road to fame and fortune. I can only achieve this by getting out there and creating the best photographic art I can. Join me, let’s create beautiful art, and if you become famous and rich before me, congratulations I’m proud of you.
There are times when you can’t prepare in advance. I was sitting around going through some photographs in Lightroom on a Sunday morning when I started to see warnings of a strong storm approaching. There had previously only been a fairly slight chance of strong storms. I grabbed a camera, tripod, and my lightning trigger and headed out a short distance in hopes of getting some shots of lightning bolts. Fortunately, I had recently charged the lightning trigger. I got to a location where I had a fairly decent view of the storm coming in. The warnings listed 50+ MPH winds, hail, and heavy rain.
As you can see in the photograph there was lightning, and lots of it, just not the lightning bolts I had hoped to be able to photograph.
This photo was only 4 minutes after the first. At this point, I’m almost running back to the car to load my stuff inside and get back to the garage where I park.
It’s always good to have a plan in advance because sometimes you don’t have time to prepare. About 2 minutes later, the 50+ MPH wind, hail, and heavy rain hit.
I came away empty-handed for cool lightning photographs but was able to photograph a very photogenic storm.
There are times I believe black and white photography is the best choice to evoke emotions in the photograph. Often, in my mind, the color gets in the way.
Since I shoot strictly digital at the moment everything is captured in color. For me, it is more than just applying a preset or one-click black and white conversion. When I convert a digital image to black and white, I may adjust exposure, contrast, highlights, and shadows.
If you always work in color, study black and white photographs and experiment with conversions. See how the mood and emotion change with using black and white.
Can a portrait of a person be considered fine art?
As many of you have learned over the course of following my blog, I look at a lot of photographs and follow several social media photography forums. I often see things billed as fine art photographs that I would not consider to be fine art. What I consider fine art is the producer is conveying what they feel about a subject or scene. It’s a photograph about something, rather than a photograph of something. Fine art photography, like any other piece of fine art, is about emotion and about the subject.
Can a portrait of a person be fine art?
Absolutely, a portrait can be fine art. It is capturing the soul of the subject. I’ve photographed Ariana on several occasions. She is very thoughtful and has dreams, which she is fulfilling. I feel this portrait of her is very telling of her. She is confident and looking off to the future.
Any subject can be fine art.
The Stairway
It’s all about how the artist feels about a subject or scene. The original scene of “The Stairway” looked like the photograph below.
Original unprocessed image that became “The Stairway”
It’s about the subject and how the artist feels about it. Fine art is about evoking an emotion about a subject to your audience. The audience may not all get the same emotion but it is about how they feel about the subject or scene.
Becoming a fine artist
If you want to become a fine art photographer, I believe you must learn how to take photographs about subjects. How do you feel about it. What message do you want to convey even if that message is personal to you. It isn’t difficult to show how you feel about a subject if you are just honest with yourself. Get to know the subject, even if it is for a brief moment. Let’s create art.
I read a lot of posts in photography forums. Yesterday, I read a post where a photographer was showing off all his high-end photography gear. I’m curious now, what do his photographs look like? I can’t help but look and see. I had an idea of what they probably looked like and I am unhappy to report I wasn’t wrong. To me, they were merely snapshots. They were what appeared to me to be the proverbial, “I see something, I point my camera, and snap, voila!”
Don’t get me wrong, I know we all have different styles of photography, but in reality, these photographs could have been taken with a cellphone, or entry-level gear. To me, it is sort of having a high-performance car and never driving over 25 mph. Maybe I’m a bit envious of someone who can indiscriminately spend thousands of dollars on top-of-the-line equipment.
In my way of thinking, if you’re that into photography, spend a bit less on equipment and spend some on photography training. I know, I’m really letting my jealousy shine, but I’m into results and to me, if you have top-of-the-line stuff, you should have top-of-the-line photographs.
My jealousy races on, but I guess I’ll just have to take my middle-of-the-line stuff and show what can be done with it to create art and top-of-the-line photographs. Now, I’m getting in gear and dusting off my abilities.
I will warn you ahead of time, I’m going to use some bad language in the post. If you don’t like cursing, stop reading now.
I know there may be people who wouldn’t call themselves artists because it may be considered improper in their culture, but if you create work you wish to be considered art and are not creating it your way, to match your vision, your imagination then it is all a bunch of bullshit.
I don’t think artists should always follow the current trends. So many photographers follow the current trend of what is popular. I remember the HDR phase, the Orton look phase, and the bokeh phase (which we are often still stuck). It’s bullshit. If you like a look, incorporate the style with your style, but don’t just follow the trend because everyone is doing it.
We all like to have our work accepted by others. No one likes to have their work talked poorly about in social forums. I have grown to believe this concept of being accepted has stifled our growth as an artist. We have become followers rather than innovators.
I’ve decided I’m going to follow my own path. I’m not sure what that is yet because I have, many times, stifled my growth by chasing the trends. It’s time to set myself free and create my work for myself. If others like it, fantastic. Join me, and create for yourself. Let’s see some fabulous original concepts.
I’m going to mention Ansel Adams again. Ansel Adams wrote a book series, “The Camera”, “The Negative”, and “The Print”. These books discuss Ansel’s process of making photographs. These are about film photography since they were first published in 1978. Something I want you to notice, two of the three books are about the process of making photographs after the click of the shutter. In other words, 2/3rds of Ansel Adams’s process was post-processing. Two-Thirds!
Last fall, A friend and I were on a photography weekend in the plains of Kansas. Coming back from doing some Milky Way photographs we stopped to photograph some night shots of the small town where we were staying. I thought a church was an excellent subject. I got my camera and tripod set up and took a couple of photographs, but a problem hindered showing the subject as I envisioned.
There was an ugly, no parking street sign, there were some weird reflections in the windows, and the street light towards the back of the church was a very different color temperature. Plus the top of the building was in the shadows due to the ambient lighting.
While it was possible back in the late 1970s to remove objects from prints I find it much easier to do today with Photoshop. I could also adjust the color temperature of the light, remove some of the weird reflections, and adjust the shadows and highlights (dodge and burn if you will).
The sign is gone, the weird reflections are gone, the color temperature of the light in the background is better, the shadows and highlights are adjusted, and a bit of street sweeping to clean up some debris in the street. This is how I envisioned representing this church.
Short of vandalizing the sign, I would not have been able to get this photograph without the power of post-processing and the use of Photoshop. I would not have been able to adjust the shadows and highlights or probably the color temperature of the light in the background.
Did I alter reality? I don’t think so because here is the funny thing. When I looked at this building and this scene with my eyes, I could easily look past those issues. My brain processed the scene as I wanted to envision it.
As you proceed on your photographic journey, remember the Ansel Adams books, “The Camera, The Negative, and The Print.” Much work is done through post-processing, not because you made a mistake but because of the limitations of our mechanical equipment to capture what our eyes and brain envision.
Today, I am going to borrow a quote from Ansel Adams, “You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” Far too often I forget this concept. I point my camera at something I want to photograph and click the button. Sometimes it works, other times it is mediocre at best. But, even the mediocre photographs I can work with and develop into something much better, at least to me and the story or concept I wished to convey.
Ansel Adams, was meticulous when he set up his camera to photograph something. He was even more meticulous when he began developing the image. I certainly don’t profess to be anywhere nearly as meticulous or good as Ansel Adams but I have often taken an image from mediocre to good or even very good with some digital darkroom work. I’ve taken some good images from good to an even higher level. This is why I always believe in post-processing. The process of making a photograph doesn’t stop after the shutter clicks. That is just the beginning.
Make your photographs, don’t just take them. Plan them, work them, massage them, and take your time. Just like a good meal, making photographs is planned. Use your vision both setting up to take images and then continue that vision with your darkroom work. Even re-visit some of those mediocre images and apply some post-processing. You make surprise yourself with some hidden gems.
We’ve always heard that art is subjective, but is it really that subjective that almost anything can be art? One dictionary defines art as; “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.” While it appears this gives us a definition it is really open to what is beauty and emotional power. Can a photograph of a band be art? Maybe but not necessarily. For me, art is something more personal.
I like to think of myself as a photographic artist. Does that mean every time I go out with my camera and take photographs I’m creating art? No, absolutely not. Sometimes, I go out and take pictures that may be considered documentary style.
The photograph above I would not call art. In a different location maybe. Just because we may call ourselves artists doesn’t mean everything we create is art. I don’t want the burden placed upon myself that I must create art from everything I do with a camera. It’s too much to expect of myself.
Be creative, but don’t put too much pressure on yourself that you must make an award winner out of everything you do. It’s okay to just take pictures or whatever your creative outlet may be without having to create art.
Photographer Clay 