by successfulbob | black & white, Lumix GH3, Lumix GX7, Lumix Lounge, photography, photography - art quote, photography education, photography gear, success education
COLOR!! Seems to be the theme for me this week.
Just after I decided to make color the target for my shooting while traveling in Sarasota I came across the quote for today’s conversation by Pete Turner.
“I am steadily surprised that there are so many photographers that reject manipulating reality, as if that was wrong. Change reality! If you don’t find it, invent it!” – Pete Turner
From Pete’s web site – A pioneer of color photography, Pete Turner’s career began during the infancy of color photography, at a time when color was used almost exclusively for commercial purposes. Unlike many contemporaries, Turner embraced color, seizing opportunities that allowed him to master the process and to create the imagery he felt compelled to make. Unconcerned with the labels of “art” or “commercial,” I invite you to take a peek at Pete’s photos before reading more…
Many photographers upon first starting out say things like, “I would never put a filter in front of my lens, that would be cheating!” Or, “You use Photoshop that’s not really a photograph.” They then trot out the example of Ansel Adams as the master of reality and they are trying to emulate him. What these photographers don’t realize is that Ansel Adams was one of the original manipulators of all photographic materials to show the scene the way he wanted people to see it. Think about the Zone System and his altering of exposure and development to get different details into different areas of the negative, not mention dodging and burning in the darkroom that sometimes took days to pull one print he was happy with..
In Ansel Adams An autobiography from 1984 Adams said, “I will always embrace a credo of excellence in craft and vision; both are difficult to maintain. Photographers are composers in a sense, and the negatives are their scores. In the electronic age, I am sure that scanning techniques will be able to achieve prints of extraordinary subtlety from the original negative scores. If I could return in 20 years or so I would hope to see astounding interpretations of my most expressive images. It is true no one could print my negatives as I did, but they might well get more out of them by electronic means. Image quality is not the product of a machine, but of the person who directs the machine, and there are no limits to imagination and expression.” – Link to full article ‘Inspired by Ansel’ on black and white imaging.
Please remember that the camera does not see as the eye sees. Your pupil expands and contracts imperceptibly allowing you to see detail in the darkest shadows and brightest highlights in a wide dynamic scene
So I offer these thoughts to you. Learn as much as you can to understand what is possible in our medium. Practice what you learn so you have it available to use when you need it. Have a vision and work to achieve that vision no matter what tools it takes to create the final image.
We now have cameras that can help fine-tune our images straight out of the camera. I was never one for using camera pre-sets but the technology has come a long way baby! Now you can tweak the settings from many of the in camera art type settings and make them your own. The Lumix GH3 has some wonderful black and white settings. The Lumix GX7 can do all that plus you can now set curves in-camera. It’s a great time to be a creative pushing the envelope with all the new tools at our disposal!!
And, isn’t it interesting that an article that started out about intense color and vision in photography ends with black and white??
Turner uses ‘in your face’ color and Adams uses the complete tonal ranges in black and white to tell their stories. How will use your camera to tell your stories in your images??
by successfulbob | fine art photography, photography, photography education, success education
Poking around in other genres of art helps me find clarification for my art thoughts. This week it’s writing and John Steinbeck is the author of today’s Photo/Art quote… “In art the subject upon which you concentrate is unimportant; it is the quality of your concentration that counts.”
Think about it. What makes you go ‘WOW!’ when you see an image? Often it doesn’t even matter what the subject is. But the lighting or angle or treatment that makes us see the it in a new way. This was brought to light when I was speaking in Grand Rapids to a photo group and threw myself a challenge… Take a found object and turn it into a piece of art. I found a paper clip and informed the class of my objective and received looks that ranged from “He’s out of his mind!’ to “There ain’t no frickin’ way!”
About a third of the way into the exercise I was getting ready to believe the nay-sayers and give up. Perseverance won the day and the paper clip turned into what you see here in this link.
My challenge to you today is to take something simple, whether it be a scene, an object or a person and through your skills concentrate and work it until you have an image that makes people either see it in a new way or go “WOW!!” Good luck.
by successfulbob | photography
My head nodded for the fourth time. The speaker kept droning on and on and oooonnnn. He was reading from the slides in the Power Point presentation. What?? I thought they only did that in college with tenured professors. If I want to read something I’ll get the book. I really didn’t think it was possible for someone to make a photography program boring for me.
Think I’ll remember anything from that program?
I will! It’s just that the thing I’ll remember is to never go see that speaker again or buy any of his materials at any price.
Humor. It’s always good to help people get a message. And that brings me to the start of today’s photo/art quote from one of my heroes, Kermit the Frog. (listen to the song Rainbow Connection if you don’t think he’s one talented muppet!) at the bottom of this post.
“I feel strongly that the visual arts are of vast and incalculable importance.
Of course, I may be prejudiced. I am a visual art.”
How do you think of your photography? Do you think of it as art? As science? Do you think about it at all?
I feel photography is a tremendous visual art.
It preserves untold memories for families.
It is a major driver in the world of commerce attracting attention to products and businesses.
It hangs in places of business creating a sense of atmosphere.
It hangs in homes bringing regular and continued pleasure to the viewer.
It hangs in museums as art or recording of historic events.
I could go on and on and ooonnnn, but I won’t. Next time you pick up your camera think about it. Are you ‘Taking a picture.’? Or, are you creating a visual art?
Kermit the Frog sings the Rainbow Connection
by successfulbob | Lumix GH3, Lumix GX7, Lumix Lounge, panorama, photography, photography - art quote, photography education
Today’s quote I found while cruising Entrepreneur Magazine and it was in the editor’s note.
“It is a happy talent to know how to play.” Ralph Waldo Emmerson.
The editor talks of playfulness coming to a halt as we get older. As children we are happy to push a button to see what it does. We proudly display our artistic creations. We run and jump just because we can! Then as age and other people’s opinions begin to beat us down we become more conservative in what ways are willing to experiment with new things while trying to learn. In my Photoshop classes I have always exhorted people to play, play and play some more. Push a button and see what happens. Ask your self, “What if I do this?” Then do it. A mistake? Cool! You just learned something. Try again… And, again. Then comes the, “Wow, that looks cool!” moment when the button you pushed or new technique you tried is wonderful.
This is really hitting home for me as I move to the micro four thirds format with my Panasonic Lumix cameras. The GH3 AND GX7 have so many new features and possibilities it can be a little overwhelming. I kept trying to create a really good image without trying new things. But, as I started to take my own advice and try new settings, see what happens when I push this or tweak that I find the wonder that I had when I first started photography. It’s like having a darkroom in my hands. I’m more excited and energized than I have been in years. (and those who know me know I am always pretty excited about photography so it’s really saying something!) Am I making mistakes? Yep! But it doesn’t matter. As I make the mistakes I am learning new techniques, creating new looks in camera that I was never able to before. And, as I play I’m able to get more and more creative with my image making. How cool is that?
So even though you didn’t ask for it let me pass on a little advice… Be willing to fail because in failure you find your greatest, and quickest, learning curve.
Gregory Heisler Portrait Photographer I love this look straight out of camera. High contrast Black & White with a bit of glow around the darkest areas. This look has already sold to a couple clients! (Thanks to my fellow Lumix Luminaries for the tip to get me started with that one!)
In-camera panoramic stitching is a wonderful feature in the Lumix GX7 I’m having fun pushing it to limits. How well does it do in a moving person situation? That depends on how much the person is moving. If you get everyone relatively still it’s pretty cool… This is Frederick Van Johnson interviewing Kristen Jensen at the Lumix Lounge Live at PhotoPlus Expo in New York last week.
If you have a photo group and would like to have me or one of the other Luminaries speak it’s very possible Panasonic will cover the costs. You supply the venue and the photographers. Pick your subject and speaker and we’ll do the rest.
by successfulbob | photography, photography - art quote, photography education
While I wouldn’t trade my time in the darkroom for anything I do appreciate that my darkroom has come into the light via my computer.
Today’s quote from John Sexton about the magic of trying to pull a print and the frustration & fun that lies therein is something that I now experience in working to create my fine art photo pieces in the computer. The difference is I have many more tools available at my beck and call… and the ability to repeat a print much easier. In the past I remember trying to pull a print like one I had already made and with the vagaries of dodging and burning and shifting chemistry making it near impossible to duplicate the exact tones.
Is this a good thing? It’s definitely different but I believe so. The idea is to get the image that is pre-visualized onto a media to share with others. We now have the tools to touch every single tone in an image giving us the ability to really make a print sing! I saw a quote from Ansel Adams in his auto-biography that he wished he could be around in 20 years (published in 1984) to see what others could get from his negatives via electronic means. It wouldn’t be the electronics but the operator that would be making the difference. He said that the images wouldn’t be like his but that people might very well get more from his negatives than he could in the darkroom.
I enjoy the challenge of sharing my imagery… no matter the way it is eventually created. The result is what counts, not the way in which it is achieved.
“For me the printing process is part of the magic of photography. It’s that magic that can be exciting, disappointing, rewarding and frustrating all in the same few moments in the darkroom.” John Sexton
