Raw materials for my art
One of the great things about my life is the eclectic assortment of people and influences in it. Having the thoughts of a Real! Live! Artist! show up in my Twitter feed has made me think a lot about creation. Maybe it's Nayland's own biases and work, but it seems to me that a lot of art these days is derivative, in a not-necessarily bad way. We wear Mad Men-inspired clothes, listen to remixes and dubs, and watch remakes and Matilda the Musical.
I've been working with photos a lot lately, between the invitations and guestbook for our engagement party, and I've been taking a lot of photos, with the Disney and Venice trips. A few months ago, Jon and I attended his son's annual benefit auction. While I =love= amateur auctions for their mispricings, I don't know the teachers and I don't vacation in typical places (which is good bc both were overpriced). One of the offerings was a 2hr photo review with a Newsweek photo editor, which went for its base price, to moi.
It took us forever to get in touch and then we met and had a lot of trouble communicating, even though we're both well-educated native English speakers. ah well. I'd been planning to sort through all my Venice photos, but that didn't happen, and we quickly moved on to my Himalayan photos. I'd already rated all those photos and even exported them to Shutterfly, so we just looked at the 150 4-star rated photos. He very clearly was used to rapidly assessing photos and flipped through some of mine quickly. We also spent quite a lot of time on particular photos, discussing what was wrong with them or why he liked them. I could never be a pro photographer, bc if I constantly got asked "Why didn't you shoot the thing next to that thing?" I'd start hitting people.
I was interested in the photo review because I think there's only so much you can learn from books and if you really want to get better at something, you periodically have to get live feedback. My biggest takeaway was that while I can sometimes take beautiful pictures (usually by taking my camera to amazing places), I don't have so much control over my tools that I can intentionally create a look. I know the basics of how to shoot, how to change the time/aperture, how to compose and what to focus on. Jamie commented that whether a certain photographer is in Cairo or Peru, the pictures look the same. Mine don't. I (still) haven't gone through all the Venice trip pictures, but I'd bet good money there is a single shot from that trip that looks like it was made by the same person who went to Ama Dablam. It's what separates art from snapshots and while my besotted boyfriend would remind me I'm comparing myself to pros, I would like to make the next 40 years of carrying an SLR more worthwhile.
When I started to ask the editor about how one might make a certain shot better, he said, "Oh, I'm not a technician: those guys can look at a picture and tell you what camera you used." He did however recommend taking a technical class. I have no idea what he means: ICP and SVA do not have classes called Technical Photography. It's on my queue to call them though, bc while I totally don't need a distraction, I'll probably take a multi-week photography course in the fall. I have a theory that my real issue is lighting, so I downloaded Fil Hunter's short book, which I totally plan to read. Totally.
Part of it is that the editor commented that I live in a beautiful city, the sort of place people dream of visiting, but I have fewer photos of NYC than of my breakfast in Bologna. He asked what I carry every day, but I still think the right answer is "my iPhone 4". I could - and probably should - take a walk around NYC with a camera, as if I were a tourist, and a multi-week course would force me to.
The editor was a big fan of landscapes, which was the segue from my Barcelona photos to the Himalayas. (I'll show you landscapes...) He commented that landscapes are portraits and shooting them well will improve my portraits. He also called still lifes landscapes, which equally pinged true. I found it fascinating how he grouped pictures, recommending three that go together, etc. I'm still not sure why he thought they went together, except that the figures were the same size in each. (which might be the answer: maybe humans like looking at groupings where the focal length is the same?)
Ultimately, he agreed with my pesky boyfriend: when he was finished picking which of my 4-star pictures he thought should go in my book, he said, "You may pick other photos, but you shouldn't be including many more photos." My pesky boyfriend told me to make a 12x12 book, but not if I was just going to cram more photos per page. Looking back at the book I made of my Cascades trip with several years remove, I see its flaws so much more clearly. There were few great pictures from that trip, but the scrapbook is a hodge podge. I may not have written a memoir as a wrapper to my Himalayan photos, but hopefully I can make something worth putting on a coffee table.
I've been working with photos a lot lately, between the invitations and guestbook for our engagement party, and I've been taking a lot of photos, with the Disney and Venice trips. A few months ago, Jon and I attended his son's annual benefit auction. While I =love= amateur auctions for their mispricings, I don't know the teachers and I don't vacation in typical places (which is good bc both were overpriced). One of the offerings was a 2hr photo review with a Newsweek photo editor, which went for its base price, to moi.
It took us forever to get in touch and then we met and had a lot of trouble communicating, even though we're both well-educated native English speakers. ah well. I'd been planning to sort through all my Venice photos, but that didn't happen, and we quickly moved on to my Himalayan photos. I'd already rated all those photos and even exported them to Shutterfly, so we just looked at the 150 4-star rated photos. He very clearly was used to rapidly assessing photos and flipped through some of mine quickly. We also spent quite a lot of time on particular photos, discussing what was wrong with them or why he liked them. I could never be a pro photographer, bc if I constantly got asked "Why didn't you shoot the thing next to that thing?" I'd start hitting people.
I was interested in the photo review because I think there's only so much you can learn from books and if you really want to get better at something, you periodically have to get live feedback. My biggest takeaway was that while I can sometimes take beautiful pictures (usually by taking my camera to amazing places), I don't have so much control over my tools that I can intentionally create a look. I know the basics of how to shoot, how to change the time/aperture, how to compose and what to focus on. Jamie commented that whether a certain photographer is in Cairo or Peru, the pictures look the same. Mine don't. I (still) haven't gone through all the Venice trip pictures, but I'd bet good money there is a single shot from that trip that looks like it was made by the same person who went to Ama Dablam. It's what separates art from snapshots and while my besotted boyfriend would remind me I'm comparing myself to pros, I would like to make the next 40 years of carrying an SLR more worthwhile.
When I started to ask the editor about how one might make a certain shot better, he said, "Oh, I'm not a technician: those guys can look at a picture and tell you what camera you used." He did however recommend taking a technical class. I have no idea what he means: ICP and SVA do not have classes called Technical Photography. It's on my queue to call them though, bc while I totally don't need a distraction, I'll probably take a multi-week photography course in the fall. I have a theory that my real issue is lighting, so I downloaded Fil Hunter's short book, which I totally plan to read. Totally.
Part of it is that the editor commented that I live in a beautiful city, the sort of place people dream of visiting, but I have fewer photos of NYC than of my breakfast in Bologna. He asked what I carry every day, but I still think the right answer is "my iPhone 4". I could - and probably should - take a walk around NYC with a camera, as if I were a tourist, and a multi-week course would force me to.
The editor was a big fan of landscapes, which was the segue from my Barcelona photos to the Himalayas. (I'll show you landscapes...) He commented that landscapes are portraits and shooting them well will improve my portraits. He also called still lifes landscapes, which equally pinged true. I found it fascinating how he grouped pictures, recommending three that go together, etc. I'm still not sure why he thought they went together, except that the figures were the same size in each. (which might be the answer: maybe humans like looking at groupings where the focal length is the same?)
Ultimately, he agreed with my pesky boyfriend: when he was finished picking which of my 4-star pictures he thought should go in my book, he said, "You may pick other photos, but you shouldn't be including many more photos." My pesky boyfriend told me to make a 12x12 book, but not if I was just going to cram more photos per page. Looking back at the book I made of my Cascades trip with several years remove, I see its flaws so much more clearly. There were few great pictures from that trip, but the scrapbook is a hodge podge. I may not have written a memoir as a wrapper to my Himalayan photos, but hopefully I can make something worth putting on a coffee table.