Quotes of the day:
“Asking ourselves simple questions like, ‘Are we photographing the land or the sky?’ can help us decide what is important. Indecision produces boring images as those with a horizon at dead center.” — Jack Dykinga
“Trust in what you love, continue to do it, and it will take you where you need to go.” — Natalie Goldberg
The subject of these photos is a pair of mallard ducks. Which photo says that better?
Here is a photo assignment for you that can and should be repeated often.
Decide to Decide
Make choices deliberately about what you intend to photograph and how you want to photograph it. Before you go out on a photo shoot decide what your goal is. As you plan each shot ask yourself “What is this photo about?” Ask yourself again when you edit the shot.
Think about the feeling you want to convey. Think about the lighting, lens choice, depth of field, and length of exposure that will best convey that feeling.
My motivation for this assignment:
I have a deep love of nature and find beauty wherever I go so it’s easy for me to be passive about what I want to photograph. In the beginning that served me well as I learned to explore photographing everything from nature to people to architecture with a completely open mind.
But over time I realized that I wanted and needed to develop my personal visual voice and to do so meant taking a stand and deciding what I wanted to convey and how I wanted to convey it.
This became very apparent to me as I made more portraits. I used to be totally passive in my portrait photography, capturing whatever the subject conveyed but not asking my subjects to move in a certain way or creating a mood or story with the photographs. When I observe photographers that I admire I notice that they are not shy about asking the model to pose or in creating a scene that tells a story.
To build my skills and take more photography to a new level I believe I need to be more active in choosing to say something that is important to me. To do that I need to make deliberate choices.
Now back to the assignment:
The goal in this assignment is to make choices, not to make the right choices.
There is no right or wrong choice.
There is only discovery and learning.
Here is a sample of my photo walk today and how I applied this lesson:
Decision: Today before I made a walk through the neighborhood I decided I was looking to photograph signs of spring. (It’s been a long winter here in Minnesota. We got 7 inches of snow just 2 days ago. Although it has almost all melted, I need signs of spring to lift my spirits.)
As I started my walk, a pair of mallard ducks caught my eye (see opening photo above). They are surely a sign of spring here in Minnesota.
Decision: I decided that my subject in this photograph was the pair of ducks, not necessarily their surroundings.
Decision: I decided to use my telephoto lens so that I could get as close as possible without disturbing the ducks.
My first frame was taken from the walking path with my telephoto lens zoomed to the max (270 mm). Since my subject was the ducks, I aimed the camera down eliminating distractions of sky and most of the surroundings. I liked the photo but thought I would like to get closer so that the ducks took up more of the frame. Taking a couple of steps off the path caused the female mallard to move a bit so that she could keep a better eye on me. I was able to almost fill the frame with the ducks.
Next I saw this beautiful egret standing at the edge of the pond. Another sure sign of spring. The egrets are back!
Decision: The next photograph is about, “The egrets are back!”
Decision: Because I was afraid of frightening this shy bird I zoomed my telephoto lens to the max and also cropped the photograph to emphasize the shy bird.
Decision: I framed the shot so that as much of the tree branches to the left were removed from the frame and the egret was higher in the frame than in my first photo. I like the photo on the right better than the one on the left.
There were people coming from the opposite direction on the path. I predicted that the egret would fly off when they got too close.
Decision: I wanted to capture the grace and beauty of the bird taking off or flying with it’s wings spread wide. I positioned myself in a place where I thought I might capture some good shots and quickly shot as many as I could when the shy bird took off.
I wasn’t totally satisfied with the framing of the shot but it was the best I could do given the timing and location.
I continued on my walk and noticed the little stream beside the path was moving swiftly with the runoff from snow melt.
Decision: I decided to set my ISO and depth of field so that I would require a longer exposure to capture the movement of the water. I knew that because I was hand-holding the camera the long exposure would include some camera movement but decided to try anyway to capture the movement.
Decision: I decided to make the rock in the stream my anchor point and framed it a little off-center on the left.
Even though there is movement blur, the rock on the left and the sticks on the right provide enough context to convey swiftly moving water.
What choices will you make?
What are you trying to say? What do you love? What matters to you?
These things will help you decide. The important thing is to
Make choices!
Just make choices. You can always change them later. Make a choice and then make another and then another.
Surrender your need to be right or good.
Remember, there is no right and no wrong. There is only what you create. And tomorrow you will probably create something different.
Pay Attention!
Pay attention to your choices and consider your motivation for making those choices. You will learn more about your unique creative voice.
Play with ideas
Don’t be afraid to be different
Here are a few more photos of signs of spring or subjects that caught my interest:
Green breaks through
Tiny buds beginning to swell on branches
Tall tree towers over houses and other trees
Another sign of spring
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