Today as I resumed photographing the bouquet of flowers I bought earlier this week I found myself looking deeper,
Going Deeper
as I searched for the beauty and message these flowers brought me. The contrast with my earlier photos of the flowers was huge. Are these images “better” than the first ones I made? Who knows? It’s probably a matter of personal taste and experience. But for me, today, they express more of what I want to express.
I switched to using my older Canon camera today for this work as I’m still more familiar with its controls for this type of manual focus, shallow depth of field, on the tripod photography.
Tell me somethin’, girl
Are you happy in this modern world?
Or do you need more?
Is there somethin’ else you’re searchin’ for?— Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, Shallow
Knowing your gear is so important when making photographs. If you cannot quickly figure out how to change settings to achieve what you envision, it’s easy to get frustrated or lose the presence needed to express what you want to express.
I’ve bought a book explaining all of the settings of my new camera, but I need to spend more time studying it with my camera in my lap so that I can try out the settings discussed in the book. And then I just need practice, lots and lots of practice.
Learning, Experimenting, Expressing
I had to slow down to make the images I made today. Beginning by setting up the camera on my tripod, I made a few test images. Then I stopped and uploaded those images to my computer asking myself things like
- How does this feel to me?
- Do I need to go closer? Further away? Remove distractions?
- Where do I want the focus to be? How much of the image do I want to be in focus?
- Which flowers do I want to include? Are there too many? Too few? Annoying distractions?
Back and forth I went, making a few images, downloading them to my computer and looking at them on my big screen. Finally when I was tired of standing I came back and worked on the images. Which ones do I want in color? What is important in this image? What is taking away from that? Can I crop it out? Blur it? Lighten it or darken it?
Anyhow, the older I get, the less impressed I become with originality. These days, I’m far more moved by authenticity. Attempts at originality can often feel forced and precious, but authenticity has quiet resonance that never fails to stir me.
― Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Adobe just released a new version of Adobe Lightroom Classic and I played with some of the new features today. It amazes me how much the tools have changed and improved since I began using them over 10 years ago. I’m actually grateful that Lightroom had many fewer options at that time. It seems to me that the number of options available now might be overwhelming for a beginning photographer.
What do you want to try or experiment with in your creative life today? And what would you like to express in your art? Is going deeper a possibility?
May you walk in beauty.
0 Comments