Whenever I edit my photo shoots I'm on the lookout for images that stand out. Usually I have some in mind from when I viewed them on the little screen after taking them, but often these fail to materialize in the way I had imagined. In fact, more often that not, it's those images that were captured in a rather lazy and ho-hum kind of way that get my attention first.
Now, I'm not saying that I don't ever get lucky--which is to see an image and frame it up while previsualizing the final product and nail it, but it is rare. Very rare.
Today's shot, for example, was one that I took this past weekend while on tour of the U.S.S. Razorback, a WWII Balao class submarine. It was an offhand shot, as most all the pics I took aboard the sub were, and I had no idea this image would stand out from the rest until I got home and began editing the pics.
When I came across it I was immediately attracted to the lines... the sweeping curves and the way the wheel spokes point loosely to the four corners of the images. But even more than that, I realized later, was that the image had a quality I very much enjoy in photographs, and thats one of depth. The black and white treatment was done to accentuate this, but it really wasn't much of a stretch as there was little color in the photo to begin with.
Now, I've known that I like depth in images for some time. My first foray into the DSLR world was with a Sigma SD9 because the examples I saw from that camera most often contained the depth that I liked so much. Later I came to realize that while the SD9 (and other Foveon imagers) are special in this way, it really wasn't so much the equipment used as it was the vision of the photographer that used them.
And somewhere along the way I realized that depth was an element of style, my style, and that it was something I wanted to strengthen and exploit.
So take a good look at your "Keepers" and see if you can figure what it is about them that makes them special to you. Whether you know it or not you probably do this already. The trick then is to see it, feed it, and do what you can to make your images uniquely your own.
1 comment:
An odd thing about this shot Michael... Yeah... I'm down with the depth thing... BUT... Usually when I do depth... I frame the foreground, or at least push a border object into the viewer's face.
Here you do something quite else. You have started your depth in mid range... neither foreground nore back. Oh the handle comes up to my nose, but it's not the dominant thingee.... nope that wheel is what's going on here smack in the middle. I've gotta try that.
Now of course your carefully placed curves reinforce the eye's trip into the background, and those wall hangings bring us back farther. But after all it's the wheel that gives this still shot action.
Are all artists control freaks? Are we like that in life too... or is this our one major chance to so strictly orient a world? Can you be an artist without a compulsion of some sort to control?
Thanks for sharing
Ted
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