TIPS for TOPIC 2

Environment 

The first topic used a collection of tools (closeness, angle of view, dramatic light, mystery) to get you to take interesting pictures of things. Now time it is to move past things and create photographs that present an environment that your viewer can step into and spend some time. The first thing to do is to take a few steps further away from your subject and include the space that it inhabits. Then remove the specific subject and just keep the sense of space. 

Color & Feel

We do not see things directly. We see the light that is reflecting off of things that comes into our eyes. If you change the color of the light then the thing you were looking at will look different. The task now is to think about how the color of the ambient light in a space changes the ‘feel’ of that space. This is a good time to remember the sense of mystery that we were trying to create earlier. Think about what you have to do to create a mysterious space that will attract your viewer’s attention and keep them interested. Think about how the color of the ambient light changes through the day. Compare the light of dawn to the light at midday to the light at sunset (magic hour) and then consider the color of the various types of artificial light that we find during the night. [All of this is discussed in more technical terms in the handout on Working with Color.] All these different lighting environments can substantially alter the feel of the same space throughout the day.

Color & Saturation

One problem with color photos is that they tend to look too normal, aka regular, aka generic. It is desirable to alter the color away from normal to make a more interesting photo. Do not use over-saturation as the main tool to create striking photographs. Usually what you get is fake looking photos. (Unless you eye has already been perverted by the oversaturated televisions, computer monitors and even smartphones that we look at all the time.) [Most cameras pump up the saturation automatically, so it is better to desaturate to take things in the other, unexpected direction. Lower color saturation makes thing a bit more intangible, which is a desirable attribute.

Photo Clichés

I have to comment that there are still a number of photographs that come under the heading of Photo Clichés; dogs, babies, flowers, sunsets, City Hall and other buildings, lights, graffiti, etc. Please re-read the Photo Clichés document. Avoid people posing for a photo, or worse, hamming it up for the camera. That turns that photo into a snapshot. If people are aware they are being shot they become self-conscious and it usually doesn’t work. Simply asking people to close their eyes can make a big difference. The problem with snapshots is that the essential meaning is not actually contained within the photograph. Snapshots are used to trigger people’s memories, so the image is in their minds, not so much in the photo. This is not what we are looking for in this class.  

Typical Color Clichés include anything with overly intense color. If you are shooting just to grab the color and there is no deeper meaning behind that subject, the photo is not going far enough. It is stuck in the Physical Discipline only. Shooting graffiti, or architecture just for the shapes, is appropriating some else’s art. There are magazines dedicated to photos of graffiti and it is documentation. It is preferred that you make your own art directly from the raw material that the world provides for you. If you are using architectural elements such as graceful curves to enclose a space, or edges of buildings that cast sharp shadows, then you are on the right track. Avid shooting pictures that make jokes or puns based on the writing that is in the photo. These quickly become corny. Cute animals (are there any animals that are not inherently cute?) are a classic form of snapshot. 

Sunsets are a classic content of picture postcards and those are simply too generic. The feeling generated by the light of a setting sun can however be used to create an evocative setting for a subject, as long as the sunset is not the main subject (if even visible at all). Flowers are another classic photo cliché and should be avoided. They are just too easy. Photos of lights seem to be overused these days. The light cast by a fixture, however, can create an environment with ambience, as described above when talking about the sun, just this time it is interior rather than exterior.

The new Smartphone cliches are pictures of food and selfies. Don’t shoot ether of these for this class. I sent you a link to a whole page of examples of Smartphone Self-portraits. You can draw inspiration from those.

Structure

Remember the structure elements that we learned in the first topic, such as not shooting singular elements that are easily identifiable and not centering your subject in the center of the frame. This locks up your viewer’s viewpoint. You should remember that when you shoot on the street you have to have something, or better, several somethings that you want to draw your viewers attention to. I see too many shots where I do not really know where the photographer wants me to look, or what order the photographer wants me to consider several subjects. The shot has to set up a hierarchy of importance between the elements in the frame, and that help define their relationships. And relationships is the beginning of the road to Passion. If I cannot understand that from the structure of the photograph then I will not be able to communicate with photographer and feel their passion.

Note: You are allowed to continue to wrk in B&W if you wish. If you do more work in B&W,  those photos need to be toned, even if just slightly. Dead flat B&W is not enough.

Good luck and keep shooting - - -