How do you shoot?

[Ko.Fe.]

Here is no simple formula for how to shoot. None.
The only solution is to take pictures continuously, review them critically and learn photography from others you find worth to learn.
Only then you might have some idea what you are doing.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Yes-measure twice, cut once.

Humpf! I measure once and cut twice. Sometimes three times. Sometimes just start over.

 

[ChristopherCoy]

Humpf! I measure once and cut twice. Sometimes three times. Sometimes just start over.

I once built an entire loafing shed like that. 12x24. You had to stand back and cock your head to the side for it to look straight, but it withstood 90mph straightline winds though!

 

[cjbecker]

I never shoot projects, I don't shoot for artistic reasons, I only shoot to capture memories. If that memory is a landscape of where we were, I will shoot a landscape. If that memory is planting a tree on the property, I shoot a environmental portrait. If that memory is building our house, i shoot that. We enjoy traveling/hiking/camping and I will always have a camera on me when we are out.

 

[logan2z]

But lately, when I feel the tingle, I'll get ready to shoot, and then pull back because there's a presumed lack of contrast. Or, there aren't any leading lines. Or the sky is just going to be over-exposed white. Or everything is just going to be a deep gray because its mostly greenery.

I think you may be overthinking things.

I shoot film as well and don't just press the button indiscriminately , but I try not to think about 'rules' when deciding if I should shoot or not. My favorite pictures tend to be made when I'm thinking less, not more. In fact I've noticed that many of those photos are 'end of roll' photos, made when I'm just trying to shoot the last one or two frames on a roll. My theory is that since I'm just trying to finish the roll I'm not thinking too deeply about what I'm shooting, and this results in some of my best/favorite pictures.

Another relevant quote from Henry Wessel:

"Some of my best work is done when I'm half asleep"

 

[Paul Howell]

My training and background is in photo journalism which includes the picture story, so I shoot both on the fly, what is happening, where I've been, what I seen, what I did, and at times the picture story, a planned project. My favorite PJists Eugene Smith and Margaret Book White were masters of the picture stroy.

 

[awty]

All my pictures are planned, occasionally in an instant, but mostly over a period of time, have plans that are developing over many years.
99.9% of the photos I take are purely experimental, so I can start working out how to do it the way I want, which camera, which lens, what film, how to work the light all play a crucial roll for me, then I will do a print and work out if I should reshoot again or just work on the print. Sometimes I get it right the first time and doesnt matter how many times I try it differently I cant improve on it.
I will go out with a few cameras and not take a single photo or take many, doesnt mater.
At the end of the day I want a picture that has some depth and meaning to me and I dont need many, just a few will surfice.

 

[NB23]

I feel a tingle too, but usually it ends up just being gas. You can tell by looking at my photos.

Lotsa gases here too...

 

[Ian Grant]

Day projects, weekend projects, months, or years... Never thought about it like that. And I've never set out on a day of shooting with a goal in mind, which may be why I'm not seeing anything.

Thanks Ian! Your post is definitely a spark of inspiration.

I think it's worth looking at what you've been shooting, are any common themes, what interests you as well. In my own case back in the mid 1980's I was out shooting landscapes seemingly randomly until I realised I was photographing industrial remains, then I could take things further with some planning and research.

You start to think of shooting series small projects, maybe putting a few images together that work coherently, I have a few hand made books of smaller projects it helps learning about editing (which images to choose) and also sequencing.

Ian

 

[Black Dog]

I think it's worth looking at what you've been shooting, are any common themes, what interests you as well. In my own case back in the mid 1980's I was out shooting landscapes seemingly randomly until I realised I was photographing industrial remains, then I could take things further with some planning and research.

You start to think of shooting series small projects, maybe putting a few images together that work coherently, I have a few hand made books of smaller projects it helps learning about editing (which images to choose) and also sequencing.

Ian

That's what I do too. Some books I've found really helpful are On Being A Photographer (David Hurn & Bill Jay) , Approaching Photography (Paul Hill) and Magnum Contacts (ed Kristen Lubben), as well as Aperture's Photography Workshop series, where top photographers such as Alex Webb and Mary Ellen Mark explain how they work .
Also here's something I wrote last year about the process of photography:

https://www.ipse.org.uk/website/IPSE_News/addenda/Following the White Rabbit.pdf

 

[Ian Grant]

I have a PDF of Approaching Photograph somewhere, it's not the normal straight PDF version of the book it's quite elaborate with Hyperlinks and indexing, it couldn't be sold or put on-line as Paul didn't have electronic copyright for most of the images. I was put together by the IT department at De Montfort University. It was an example of how good PDF's could be but no-one expoited it.

"Dialogue with Photography" Paul Hill and Thomas Joshua Cooper is another book worth reading.

Ian

 

[MattKing]

Of more general application, "Art and Fear" is a really useful and quite entertaining read as well.

 

[Vaughn]

Art and Fear -- excellent.

I wander, looking at the light. I try not to get too involved with the decision-making process. To joyfully mis-use a phrase, I zen it. The phrase "Rule of Thirds" has never once bounced around my brain while making an image in the field. Of course, now I'll go out photographing remember this post, and think 'rule of thirds', and I'll never be able to say that again.

But that is what I do, I wander. I have had some incredible days of photography without ever setting up the camera...40 years of it so far. I am starting to think that the photographs I have seen, but have not taken, are as important to me as the ones that I have exposed film and made prints with. Photography is not what I do, it is part of how I see.

I don't like tingles in my heart -- I got medicine for that.