letting go, or no ?

StoneNYC said:

... I think if you're good enough, you wouldn't need to take every shot because you would know what was worth taking.

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Sometimes there's a lot worth taking... The "camera walks" I took this winter, with snow on the ground, and falling from the sky, had new image possibilities every 10 yards.
I live by the Wayne Gretzky quote: "You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take."

From the zen perspective you don't worry about film cost and usage, as you merely operate the camera and it takes the picture.

cliveh said:

From the zen perspective you don't worry about film cost and usage, as you merely operate the camera and it takes the picture.

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The film allows the image to appear...

thanks cliveh
you nailed it ..

StoneNYC said:

The film allows the image to appear...

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its the chemical rays of light that make the image appear not the film,
with the chemical rays of light photographic film is useless.

=== ( thanks maris )

jnanian said:

thanks cliveh
you nailed it ..




its the chemical rays of light that make the image appear not the film,
with the chemical rays of light photographic film is useless.

===

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I was being zen...

do you actually print every photographic frame you expose? do you allow for any error?
if you are in the midst of a project, do all the photographs look exactly the same, the ones from 5 years ago and the ones from yesterday ?

im not being facetious or anything, but how does one "grow" or get better or learn and understand film paper chemistry, the camera &c
if there is no change and everything is ... exact / "just-so"?
i ask this because we are only able to learn from our mistakes, and if one has everything planned so precisely and perfectly
with no margin of error or allowance to do things that aren't expected &c ... how does one get better?
"crappy exposures" "poor negatives" or whatever other derogatory comments made about the unplanned exposures
or allowing oneself to let-go are perfect opportunities for printing and interpretation and becoming a better printer .. ( and camera operator )

obviously i am just speaking from my experience ... but i know others who have exposed more than "a ration" of film knew that it was an impossibility
to have every frame "a keeper " and never regretted it.
( garry winogrand exposed so much film the pressure plate in his camera had sprocket holes burned into it ... and i seem to remember when he died he still had 10,000 rolls of film to process)

I ask myself 1) Will I print this? And then 2) Will it look good hanging on a wall? If I answered yes to 1, then I shoot, and if I also answered yes to 2, then I shoot two. I usually don't shoot if the scene doesn't fit that criteria since prints for mounting/framing are my goal. I tend to spend a lot of time setting up a shot, and then deciding not to bother taking it.

I think there's a danger in pigeon-holing ourselves as to what kind of photographers we are. "I do portraits"... "I do landscapes"... " I do abstracts"...
It can limit growth, creativity, and the development of personal style. Forays into unfamiliar areas can keep things fresh, and always results in new insights when we return to more familiar ground. Being too strict in requirements can mean you'll never see the forest for the trees (both figuratively and literally).

On the one hand, I'm not thinking about "wasting film," but on the other hand, I work in a fairly conscious way, and I'm thinking ahead about what I'm really going to print, and I'm not afraid to go home empty handed, so if I don't think there's potentially something there (usually because I'm not happy with the light), then I don't make the exposure, and don't feel afterward like I've missed an opportunity. That still leaves plenty of room to experiment and take chances and try things that will fail or maybe surprise me.

This question always amuses me. My signature line used to be "Photography is not for the faint of wallet."

My answer: I use what I need. YMMV

After buying cameras, lenses, tripods, filters, cases and bags; then dedicating and fitting out a room for a darkroom; buying enlargers, lenses, sinks, negative carriers, trays, tanks, reels and a zillion other things; - film is cheap.

I think this question must take in consideration what are you shooting. I make most of my pictures on the street with 35mm camera - and of course it is very different from one who shoots landscapes.

I tend to vacillate between between being cautious to firing off a roll. It depends on my mood. Sometimes developing a roll of film is just as fun a shooting it.

hi darkosaric

i see what you are saying and i agree with you sortof ...
but i see landscape and portrait and street and abstractions as all the same thing
an exercise in observation ...

i can't speak for anyone else's experiences but i know that if i was in the zone and only took formulaic
or only photographs that i intended to take i wouldn't know how to print
and my eyes wouldn't be open to seeing most of the world around me ... my guess is that when you are on the street
with your camera, you observe a lot of different things, you are not just looking for people wearing read shoes ...
even if your long/short term project was "red shoes" ...

In the early Eighties I worked for three years for a very talented studio and wedding photographer, many years my senior, he taught me many, many things especially coming from a darkroom technician / printer / industrial photographic background.

Apart from how to take or rather 'light' a portrait he taught me that 16 photographs told the story of a wedding, any more than 30 was 'guache'. He went through every wedding album or proof set of portraits with the happy couple or the sitter, whether he photographed it, or I did, he didn't look at the photographs he looked at the customers faces, if it was my work he used to say 12 smiles out of 20 images......very good or 9 smiles out of 20 not so good.....smiles = print sales = profit and even more importantly a recommendation, we never paid advertise!.

He also held great store by gasps ! by customers.

Basically every photograph should produce a reaction....

He also started out telling me that 'good' wedding photography was one of the hardest skills.......
handling the people...not the camera ! 90% people work, 10% camera work ! and any more than 30 minutes max actually doing the photography means that you are imposing on their day and not doing your job properly...

I was such a smart a*** as most of us are when we are young... he could have taught me a lot more if I had listened a bit better.

Now.... I still try and 'think' about what I photograph, for me it ain't the materials its the time and the desire to produce something that means something to me or has 'worth'.

What I do always do is bracket, half a stop and a full stop either way ( not on sheet ! ) no substitute for a good neg, never was, never will be......and I always PRINT...

I truly despair when I see supposedly professional wedding photography now, 600 photographs of the wedding on an i pad.......584 too many in my opinion and frequently no prints..... or as I call it no point...but I am not knocking digital....just as always 'how its used' or how its now used as quantity over quality, quality always for me.

Oh and you do not take photographs with your arms out in front of you.... and people who take photographs with i pads in that manner especially should have them kicked out their hands without a word of apology IMHO.

I do have one 'indulgence' a Leica with a motor drive.....but I still have a little guilt if I leave my finger on too long...

Simon ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited :

hi simon

thanks for your insights.
i know the wedding photographer is only supposed to tell the story of the fairy tale ( wedding of the bride and groom )
that's their job, and its important to do what he is being paid for ...
but very few people here who responded to this thread are paid professionals but ... lay-persons / hobbyists
... im thinking a guest at the same wedding with a camera might see a million different stories to be
told from the birds on the street infront of the church choking on the rice to the food or behind the scenes service to the guests or even the band/dj
to the slowly getting drunk friends who eventually passed out in the lady's room.

i guess a real-life example of what i am talking about would be this ...
back in around 1996 i was hired to photograph a house in worcester massachusetts. it was a beat up 2 story italianate gothic sort of wood framed house
taken by eminent domain by the state for improvements to a state highway / turnpike.
the photographs were supposed to be of the house for the state and federal archives.
these historic preservation photographs illustrate a detailed report which explains the historic significance of the house &c, and typically are very formulaic.
maybe 12 4x5 views -- tops. street views, (context) 3/4 perspectives ( 2 elevations in one view ), windows, watertable, details of construction,
and typical room views up +down and details of construction
( if there was a hole in the wall for example that showed how the framing was &c ) that is usually what people stop at ...
they typically have tunnel vision when they do this sort of work and forget or don't explore a little bit ...
under a pile of leaves there large granite blocks and what in new england was referred to as a "stone fence" which would have been the boundary of the house
( incase you were wondering, they made wood fences and when they worked the soil they pulled the rocks out of the ground, and dropped it over the wood fence
... the wood fence eventually rotted away and the stone fence remains )
if i hadn't looked beyond the scope of "just the house" photographs that further explained the context of property wouldn't have been found ...
and after they knocked down the house, graded the property and put the exit ramp in it would have all been vanished ...

im not inquiring or suggesting folks just blast through a thousand rolls of film in a day, but if they observe and photograph things they might not have intended to when they left with their camera + allow themselves the lee-way to let go and photograph unplanned, unexpected
and to make a few mistakes along the way ..

StoneNYC said:

I think if you know what you're doing you'll only need to take one shot the best one... Haha

But I agree, I how you said that too

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Sometimes, though, Stone, you have to experiment, to try, and sometimes the "best" shot is not the one you thought was best.

I stopped taking a camera out as often when I recognised a tendency to expose film just because the camera is there and not because there is something interesting to photograph; which just creates more film processing work, organisation, printing etc.

Tom

Thanks for passing along those tips Simon. Most of us are not professional event photographers, but I bet nearly all of us are "forced" into this kind of duty fairly often.

Imagine this situation: you are on the street, one person is turned back to you (you don't see the face - could be interesting, could not), and you wait that he/she turn, or half turn - and then maybe it will fit to the whole frame. In my view you must be ready and in split second press the shutter, even risking that photo will be no good. You simply can not have all planned on the street.

For example this photo:

Dead Link Removed

I wanted to have whole face of the man - but simply it was not possible - face was behind the flowers all the time, so I waited, and on the end I got not 100% what I wanted, but anyhow I pressed the shutter.

Or this one:

Dead Link Removed

It would be much better photo is she was looking on my side, but she did not, I let it go , and took the picture anyhow - knowing that result will not be as good as I want it to be.

I'm 100% lay-person/hobbyist, and only do photography because I enjoy it. It does separate into a "playful, fun, carefree experimental" and "more serious, careful painstaking" sides. For me the pinhole / paper negatives / alt side keeps things fun and different and more lighthearted, with few expectations. When it's just a piece of photo paper in a coffee can, it is easier to let go and just immerse in your surroundings and not have set ideas of what it will be.

But then it really does take some work and effort to learn how to make good negatives and learn how to print them well. That side of things for me is "more traditional" I guess, and even if I do it for the rest of my life I won't get as much experience as some here at APUG have. I'm beginning to realize the "fun" side needs to mix more with the "serious film" side. But I feel like I'm discovering and seeing new things all the time, so I guess I just naturally make enough mistakes so I'm bound to stumble on something good!

We've all had "happy accidents" and serendipity. I think of photography as discovery as much as pre-planned creation.

To Simons point...

The clientele have changed. If I told the wedding planner/bride that I was only giving them 16 images for their wedding album, they would probably cry, and not hire me for sure, when I tell them "I only give the best 200 images, they say "but can't we just have the others unedited? We want them all!" It's a digital issue, they will never look at them, or even post them, but they WANT them all, just to have.

Anyway, 13 out of 20 isn't too bad

I shoot 8x10 and 14x17. I don't let 'er go but sometimes I shoot a backup if subject is far away from home. I only expose a sheet if I'm moved to do so.

When using the 4x5 I almost always make 2 identical exposures... I hate doubling my film costs but everytime I end up with a big hair or scratch or some other issue on one and not the other I am relieved.

Kinda broke right now and trying to save some money for paper so I am definitely being a bit more picky with my choices... that tends to change with the thickness of my wallet!

StoneNYC said:

To Simons point...

The clientele have changed. If I told the wedding planner/bride that I was only giving them 16 images for their wedding album, they would probably cry, and not hire me for sure, when I tell them "I only give the best 200 images, they say "but can't we just have the others unedited? We want them all!" It's a digital issue, they will never look at them, or even post them, but they WANT them all, just to have.

Anyway, 13 out of 20 isn't too bad

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I think you're right on this point. I did weddings back in the 70s. I was shooting 6x6 and took 5 rolls of color film. I do not remember ever loading the 5th roll, and usually didn't finish the 4th. I had a routine, which I had discussed with the principle parties way ahead of time, to ensure that I got the important (read: salable) shots. I generally delivered 40-45 proofs, and prints were ordered from about 10-15. That's not to say that the others weren't good (OR that the ones ordered were) it's just that those dozen images told the story and got the "smiles".

The difference is that the client was buying prints. Now, they buy a CDROM, and it should have ALL the pictures.

As for the prints, I know of one that's still hanging on the couple's wall after 40+ years, and I've seen others posted on Facebook!

Where will those discs be in 40 years?

Sorry - sort of got off on a tangent here.

jnanian said:

do you monitor how much film you expose
and do you worry about what you are photographing
because it might be " a waste of film" or do you "let go" ?

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I qualify my answer by stating: "It depends upon which format/film I am shooting."

Film "consumption" with medium format, for me, is "self-regulating"; attached to a tripod, I work slowly and methodically. Rarely - except when I am confronted with rapidly changing lighting conditions - will I ever expose more than a frame on a particular setup...if I am shooting black and white. For transparency film, however, I have always bracketed my shots - sometimes just to see what an image would look like with more or less exposure.

My experience with 35mm is an entirely different "kettle of fish." With an SLR, color transparency materials are always bracketed - sometimes up to +/- 2/3, depending upon subject matter and lighting conditions. With black and white, however, largely owing to the subject matter (much of it is what might be termed "photojournalism"), I tend to be even more liberal in my use of film. When shooting with the rangefinder, however, I tend to shoot "very tight" (perhaps because I have yet to master a "timely loading" of my M6s...lol), looking more and shooting less (not wanting to be caught loading when something reeeaaalllyyy interesting happens).

All-in-all, though, I confess to not being terribly concerned about the amount of film shot: photography is something that gives me immense pleasure, so what the hey!