Looking at the World through a Viewfinder

 All too often, when taking a picture, I fail to put enough thought into it. The camera swings up, I do a quick composition and snap the shot, hoping that it will come out in the end. Many times, I don’t even hope, I know once the shutter has been clicked, it was a wasted shot. Something wasn’t right, it was doomed from the get-go.

    There are two types of photography broadly speaking, random and planned. For the most part, the vast majority of the shots I take are random. (I am not bragging about this!) Things I see which interest me, something which might be nice and things that I hope will be nice, I aim and shoot. 

    Pre-visualization is to imagine what you want your finished photo to look like. Imagining ahead of time, which areas will be dark, where the light will fall and where the general interest of the picture will lie. That and how all the various things will come together to make your picture what you want it to be. It is a skill that requires practice, thought and some time.

    We have all taken a shot of something that we imagine will be a FANTASTIC shot. When we finally look at it, it is overexposed, the subject may be blurred or maybe they blinked, the shot is nothing like what we had hoped for. Nothing like we had pre-visualized. I know I’ve taken thousands of them, (again, not bragging) they are the pictures that no one will ever see.  

Too slow, blurred

    All too often I find that I don’t take the time to ensure that the shot will be what I want it to be. Sometimes it is just a chance encounter and if I don’t shoot, I might miss a good shot. Whether it is because I’m doing something else, on my way to another spot or I’m just not that excited about the picture, I just snap and run. These are typical random shots. I take the shot and hope it’s good. It usually isn’t!

    Often, some of these “wasted” shots strike something in my brain and I think I can do better. I start to imagine how I can improve on that shot. Perhaps by coming at a different time of the day when the light is different or maybe shooting in black and white rather than color. Possibly by changing my ISO I will be able to change my depth of field or the speed of my shutter. I start to pre-visualize what I want and start thinking about how I can bring it all together.

    Just by doing this doesn’t necessarily guarantee a good picture. It may take a few times to get that final shot. Each time I try, I learn something and by trying again, it brings me that much closer to achieving the shot I desire.

    Many a time I’ve gone out chasing that picture in my head only to be foiled by weather, clouds, rain or over whelming sunshine. I love taking foggy pictures but many a time I have slept through the fog or else, the fog promised by the weather forecasters fails to appear. I just keep on trying, I keep that image in my head, and someday it will come out!

Too dim, too slow, blurred

    Playing around with film adds another set of hurdles for the photographer to overcome. You are set in what type of film you have in the camera. Color or black and white or slides, it’s one or the other, once it’s in the camera, you can’t change it. The speed of your film is set. Should the light be low, you can’t just up the ISO like you can on a digital camera. You can open up your aperture, slow down your exposure or just skip the shot.

    I think you’d agree that with film, you tend to analyze the shot a bit more than with a DSLR. There are only so many shots on the roll of film in your camera. With the digital cameras you can take thousands of shots, if not more and still have room on your memory to continue shooting. 35mm film usually comes in 24 and 36 exposures and my medium format camera will only get 15 shots on a roll. I take extra care not to waste them! (I find it all too easy to take that extra shot, hoping to capture what I didn’t in the first. It almost always is a wasted exposure.)

These shots were taken on two different days, approximately a month apart. Both were shot in the early morning on a rainy day. The first one was shot with 100 film and came out much too dark. The second one was shot with a DSLR. The ISO was increased, the exposure was corrected, the composition changed just a bit and the camera put on a tripod, resulting in a much better shot.

    I find it important to not look at these bad shots as failures, they are lessons and hopefully by analyzing them, I can figure out what went wrong and how to avoid it in the future. Every shot I take is a lesson, both the good and the bad, learning is possible through all of them. These lessons are filed away in my brain, some to be used and improved upon almost immediately and some to be sadly forgotten until a similar failure appears.

    Taking the same shot over and over, during different times of the day, under different lighting conditions, rain, clouds and sun, color and black and white, is a wonderful learning experience. Even after getting that “perfect” shot, I go back and keep shooting it. Each time I click the shutter, I am getting another lesson and perhaps, I might even end up with a better shot.

    The most important thing in photography to me is that it’s an enjoyable hobby. I enjoy taking pictures! Now if someone else enjoys the shots I take, that just makes it better! It's a win-win!