One Step at a Time

 Out on a drive, visiting some of my favorite photo haunts, I naturally ended up taking a “few” photographs. Looking at them later I saw that a good many of them where of the same subject.

    The haunts I spoke of are places I visit whenever I am in the neighborhood. They are places that have grabbed my attention in the past, something there has stuck in my memory. Mostly, they are pictures that I want to take. It seems simple enough, go and line up the camera and snap the picture… Unfortunately, the many pictures I’ve taken in these places haven’t yet matched what I had envisioned.

    When looking at a scene, I often pre-visualize what I think the picture should look like. Sadly, the pictures in my head and the one on my computer screen or on the negatives are often different. The lighting may be off, the picture may have been taken too far away or too close or maybe the shot isn’t focused as well as it could’ve been. It can be tough meeting the expectations of my mind!

    While looking through the day’s pictures I noticed a trend. There were a lot of pictures of steps.

    Steps have always interested me as subjects for pictures. They take us places and often we pass them by, never finding out where they might lead. The steps can be opportunities; they can raise us up and let us see things we wouldn’t have otherwise. 

    Steps can be just short moves, a course of action that will take us elsewhere. Sometimes they are clear and obvious while at other times, they can be difficult to see and tough to traverse. Taking these steps can sometimes be rough, working our way through weeds and brush that has covered the treads.

    There are many steps we take every day, all through our lives. From getting up in the morning to dragging our sorry butts back again at the end of the day. These are just the physical steps we take, think of all the mental steps and challenges we take on a daily basis. Do we go up the steps or down, or do we just avoid them and tackle other problems, other steps? There are times you don’t know where they will take you and other times, the steps can save you!

    Steps or stairs, we find them everywhere. In our childhood they keep us away from places we want to go. Over time, we learn to overcome these obstacles and work our way, step by step, up and into the future of our lives.

    Back in the past, we crawled up the steps, each step another accomplishment. Bringing with it the pleasure of slipping back down again on our rumps, each tread accompanied with laughter.

    Little did we realize that we would be climbing stairs for the rest of our lives. Some would be a simple inch or two high while others would seem impossible to overcome. These would be the challenges of life, the desire to always achieve something higher.

    As we climb these stairs we occasionally stumble and that’s to be expected, it’s nothing to worry about, it’s all part of the process. We learn from these trips, slips and loss of balance.

    We start on these stairs when we are fresh from the womb. Learning to feed, learning who our families are and learning who loves us and sadly, who might harm us. There are millions upon millions of steps in the staircase which will lead us in the end, to our demise.

    Every morning when we wake up, we face the stairs again. Hopefully we can look at each step we take as a new height, a new accomplishment, a new personal best. By finding something exciting about each stair, every new height, we can fly up the steps.

    Pictures of steps remind me of the many opportunities I’ve passed by. They are a visualization of the tough, difficult journeys and goals I’ve strived for. They also remind me of all the successful attempts I managed to achieve. The pictures remind me to keep going up... one step at a time!

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!