Hi all,
For the past couple of days, I seem to keep encountering references to
"stochastic" photography -- or "spray and pray" if you will, and it's
piqued my interest. It's not that I'm considering actively pursuing the
practice so much as I wonder how much my current style (method?) could
actually be considered stochastic. Having never worked in the vicinity
of another photographer before, my days out shooting with Ted Beilby
were, as I said, educational. We took nearly diametrically opposed
approaches.
Clearly, Ted came out with better quality shots than I did. He was much
more methodical and exacting and produce much more highly textured
images than I did. At the same time, I came out with some images that,
while not as polished as Ted's, did have some redeeming value -- at
least I thought they did. I was so arrested by the sheer amount of
potential subject matter that I felt I had to get as many different
shots as I could in order to get a reasonable account of my experience,
so I shot hand-held, almost exclusively. Knowing that I'd have at least
several hundred shots to go through at the end of my trip (also, due to
a relative lack of PC processing power and memory), I stuck to shooting
single exposures in jpeg.
Some subjects, I chose to take three or four different shots from
different perspectives and focal depths, while others I shot once or
twice and moved on. And, that's typically the way I do things. A large
part of the reason for that is that I simply don't trust what the camera
shows me on its display to be an accurate depiction of what I'm going to
see when I load it onto the computer. The same goes for my perception
of any given scene at the time. I come away with rough approximation in
my mind, and when I get home, I'm usually "fairly"close, but never
seemingly dead-on in my expectations.
And, of course, a good bit of what I do shoot simply defies staging in
any practical sense. I'm not going to be able to tell a butterfly how
to hold its wings, or a bird where to position itself within my frame.
So, I have to make snap judgments and several attempts. To the extent
that I'm able to dictate composition, I do make a fairly diligent
attempt at it. But, at the same time, I don't try to control every
minute detail -- essentially because the vast majority of the subjects I
shoot are in an environment that simply defies control.
So, I was just curious as to the thoughts of the folks on the list as to
how much my approach would be considered "spray and pray" by more
seasoned photographers, and how much it would benefit if it were less so.
Thanks for any input anyone has to offer.
-- Walt
http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/waltergilbert
http://waltgilbert.posterous.com/ <http://polipix.posterous.com/>
Contact Me Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/walt.gilbert>Flickr
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/walt_gilbert/>Twitter
<http://twitter.com/walt_gilbert>
--- @ WiseStamp Signature
<http://my.wisestamp.com/link?u=ypgdb385pypw7fhb&site=www.wisestamp.com/email-install>.
Get it now
<http://my.wisestamp.com/link?u=ypgdb385pypw7fhb&site=www.wisestamp.com/email-install>
--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
[email protected]
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow
the directions.
