Being an engineer by profession, I've lacked an outlet for artistic
expression & over the years have always had a camera to record mostly family
events. Occasionally I would snap an outdoor image on vacations that didn't
involve family/people & stood by its own merits as an image worthy of
printing & hanging on a wall in the house. I enjoy the outdoors and found it
a great change from all the indoor work I was involved in.
After a busted Achilles' tendon laid me up for awhile & needing a push to
get out in the woods again - I signed up for a weeklong outdoor photo
workshop in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan - it was during this workshop
that I saw the possibility of intelligently approaching the idea of taking
outdoor images & getting more than a few 'keepers'. I remain mostly an
outdoor/nature photographer as a way to get away from things that are the
minutia of everyday life.
I shoot for my own satisfaction & if it pleases others, so much the better.
I try to take every image with the intent that it will be worthy of hanging
on a wall in a frame, this in itself has probably reduced the amount of
images I try to capture but I'm sure the newer technology & my experience
has helped in this regard also.
As for cliché images they are a good starting point for a deeper dive into
photography - ie they give a idea of where to start from.
Kenneth Waller
http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/kennethwaller
----- Original Message -----
From: "Collin Brendemuehl" <[email protected]>
Subject: Why do you shoot?
Tim just gave us some pretty macro flower pics. A lot of people will like
them. I enjoy them as well and even really liked a couple. But as
someone said a couple of weeks ago, the more seriously he takes his
photography the less he shoots. The question is: How do we better our
photography and get past cliche images? Can we take it more seriously
without falling into either the trap of elitism or the trap of demanding a
certain level of commitment from others? (That's the motivation behind my
recent technical criticisms. We can do better without burning ourselves
out.)
I think about the retirement home with little old ladies taking oil paint
lessons so that they can do still life paintings of daisies. I wonder how
many of us have nothing better in our imagination than warm fuzzies. And
I think Tim senses some of this with the sarcasm in his title about
beating us to a bloody pulp with these cliche images. In 2D art one can
hardly get more cliche than pretty flowers.
So the challenge is this: Make a picture say something. Make it say one
word That is, other than Ahhhhh or Ooooooo. A real word. High. Long.
Fast. Friend. Love. Charity. Cold. Hot. Soft. Hard. Tomorrow.
Yesterday. Win. Lose. Amateur. Professional. Try. Succeed. Fail.
Return. Leave. Strong. Weak. Majesty. Humility. Service. Nouns,
pronouns, adjectives, adverbs -- they all work.
This can help you when you take pictures at kids baseball games or at a
wedding. Capture more than just the people. Get their faces, their
hands, their interactions with each other and the world around them, their
full expressions.
That's what makes the Ali(Wasn't he still C. Clay at the time) v Liston
picture so special.
http://www.sportsmemorabilia.com/sports-products/muhammad-ali-framed-8x10-photo---ali-over-sonny-liston.html
Sorry about the rant, but cliche images bother me deeply.
Sincerely,
Collin Brendemuehl
http://kerygmainstitute.org
"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose"
-- Jim Elliott
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