On Jan 28, 2012, at 8:36 PM, David Savage wrote: > On 29 January 2012 11:02, Larry Colen <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> >> >> >> I find a lot of my creativity in pushing the performance envelope of my >> gear. I find it a lot of fun to look for photos in situations where not long >> ago it would have been pretty much impossible to get any photos. >> To do this, I really need to know where the edges of that envelope are. > > If all you ever do is test the performance limits of your equipment, > you end up with nothing but test shots.
This is true. I don't think that all I ever do is push the envelope. It has been scarce more than a month since I went out on a photo walk, during the afternoon, in lighting that allowed me to shoot a low ISO, in the f/8-16 range, and comfortably hand hold the photos without need of a tripod or even a monopod. I also spend a fair amount of time pushing the envelope just for the technical practice. For example when friends are playing at dive bars, so that when I go specifically to take photos, I'm not pushing into uncharted territory. I know what the camera will do, how to make it do it, and I don't have to interrupt my creativity by trying to devise solutions to new technical problems. Thursday night, I knew when I could use a flash, and when it was better to use the meager available light so as not to disturb people, and that I could push the camera to 12,800 at 1/10 Second and still get something decent. It was my practice pushing the envelope that allowed me to just relax and be creative, even in challenging light. Then there's the case that some of my best photos come from just noodling around when I'm experimenting with what the equipment will do. What happens if I bounce the flash off the mirror? What happens if I use a slow shutter speed with the flash, and zoom the lens? What happens if rather than using the 77/1.8 I photograph the musicians with the 200/2.8? What happens if I use hi-lighter pens to draw on my model before photographing her in black light > I recommend focusing less on what the gear is capable of & more time > on creating interesting images. Interesting, because I find your night photos with the D700, where you were pushing the abilities of the camera to be so inspirational, as a way of creating interesting images. >> It's kind of like instrumentation in a car. Most people just need a >> speedometer, an odometer and a big red "motor meltdown light". Oil >> pressure, temperature, tachometer etc. are completely superfluous. When I'm >> racing, I use all of those, and often to more accuracy than >> "good/indifferent/bad". > > Using race car driving is a flawed analogy. Driving competitively is a > very technical skill. A lot of photography is an art. I suspect that anybody on this list who has driven competitively would agree with me that, like photography, while it can be very technical, there is also a great deal of art involved. I find my mental state can be very similar when doing a shoot as when driving on the track. It's hard to explain how for me, they can both fully occupy the intellectual, emotional and intuitive centers of my brain. Granted, the worry over blowing an exposure isn't usually quite as visceral as the feeling that you may have just made a mistake on the racetrack. > > You can learn the basics of how to drive a camera quite easily, I > know, I help teach people new to photography. After 6 hours most > people can shoot in Av, & some on full manual, after having always > shot on program mode. I've also taught dozens of, maybe a hundred or so, people the basics of performance driving in a similar span of time. > > The hardest part is being creative. Focusing on the technical wont get > you that. I agree, but understanding the technical frees you to be creative without having to use up most of your brain budget on figuring out how to get the photo that you want to take. I'm certainly not claiming that what works for me works for everyone. Hell, for all I know, it may not work for me. I might be producing nothing but boring, blurry, cliche' test photos in ridiculous lighting situations, but I'm having fun doing it. -- Larry Colen [email protected] sent from i4est -- 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.
