Photographing Like a Filmmaker
September 27th, 2006
If you carry a camera almost everywhere like I do, you might be interested in this post on Alec Soth’s blog in which he details how he photographs like a filmmaker. Soth doesn’t carry a camera everday, but rather plans his projects from concept, funding, shooting, and publication. I’m not actually a huge fan of Soth’s photography, but I can appreciate how well he thinks out and executes his ideas.
I’ve been thinking about this topic off and on for a while now. Carrying a camera everyday has become something of a crutch for me. I get some cool shots of random things, but its one of the things preventing me from taking on bigger projects. Processing all those random shots takes up time and just enough of them are good enough that I can get those warm fuzzy feeling for a job well done. This is a pale subsitute for a coherent portfolio, a published book, fortune, and fame beyond my wildest imagination. Perhaps I should stop carrying a camera everyday.
I’ve been thinking about this topic off and on for a while now. Carrying a camera everyday has become something of a crutch for me. I get some cool shots of random things, but its one of the things preventing me from taking on bigger projects. Processing all those random shots takes up time and just enough of them are good enough that I can get those warm fuzzy feeling for a job well done. This is a pale subsitute for a coherent portfolio, a published book, fortune, and fame beyond my wildest imagination. Perhaps I should stop carrying a camera everyday.
September 27th, 2006
I have that same debate with myself all the time as well. On the one hand, I feel sort of lost without my camera, I’m so used to it being with me. Then I fear I’ll miss that perfect shot, or even worse, I sometimes even doubt my value as a photographer if I can so easily leave the camera behind– photo-guilt, I guess.
But like you, I end up with a plethora of randomness, which, at times, can be nice, but what I crave is that ‘coherent portfolio’ like you said.
I have a ton of projects in my head, and I have several mini-projects I work on here and there. But to shoot with purpose, is what I really need to work on.
Maybe there’s a balance, although delicate, we can find. Let me know if you do.
September 28th, 2006
Carry your camera every day. Elliott Erwitt does and look at his book, Snaps. After 50-odd years of shooting random things, he had enough material to publish a huge book. After a few years of near daily shooting you should have a small book. I would expect you’ll see some themes emerge after a while.
Maybe load a custom profile so you can shoot Jpegs instead of RAW? That would cut down on your processing.
But really the trick is to think of a project you want to do, and then go for it while still taking your side shots.
Look at Slower.net. Read Winogrand’s Figments of the Real World and go through Eliot’s archives. You’ll see some parallels. (Since Eliot switched to photography full-time and understood what he had to do.) He’s obviously got some projects on the go and he’s still collecting plenty of side shots.
If you stop carrying your camera, you’ll kick yourself too often over the shots you miss.
Maybe that will be a good excuse to get the S5. You won’t need to shoot RAW anymore, so you’ll get your life back. :)
September 28th, 2006
Photo-guilt? That’s a good term.
The Erwitt example is a good counterpoint. His dog book always makes me smile. I’ll take a look through slower.net, and see if I can’t find copie of the Winogrand book.
It’s funny you mentioned loading a custom profile. Yesterday afternoon I discovered that the D80’s B&W mode has a couple of different contrast parameters along with colored filters. These are applied at shooting, which is kind of neat. Initial results are promising.
October 2nd, 2006
soth shoots 8×10….he can’t really carry it around everyday the way you can a 35mm even if he wanted to. if you don’t want to carry your 35mm around and plan your shots more in your head beforehand, it could work. if you pretend that every frame of 35mm costs as much as a frame of 8×10, then you REALLY slow down and take your time and compose your shots carefully. its artificial though.
October 3rd, 2006
I don’t really have a problem with artificial constraints.
It’s not that every shot needs to be planned out. Rather its that not every shot should be random.
Heh, I suppose one could do something really lame like charge yourself a dollar for every shot. Put the money in the retirement account.