Living room, Kristiansund, July 2008The images I've been completing recently, as in the last post and current PotD, have been quite a surprise to me.
They are some of my favourite recent shots, totally out of the norm from my regular subjects and style. Really they all came about from playing around with various subjects & exposures on rainy days in Norway. All are presented "straight" i.e. pretty much direct from the film. Most have come from end of roll work, shots taken to expose a roll to the end. Not really any sort of deliberate attempt at meaningful pictures.
This is somewhat disappointingly encouraging. The upside is the fact that some good came of the experiments. There is the potential for further work and new subjects and narratives. The downside is that I seem to get my best work from the least effort. When I try, I fail (relatively). The subjects I am most trying to capture are the hardest to reach, and those in which I invest the least interest and effort come out so well.
Am I shooting the wrong subjects, or approahing my subjects with the wrong frame of mind?
Domestic narrative, Kristiansund, July 2008The collected photos from this brief experiment
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This is really a follow on to my earlier comment.
ReplyDeleteThat you have identified something remarkable, perhaps after the fact, should in turn, increase your openness to what your looking at. Even if it was at the end of the roll. Self-discover it seems rearly comes at the begining of the roll, in as you are probably still looking with your left brain (rational, engineering, labels), but the more you photograph, the more you move to the right side of the brain (feelings, emotional connection).
Thus the old adage; when you start to photograph, take at least one photograph within the first half hour of starting or sooner, to get yourself moving on the transition from the left brain looking to the right brain seeing & feeling.
That's a really interesting take on the notion. I'll have to take a look through my recent film to see if there is that sort of transition in general pictures.
ReplyDeleteAnother good example of the reason for keeping expectations low. You can only be pleasantly surprised if things go better than expected. But aren't we contrary creatures? It can be sooo bloody frustrating!
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