Firstly I feel it relevant to say that I am learning very quickly, it seems every shoot I do, be it something for others or for my own development I am seeing my camera craft and post processing workflow taking real steps forward, sometimes leaps. I find my attitudes changing too, for example my Camera no longer feels like a delicate machine I must be constantly checking and fiddling with, being mindful and careful with it. Nowadays its purely a tool, its just a rather complicated brush and it no longer has the value and preciousness it once had, its now, just my Camera its not on Auto, I am and I just flick and change settings as I go with little thought. In the early days it was all about the kit, although good, reliable photographic tools are important I used to have a mind set that so many Armatures had that the kit made the artist, now I strongly disagree. Im no longer spending hours looking for better kit, I have all the stuff I need and if I have not, then I improvise, I don't rush and buy the next widget to cut the corner, I work it out and that alone is developing my craft better than any expensive piece of kit ever will. I use my kit, I clean my kit, I use my kit and so on. I use a run of the mill FX DSLR the Nikon D700 and as a back up I have the old DX D200 which a rarely turn to and I have a couple of fast prime (50mm and 85mm) lenses and the 'standard' set of fast zooms (20-35, 24-70, 80-200) thats it, 12 mega pixels is all I need.
I am beginning to see the light! I mean literally. I have read and read about seeing the true intensity and colour of available light and used to think this was kind of crazy, but one learns this and now I feel quite confident. Stepping outside for instance and having 'that feel' for whether my available light is suitable or not for what I wish to accomplish and even what 'kind' of light I have. Is it warm? is it cool? the direction, the hardness or the softness, its all just there for me to see.
I once learned to play guitar, and at the point where I almost gave up I recall a friend who could play once saying that if you keep practicing 'one day it will just come to you'. Again I turned my head slightly sideways and sneered, ever the sceptic, but as he predicted one day it just did, it fell into place and a bunch of years later I was teaching it. The same is occurring now with making pictures, I keep rising over learning these peaks and realising it does come, with practice.
My greatest challenge will be what I call the 'academic' needs of this degree. Ive never been an academic, in fact there is a word for my learning style which is one of doing and it sticking but even that word eludes me, see, Im not academic at all. One thing that will help me however is my love for Art, note I did not say knowledge, but love. I appreciate it, so deeply and I must say more so the more traditional art, lets not talk about the un-made bed shall we Tracy. What I mean is I seek to create photography in a style similar to traditional painted art, portrait and landscape but with my camera. A new idea? certainly not but I know I am drawn toward this 'style'? what I will probably end up calling it fine art. You see? I am confused, still about talking and explaining my art and that of others yet I understand clearly to succeed I need some kind of grasp of those skills.
I am getting it however, the course really is changing the way I approach things, especially with composition. I bore people now when they ask me about my shots, when they take interest. I bore them with detail of how I have tried to use shapes, lines and points or to tell a story or create with a purpose not simply snatching at a visual moment in time. I enjoy this process of explaining however, and that gives me hope in academia, I enjoy explaining my purpose and feelings when creating an image, even if sometimes it isn't so apparent to me at the point of hitting the shutter as those processes are now happening so quickly in my mind I often need to go back, look at my image and describe even to myself what I would have been 'seeing'.
As for this techniques I promised I would speak of. I am playing around at present, on and off assignment with long exposure. In particular a mini personal project of combing long exposure with fashion or portrait. To place a subject, a person into an attractive long exposed landscape really interested me. Of course if I could get this right it could look great, if not, awful. Early results are interesting, I seem to have managed to get the technical right, exposure and posing are a challenge but its ok. What I am not convinced with at this point is if the general idea 'works' as early examples look a little odd meaning the model, in this case looks out of synch with the rest of the image. Maybe we or I am just used to one or the other and this combination just doesn't work? Here is an example and maybe make your own mind up?
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