artsy Rockland area...

During the workshop in Maine I attended recently, we went on various photoshoots. Each one was designed to emphasize a certain aspect of idea creation and composition. These tricks or gimmicks are now techniques in your own “bag of tricks.” Each one won’t always work for you in certain situations and require practice as does any new technique. But now I can say that I indeed do have a “bag of tricks” when approaching a potential location. Rather than merely using my previous favorite, “carpet-bombing” a site, I now can draw from several other techniques. Blindly approaching a scene with the vague hope of coming away with something a little more meaningful tends to yield very few “keepers” and can be quite frustrating in the creative long run.

So, here is a summary of the techniques we learned to come out of our comfort zone. Each one was designed to have us branch away from the usual methods we often lock ourselves into. Although we may feel we have a proven approach to composition when we first approach a new location, there often are other dimensions that can be explored to help us come away with something a little different; something that we may never have even considered as valid before. An additional goal of this is to get us involved with the scene, to commune with it. Unless we can connect with what we see, how can we expect our viewers to connect with it?

Try different perspectives

Take a series of shots of the subject at various positions: far, closer, close, right, left

Which one(s) produced the best results?

Try different amounts of time to setup and take the picture

10 secs, 1 min.,5 mins., 15 mins., etc.

What is the impact of setup time on the picture?

Too often we use just our eyesight when accessing a potential location shot.

What about using your other senses, rather than just sight?

Find a possible shot location.

Sit down and close your eyes.

Feel the scene around you: what do you hear, smell, feel, taste?

Do your other senses suggest a different approach to this location? This is one I did:

Use gesturing with your outstretched arm to very superficially sketch the major scenic forms/objects that comprise the potential scene. Be aware of how your body feels to the movement. Does this suggest a different placement?

Journalize, using third person, in a series of brief phrases or sentences what your eyes and other senses see/feel about the scene in front of you. Tell the story of the scene in your own words.

Anthropomorphosize the scene before you. How does that tree, that boulder, that mountain, etc. feel in this scene? BE the tree! Here’s one I did:

Sketch on a sheet of paper. Put a box on the paper, to frame the scene. Within this box, crudely sketch in the basic shapes/forms of the scene, in broad detail only, eg, a triangle for a mountain, a squiggly for a river, etc. Examine the sketch to determine scene validity, placement, framing, etc.

I put together a set of candidates for a new series I am developing. You can see the rest of my selections here.