To the next level…
Filed in Shooting techniques - March 26, 2007I don’t know if you’ve been following George Barr’s To the Next Level articles (one & two). They have enough truth in them to be amusing, but yet are somehow unsatisfying as an analysis of what makes good photography.
If you look at the seven steps to Aesthetic Heaven in article one – this implies that we would all agree on what photos would fall into which pot. And the Virtual Workshop in article two only makes sense for one sort of photograph.
To me, the whole exercise has an air of an implicit external scale, including the idea that the end product (the photo) is the be all and end all. As regular readers will know, I come at this from a different standpoint.
Anyhow (that is a vain attempt to avoid typing ‘anyway’ – the which I do too much), here is photostream’s alternative seven steps to photographic happiness.
Step 1: Find a place that you can get to easily and that you have never photographed before. Nothing exotic. No once in a lifetime destinations. Somewhere that you can get back to without too much stress. Maybe your local park, or the supermarket carpark, or the streets around your workplace, or the walk to work, or…you get the idea. The only important thing is that you have not photographed this place before.
Take an hour and photograph what you see.
Steps 2 to 7: Repeat this six times with at least a couple of days, and up to a week, between each occasion. After each trip review your photos and think about them, but don’t sweat the details. Just consider them and absorb them. Spend at least as long looking at prints as you did with the camera. Preferably longer.
After the seventh trip review all the sets. Concentrate on how what you saw changed. I don’t mean things like the weather was different, but how you responded to the same things in different ways.
I would expect your progress through the seven sets to be as follows: on your first visit you will take some obvious stuff, and some stuff which strike you as new because it is new to you. Some of these ‘novelty’ photos may be good. Novelty can sometimes open our eyes.
As the visits progress through 2, 3, 4 etc you will make less interesting photos. We (certainly, I) can’t help but feel that we’ve been there and done that. We stop looking and start assuming.
Sometime in one of the later visits you will start looking again, only this time without the distraction of the novelty. Strong photos will start flowing fast.
The point of this exercise isn’t to make the best photo that you can of your chosen place, but to observe and think about why your photos were different on different visits. I’ve no idea which visit will produce your best photo. Maybe something that you fired off in a lacklustre way on visit three whilst thinking rude thoughts about the person who suggested the whole project. Randomness plays a big part in the production of a fine photo. However, if you can work out why the photos from the different visits differed then you will have gained a lot more than a few good photos. Using that information in the future will help you climb George’s seven rung aesthetic ladder. If it exists.
Excellent suggestion. It addresses the first and most important fundamental of photography – seeing
March 26, 2007 @ 9:38 pm
I think the approach in the article is an attempt to turn art into math. It’s an attempt at a formula, and I don’t see it working.
Some of the advice seems questionable. I have heard too many bad stories about camera clubs, and have had too many bad online critique experiences to think those are going to be useful.
I do like the recommendation to do workshops though. I did one last summer, and it was really interesting. The critiques were useful, even if I didn’t always agree I think it helped push me to be better. Most importantly it was a week where the only thing expected of me was to make pictures, and hang out with like minded people.
I guess the thing about art is that it takes time, and work, and effort to even understand it. A formula is easier for most people.
March 26, 2007 @ 11:19 pm
This happens all of the time for me. Initially, when I go to someplace, I get superficial pictures, as I go more and more, the photos start becoming less obvious shots. It has to do with intimacy and being able to look past the surface, IMHO.
March 27, 2007 @ 3:13 am
He forgot to mention the aesthetic beyond level G: level X, where the picture is so artistically advanced that almost nobody likes it or understands it.
March 27, 2007 @ 4:19 am
A little bit too disciplined for me but I am always fascinated by what happens on any repeat visit ( planned or otherwise). Some days you see, on others you can’t **** a drop!
March 27, 2007 @ 10:08 am
As I practice Colins methods, I fully agree with him, with the cavet that on your return visits, you do try to keep looking. As was said in an earlier post, there is that facet of thinking and doing (emotional reaction) and a combination of the two can create magic.
I have the good fortune due to my non-photographic (main) income to travel the world, but I do know that I bring with me my pre-conceptions and things that I am interested in finding. Subjects that are usually related to my current four or five on-going projects (which are usually taken in the contex). But the new location with the old “eyes” with a thinking/doing openess can also be extremely creative. Then I come back to my usual haunts, and some things now take on new meanings and so I end up working the same local for years and years. And I do feel that I keep moving to a “higher level”, what ever that is.
Best regards,
Doug
March 27, 2007 @ 10:42 pm
George Barr’s “To the Next Level” articles are not meant to have you do math about your photographs. They simply offer a way to identify you weak areas so as to facilitate directing more concious efforts in improving them. Secondly, they offer a simple way to gage your level of competence. It is irrelevant wether you peg yourself one or two levels off reality, as long as you are consistent over time and, of course, as long as you don’t try to compare your “classification” to that of others.
Regards,
Jean-Michel Paris
March 31, 2007 @ 10:55 pm