“shooting from the hip.”

http://www.outdoorphotographer.com/content/2007/sept/pt_fromthehip.shtml
I was sitting at my parents house reading a back issue of my mom’s
Outdoor Photography the other day, and I read an interesting article
by Bob Krist. It was about a method of photography called “shooting
from the hip.” Personally, I think it’s brilliant, and it makes me
want to run out to New York City to do street photography like I used
to do all the time in college. It basically involves taking photos
without raising the camera to your eye, so no one is the wiser that
you are recording their image. Brilliant! In the past, when doing
street photography I always shot with a telephoto lens to catch
subjects “in the wild,” so to speak, in their natural movements and
actions. Once people realize they are being studied, they become stiff
and rigid, aware of their every move (and yours). And, in places like
New York where everyone wishes everyone else was dead, it’s not
uncommon to be yelled at by subjects. Shooting from the hip is
brilliant. The writer takes it a step further by explaining the best
way to do it is to have the camera hanging around your neck,
prefocused and set up to go. As a scene passes by….click. Captured.
This is definitely a method that would prove easier without the noise
of a digital camera….I can picture my shutter noise causing a few
heads to turn. Still on a crowded main street in New York, no one
would be able to hear it over the general noise.

This is a great idea to catch unsuspecting subjects off guard and to
catch a photo from a lower than eye-level perspective. And I’m going
to give it a try in the near future.

photo expo.

I went to the Photo Expo on Saturday afternoon with a friend to check
out the latest gear and products manufacturers are trying to convince
me I need. It was fun….we got some free brochures, I was able to get a
digital sensor cleaner for my digital slr, which I sorely need, since
my sensor is covered in dust from swapping lenses in dusty abandoned
buildings. I also looked at a new tripod I am considering, since I no
longer trust my older cheaper one after how it let me down in
Riverside, and I investigated inkjet paper. This is a rapidly
developing realm of photographic choices I have yet to delve into. I
don’t normally print many color photos, mostly because once I do, I
don’t really have a purpose for them. I mean, how many of my photos
can I possibly throw up on the walls? I have trouble shaking the
feeling that hanging my own work up in my own apartment is somewhat
self-indulgent, slightly navel gazing. And I hate the idea of being
that kind of person. I display my digital images on the internet. I
display them on forums, my website, flickr, image
kind…..myspace…..many places. I seem to draw a large divider between
analog (film) work and digital work. Film work is definitely meant to
be printed. It’s the only way to really view it properly. But digital
work…..I have a copy on my computer. I can look at it on my monitor
whenever I want. Why would I need a paper copy as well? It seems like
an exercise in stupidity to me. But it’s really not at all, and the
Ilford representative showed me their Pearl Semi-Gloss paper and
printed a sample for me to take home, and I must say, it’s really
great stuff. Next B&H order is going to include some.

Anyway the real point of my blog entry for today is, technology!!!!
And my neverending conflict with it and its persistence to barge its
way into my life. I have a real issue with technology, and yet….I
cannot escape it. Technology makes life better on all levels. After
all, why would something be invented or improved otherwise? Companies
invent a product, or update an existing product, and throw a slew of
advertising your way screaming, “GET THIS!!! YOU NEED THIS!!!” and
unfortunately, it obviously works, since we are bombarded with
advertising on a daily basis.

At the Expo Saturday, I was greeted at the Nikon counter by a lovely
D80 camera body, my next camera body purchase which will hopefully
come sooner, but realistically will probably come later in the next
year or so. Faster frames per second burst, which equaled more ease in
capturing sports shoots for my freelance jobs, much less noise at
higher ISOs, which is a definite need for night games when I am pushed
to ISO 1600, and most importantly, 10.2 megapixels. My current D50 is
only a 6 megapixel camera body.

But do I really NEED these features?

Sure, a faster frame burst would definitely be nice. There have been
countless times I have shot a player running, or going after a ball,
and I catch the player before he makes the grab, and I catch him after
he makes the grab…and in between….not so much. I like to tell myself
that I takes more skill to do what I do, work sans-machine gun
brrrrrrrrrrrrrr of cameras worth thousands of dollars. And most of the
time I am good enough to catch the play. So this is not a necessity,
given the amount of sports I shoot.

Less noise would definitely be a wonderful thing. However, I shoot for
weekly newspapers. Cheap paper soaks up ink. So I am able to get away
with sending slightly noisy images at this point, because the blur
caused by the soaking of ink into the cheap rag paper actually manages
to hide my noise. And noise is really not a problem for my personal
work, because I always shoot at ISO 200, and rarely if ever make
exposures over five seconds.

But the megapixels. Ah, the megapixels. I am for some reason convinced
I need those megapixels. It’s almost twice the amount I’m shooting
with now! So what does this allow me to do? Basically, it allows me to
go larger.

But wait a minute.

I just said I hardly ever print out my digital work. Besides which, a
six megapixel camera can handle a fairly large enlargement without any
problems whatsoever.

So where does my obsession with more come from? It stems from
manufacturers, camera companies and their endless pitches, their print
ads with shiny new cameras with just the right hue of greenish or
pinkish red inside the glass of the beautiful lens, and I want it. I
need it. I can’t take pictures properly without it.

It must have been nice to be a photographer before the advent of the
digital age (in some respects, not all, of course). Sure, view cameras
and Hasselblads were expensive….but at least 35mm slrs were all
basically somewhat affordable. There wasn’t such a thing as a $25,000
digital Hasselblad, a $9,000 full frame Canon DSLR, etc etc.

Sometimes I feel kind of like my ability to create a successful image
is directly related to the equipment I use: Nikon vs. Canon, 5
megapixel vs. 15 megapixel, 50mm prime vs 300mm 2.8….but I need to
just remind myself that it’s the photographer that makes the image,
not the equipment, and if I am truly good enough, I will find a way.

you can’t teach a new dog new tricks.

You would think someone of my age would be adept to change.

I was probably part of some of the last few classes of photography
students taught traditional darkroom photography habits and workflow,
while right on the cusp of digital photography. Right when digital
photography slowly snuck up behind Tmax, and Rodinal, and Ilford, and
every other film-based photography item and company and pulled ahead.
Way ahead. By the time I entered my senior year of college, my school
was now offering an “intro to Digital Photography” course, and I was
shooting with a 3.34 mega pixel Minolta Dimage ZLR camera as my
college newspaper’s photo editor. I remember showing up for work in
the darkroom first day of my senior year, and there was a strange
large box on the table next to the door. “What’s that?” I asked. “A
negative scanner,” the darkroom technician shrugged, and walked out
the door, his shift ended.

I don’t know what it is that black and white photography does to me.
Yeah, it’s a pain in the ass. It’s a MASSIVE project to make
traditional darkroom prints when compared to today’s digital darkroom:
first you mix the chemicals, then set everything up, develop the film,
make a contact sheet, then start doing test strips and prints of each
negative, and I don’t even take my art to the nth degree- I don’t spot
my prints, rarely print larger than 8×10, I don’t even use fiber
paper- I use RC in order to avoid the annoyance of paper curling and
flattening methods. The process is exhausting. And often after an
entire day of work at the office, the last thing I feel like doing is
diving into this mess. And it’s really a shame, because I crave it, I
can feel it in me like a nagging hunger.

But the digital darkroom has made things so much easier. I can sit at
home watching tv, fire up Photoshop, and do things to photos I could
never dream of doing in a traditional darkroom, and do them in a
fraction of the time. I don’t have to shut myself off from the world
in a little dark room. I don’t need expensive paper, I don’t need to
mix the chemicals. I can print multiple copies by hitting a button,
not creating print after print.

It almost feels like cheating. I don’t know why I get such guilt from
digital photography. I absolutely refuse to shoot black and white in
digital format. In my mind, it is a punishment more severe than death.
I am not sure why I choose to hang out to the (seemingly) antiquated
process of gelatin silver printing. Being that I am relatively young,
I should be not very set in my ways, and therefore open to change.
Moreover, I work with digital photography on a professional basis! So
it’s not as if I am afraid to learn a new system. I know the system. I
know Photoshop. I can use all of it. And yet in some respects, I
refuse to change. Stubborn? Maybe. But nothing matches that turn in my
gut when I look at a beautiful gelatin silver black and white print
with a full range of rich blacks and tones, and I just can’t remove my
eyes.

perfectionism.

I have a writhing streak inside of me the size of the San Andreas
fault, splitting me in two. Separating my right brain from my left
brain, creative from logical. That giant divide is perfectionism. It’s
horrible. Paralyzing. Why bother doing something? It will never turn
out correctly. Something will go wrong, some little minute error will
occur, thereby throwing off the entire rotation. Just…..don’t. Don’t
try things that are out of the realm of the familiar, don’t
“experiment” with my art, don’t shoot new subjects like models, studio
shots, etc since I have zero to hardly any experience with such
things, so obviously I will fail.

Yes, I will fail.

I will fail because I won’t try.

But you know what, sometimes when I kick myself in the ass, something
happens. And while it might not be the new Michelangelo’s David, the
new Starry Night by Van Gogh. But maybe while I’m out there shooting,
I’ll find a new method of shooting I enjoy. Maybe I’ll end up with one
frame out of a roll of film that I really, truly like.

And if I had never gone to begin with…..I wouldn’t have all those
small failures under my belt, but I also won’t have that small
victory. Nothing is ever going to be perfect. I can’t say to myself,
“well I’m not going to go shoot today because my Digital SLR body is
outdated, so I’m not going to shoot until I get a new one and can take
much higher quality photos.” Well that’s great, but when will that be?
And would things then perfect? Probably not. Something else will be
“wrong.” The weather won’t be right, I’ll have something else I need
to do, this and that, etc etc. There will always be a reason to not.

There are enough walls put in my way by life in general. However the
biggest hurdles in my life are the ones I create myself. To be able to
climb this wall and sprint for the finish line, then look back at
where I started from, and where I thought I would never advance from,
is the ultimate victory to me. There is nothing better than a sense of
accomplishment to me, no matter how small. Because there was a time in
my life where I just did nothing at all due to that crippling paranoia
of failing. And to know that I can beat myself at my own
game…..there’s nothing greater than that.

yo.

hi. i didn’t write anything yet.

 i will, though.