crowd

We are bombarded each day with images. Images come to us without seeking them, from TV, newspapers, magazines, emails, websites, billboards. We are a visual culture. We communicate with images. We remember in images.

I believe each image we see stays with us. Whether we consciously remember it or not, it is there. If it didn’t, why could an idea or a smell or a comment bring up a picture in my head in a flash? Why can I remember a specific image I captured 4 years ago, or a vision of something seen in an art exhibit, when the right trigger comes along? The image is there, whether I consciously tried to remember it, or not. It is part of what we draw upon, when we create something new. Input is the raw material we use to create.

Since our input informs our output, it begs the question, what’s your input?

Choosing to see beauty…

We talked about this a bit in the workshop with David duChemin, about how the creative process works. It requires input. And we should be selective about that input. We should look for good stuff, creative stuff, beautiful stuff to go in. We should study good photography to help us learn to create good photographs ourselves.

But I would take this concept beyond the visual imagery, to other areas of life. If we dwell on the bad or the ugly or the horrific, that becomes part of us. It starts to shift our point of view on the world. We start to live in fear of what bad things might happen rather than observe the good that does happen every day, right in front of us. Brené Brown talks about this in Daring Greatly. She talks about how we can squelch moments of joy by immediately worrying about all of the things that might take that joy away. Many of the things we worry about aren’t of our own experience, but what has come to us through the media. Input we would never have, in our own experience.

I learned the truth of this input/feeling connection in Italy, when I stopped watching the news on TV. Part of this change was language, my Italian wasn’t good enough to understand, and part of it was cultural, I had no connection to the current events of politics or pop culture to give me context. But an amazing thing happened as an outcome… I started living without as much fear. Because I wasn’t bombarded with all the bad going on in the world around me, it wasn’t input to my thought processes. I didn’t, by extension, start to worry what might happen to me or my family or my job next. I still found out about the important stuff that was going on in the area and world, but I could choose how I followed up to learn more rather than being fed fear.

…rather than worrying about who might pickpocket me.

And because I wasn’t spending time on the input of the bad stuff, I had more time for input of the good stuff. Art and creativity, which blossomed in a new way.

Now that I’m back in the US, I still don’t watch the news. I don’t want that kind of input. I want to read good books, watch movies that tell great stories, see good art and discuss interesting ideas. I find out what is going on in the world, but in a measured and balanced way that doesn’t fill me with fear. Not all of my input is happy and positive, but much of it is. It’s by my choice, because that is how I want to see the world. I truly believe 99.999% of the world’s population are good people. That’s who I want to hear about and interact with. That doesn’t mean I go through life thinking nothing will happen to me, but it does mean that I am more conscious and careful now to sort out the difference between things I really should be concerned about and what’s an irrationally generated fear.

This is all kind of roundabout today as I talk about input – the gamut from art to emotion. But it all ties together: Our input informs our output. How we view the world, what we create, even what we believe and feel.

I want to choose my inputs carefully. I want to view art that stretches me and helps me grow. I want experiences that help me see the world in different ways. I want to look at photographs that move me and touch my heart and soul. That’s the kind of input I’m seeking. That’s the filter I want to place when I have a choice in the matter.

What’s your input? How do you decide what goes in? Have you made changes in your life to improve the quality or the type of input you receive? What has been the result? I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this topic.

Welcome to Exploring with a Camera! This next couple of weeks we are going to be Waiting to Click. As always, I have a lot of ideas to share with you in this post and then there is a link up at the bottom for you to share your images on the topic. You can also share your photos in the Flickr pool if you are interested in being featured on the blog.

There is so much of our world that is changeable. When you tune in to it, you begin to notice the ebb and flow of life around us. “Waiting to Click” is about being aware of the changeable things in our environment, predicting what is going to happen and then waiting to capture the image we’ve anticipated. So often photographers talking about being ready, having the camera with us and available to shoot, in order to capture a fleeting moment as we see it unfold. Waiting to Click takes the readiness a bit further, adding a bit of both prediction and patience into the mix.

To get a great image by Waiting to Click requires your active participation. Here is what you have to do:

Be aware of what is changeable in your environment. We live in a world of change, whether it’s the flow of traffic or the clouds blowing by, there are variables that affect the potential for us to make good images. By noticing the things that are moving and changing, and how they change relative to the things that are fixed, we can make use of them in our photography.
See the image you want to capture. You need to see the potential shot. This may mean looking through or past the changeable things in the environment, or predicting their behavior to include them in the image you want to capture.
Know your equipment. In order to take advantage of a changing situation, you have to know your camera. What is the delay between shutter press and release? What is the timing if you use burst? I know we are talking about fractions of a second here for dSLRs, but those fractions of a second may matter. For point-and-shoots or phone cameras, the delay is longer and you really have to be able to coordinate the pressing of the shutter with the prediction of the shot.
Wait for the shot to unfold, then capture it. This is the key. This could mean waiting for several seconds, or it could mean waiting minutes. Professional photographers might wait all day for the perfect light to capture the image they see. How long you are willing to wait is up to you.

Now let’s see a few examples of Waiting to Click, to further explain what I mean…

Moving Vehicles

Vehicles of all sorts are always moving around us, when we are out and about in the streets. You may recognize the lead-in image for this post as another in my emerging market/wheels series, and the capture of this shot is a great example of Waiting to Click. I saw this image across a very busy street in Siracusa, Sicily. I paused for a while and watched the traffic flow. There were a few moments in each traffic light cycle, where the cars passing by on the street cleared out just long enough to photograph a few frames. While traffic was going by, I looked at possible angles and compositions, and situated myself in the best spot for the image I envisioned. I waited for the next traffic light cycle, and the moment the cars cleared out, I got the shot.

In some cases, you want the moving vehicle in the shot, like this one of the Milan subway I captured with my iPhone camera. This was my first outing with the camera, and I was just getting used to the delay. I was fascinated by the crowd on the other side of the subway platform and thought it would be a great shot to have the crowd behind the train pulling into the station, so I practiced with a couple of shots of the crowd to get the framing and camera timing down. Then, when I heard the train coming, I was ready to click as soon as it entered the frame and captured the image I wanted.

The light this particular evening in the Venetian Lagoon was spectacular. I took several images of the sky but knew the shot would be more interesting with a boat in the foreground. I had my exposure and composition dialed in, it was just a matter of waiting for the right opportunity to come along. When this boat came by, I was ready and waiting to click.

People

We are often surrounded by our fellow human beings, and depending on the shot you want, that can be a good thing or a bad thing. You might think that Europe is an empty place, from my photographs. I really love to capture an empty street or place, to allow the viewer room to imagine themselves in the frame. To do this, I often have to wait for a lull. Just like cars, the flow of people will change, but it’s less predictable. Here is another in my market/wheels series, captured in Bologna. It looks like this was a deserted street, but this was a busy Saturday afternoon, the weather was nice, and people were out on the streets in force. I used the times when there were people coming by to set up the shot and play around with composition. When I found the image I wanted, I waited for the people to leave the frame, and clicked.

Here is another image where I waited for the frame to clear, with the exception of the people seated on the left. Evening at the Roman Baths in Bath, England is certainly quieter than the day, but there were still many people wandering around and listening to their audioguides. (I’ve learned to dislike audioguides – people stand immobile for minutes on end gazing at something while listening to the commentary, much longer than they do without the audioguide.) Meanwhile, I patiently waited for them to move on so I could get the right image.

Often, your image will be enhanced with a person or two in just the right spot. The next two examples, from Cinque Terre and Bath, are images where the mood is further conveyed by the people in the frame. In both cases, I had to wait until the subjects walked into the right light to capture the image.

So far I’ve shown you empty or mostly empty places – what about crowds? I’ve learned quite a bit about photographing a crowd over the last couple of years. Capturing a crowd can convey the energy, the hustle and bustle of a place, but it has to be done right. In general, I’ve discovered that for a good crowd shot, you want to have full bodies – partial people walking into the frame or cutting off feet is distracting. For a generalized crowd, you also want the people to either be small enough their faces aren’t easily distinguishable or facing away from the camera. Nothing attracts the human eye quite as much as a face, so your crowd shot can become an unintentional image of a specific person if you’re not mindful. Here’s a comparison of two images within moments of each other in Madrid. The first shot is one I would consider a nice crowd-in-the-street scene, the second has more crowd distractions.

Crowds ebb and flow, which is a great thing. Unless you are in an insanely crowded place (like Venice at Carnevale), you can usually situate yourself in a good location and wait for the crowd to disperse itself in a way that works for your intended image. This example from Venice (not during Carnevale) was one where I waited for a good crowd position before pressing the shutter.

The Natural Elements

So far I’ve talked about human elements, but natural elements – such as light and wind – are some of the more changeable features in our world. As photographers, we live for light, so being aware of the light you are working with and how it may change is an important skill. Partly cloudy and windy days can be great days for waiting to click.

The following set of images from Stonehenge show how just a few moments difference on a partly cloudy day can make a huge difference in an image. Watching the light, and waiting to click at the right moment, can pay off big dividends in your images.

What’s Your Input?

Exploring with a Camera: Waiting to Click

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