Dear Reader,
First of all, to answer the wt… question. I know, this is the third blog in a row. I don’t expect this trend to last long. But, I do have a couple more postings in mind.
Secondly, a number of years ago I knew of a man who had a penchant for collecting uglies. An ugly is a hard thing to find. Even though there are ever so many really hideous pieces of china and home furnishings, many of them have an intended use. By definition, an ugly can have no discernible use. All those horrid fruit bowls and equally tasteless vases don’t count. A true ugly has no function. Some of those strange misshapen blue mountain antler things come to mind.
Here is a small collection of photos from the top of Tunnel Mountain. I normally share with you my at least partial photographic victories. On my scale these photos score 3/5. They all have something wrong with them. They teach me to be more careful.
Cheers, Sean
PS I am not against fruit bowls and vases – we have many
When I first started putting my photos from my good camera onto my blog, my thinking was I’d only put the winners up. Then I realized how hard that was, and decided think of blog photos (which are themselves the culmination of a rigorous winnowing process) into 3 groups. Winners or near winners, documentary, or as a learning example. Some learnings are completely transient, such as ‘oh crap underexposed that’ and those need not apply here. The more important learnings take a scene and work through why the shot doesn’t match the visualization. From there one can apply that to other scenes. I’ve written about that process several times.
So for example, we see 4 photos here. I only know of the scene what I see in those photos; perhaps there is a ginormous cliff nearby that limits one’s access. Plus of course, you have to use the camera and lenses you have available.
I suspect you were working with the idea of a mountain landscape scene, with the inukshuk as the item of foreground interest. So far so good. But then there’s that pesky tree messing up your composition. Those with more mad Lightroom or Photoshop skillz than me might choose to digitally edit out the tree in the second photo, but then you lose the lake.
From what I can see, you are shooting the shadowed side of the inukshuk, which would lead me to an HDR shot, which have their own perils. That might or might not address the big dark mountainside on the left of some of the shots.
In the end, after careful examination one might discover there is no acceptable composition for what you see in your head. That leads to 3 choices, get the best shot you can, digital manipulation, or break the scene. An example of that is to create your own inukshuk in some photographically elegant spot, using the stones of the existing one if necessary. Cutting down the tree is likely to get you in trouble.
Thank you for your comment. There is at least one more option. That is to think a little more depply about the shot and not to take it all, Cheers, Sean
Not taking the shot at all is indeed an option, especially if you are in the film world. I hadn’t considered that when drafting my reply. But it leads to essentially two difficulties, one philosophic, and one practical.
Practical. It takes a certain amount of practice with the camera to be able to get the shot one visualizes. For the practiced photographer the settings are the work of an instant, resulting from an eye that can look at a scene and quickly go from there. Lots of times the light changes quickly, and fumbling through the settings can lose the shot. This is the practice makes perfect school of thought.
Philosophical. Imagine (If you will) a person who looks at various scenes and decides not to take a photo because it isn’t composed correctly, or they don’t see a great shot. They are so good at this, they can look at any scene and know there isn’t a perfect shot there. Can they call themselves a photographer? (To be discussed over beer.)
Thank you once again for visiting and your comments. This is definitely a many beer conversation. As more fodder for that conversation I submit the question, so, how many photographs do you have to take to be a photographer? Cheers