Still floundering

My lack of direction continues to afflict me. My most creative picture taking seems to be occurring while I'm fishing. Messing about with my compact while the fish aren't biting. Or at least in terms of single images that's the case. Being by the water for twenty four hours lets you see many changes in light and atmosphere, and so provides many chances to make pictures.

The trouble is that I would prefer to be making bodies of work. Something Alec Soth said seemed pretty apposite to my situation:  “Everyone can take great pictures. What’s hard is taking a collection of great pictures and making them work together. It’s like language: everyone can speak but putting the words together is the real challenge.”

Words can be brought together in a number of ways. You can make lengthy prose works of fact or fiction, you can make haikus, and many variations in between.

I'm particularly taken with making grids at the moment. A sort of poetic approach, I suppose. One such which I made very quickly, again using my compact camera, came to me as I walked past a hedge which contained a variety of fruiting shrubs in close proximity.

I worked quickly, trying to remain instinctive, and arranged five pictures together. A lame attempt to convey an aspect of autumn. Individually the pictures are nothing special, but together I think they make a bit more sense.

There seems to be something about the compact camera that gives me ideas. I think it's the flexibility of it's screen that helps,and it's light weight that allows it to be held in positions which would be awkward to use a larger camera with a viewfinder. It's not without its drawbacks. I tried it for some pictures of a woman untying her dog outside a shop in town. The little dog was pleased to see her on her return and was running around and jumping up. The lag between pressing the shutter release and the exposure being made ensured I missed every picture I saw. I also got tutted at by a woman walking by. So I followed her and took a photo of the back of her head. Well it reminded me of a William Eggleston photograph. Somewhat tenuously, perhaps.

Wandering round town taking random shots of random people might pass for street photography these days. It's not all that difficult, not even to make a set of similar looking images. I could have spent a few hours taking pictures of people carrying shopping bags. But it could have been a bit like collecting those footballer cards. Which is what these '100 Strangers' projects that have become popular seem like to me. The first person to do it had an idea. Now there's a Flickr group for them.

However, if it were someone taking pictures of 100 cat owners, or 100 mobility scooter riders, I could see some point to such a project. This typology approach does give you a sense of the differences between a group of superficially similar people. It's not a fresh idea (Keith Arnatt's 'Walking the Dog' series is a favourite of mine) but there are many sub-groups of people for which such a project could be done.

Unfortunately I lack the people skills to get a project like that off the ground. Besides, it would be rather planned - which would be the kiss of death for me anyway.As it is I blunder along with vague projects in mind. Making random pictures to slot into folders on my computer to be sorted into some sort of order at some stage.

There's one of these vague themes I've been making pictures of for some years now. The other day I had a burst of inspiration and made some more. Back home I made a grid from nine of them and had a light-bulb moment. I thought I'd found my way in to get the project into shape. The following day I went out certain I could make nine more pictures for a second grid about another aspect of the theme. I was happy with the shots as I took them, and when I looked at them on the computer. The problem was that arranged as a grid, as I had planned them, they looked leaden, forced, obvious. It just didn't work. It's back to the random shooting of pictures when they present themselves for me.

With that in mind I have added poultry to my ever-growing list of themes (and corresponding Lightroom folders). And to contradict what I have just written about planning not working I took some pictures of a sign I drive past on a regular basis. Today I pulled over and got the camera out. A couple of chickens even got themselves in the frame for an added bonus. Quite where this theme will lead is anyone's guess. Most likely down another blind alley!

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Feathers

Still lacking direction I keep on snapping away in the knowledge that eventually something will click. Looking at the pictures I've made over the last few weeks there does seem to be a feathery connection. One a work party on a local fishery one of the other members brought his goshawk along for some fresh air. I'd taken a few shots of it a few weeks earlier but didn't have a long enough lens and it wasn't in the best of positions. This time I had a longer lens (one the nerds would scoff at, of course) and enough time to get some decent poses. With good technique - as in concentrating on what I was doing instead of snapping hastily - the results were pleasantly detailed, and I managed to get a soft background to isolate the bird without recourse to wide apertures.

A few days later I was at the animal sanctuary again, this time for the Fun Day. The sun shone most of the time, which made life easier, and the creatures were under control, which also helped matters. Something that I found odd was that whenever I pointed my lens at a bird that was being held the handler would stretch their arm out so I couldn't get them in the shot.

I imagine that most amateur snappers are intent on getting close up shots of the birds with the same kind of background as I found for the goshawk. What I was after was the relationship between bird and human. More interesting to me. This was something that cropped up in a conversation with someone at the poultry show I attended last week.

The chap had been to the national show where a news photographer was taking photos of people with their fowl. His focus was on interesting looking people, whereas the chap I was talking to (a poultry fancier) was interested in photographing the birds. I guess this is a case of knowing your audience. On the back of this conversation I bought a couple of back issues of Fancy Fowl magazine. Sure enough there were more pictures of fowl than folk!

As I strolled around the sanctuary I was once more struck by how difficult it is to take interesting pictures in these situations. I'm sure that the more you attend this sort of event the easier it gets. It wasn't so much a reticence to point the camera at strangers as getting an eye for a shot. The sort of stuff I see on forums was easy enough. simple record shots of something interesting, but actual pictures are far harder to see. I was trying to get something interesting in the foregroud while having more, slightly out of focus but readable, stuff going on in the background. Timing things so they all fall together is really difficult. More Fun Day pics here.

A week later it was the poultry show. I'm trying to build a collection of photos that cover a wide range of aspects of the shows, rather than just pictures of birds. With the autumn sun shining it was easy to get a wide view of the show building and the cars parked around it to set the scene.

The lighting inside the show building is always a challenge. I was trying out a zoom lens for convenience, unsure if it would be fast enough. It seemed to cope well, and the closer focusing distance at the long end than a similar fixed length lens came in useful for trying to take a set of pictures of chicken legs, and other close ups. One of the trickiest things to overcome is the cycling of the fluorescent tubes, which makes using a fast shutter speed difficult as the white balance alters through the cycle. A fast shutter speed can be a big help with twicthy chickens!

Once more I tried to make some pictures with interest throughout the frame. I know the mantra is to simplify and not have distractions in the background, but that makes for boring photographs. Small, apparently insignificant, details can be surprising. Timing is everything. The shot below was the third of a short burst. It almost worked out. Mostly though there are bits in each frame that work, and if they were all combied in one shot would work really well. Just keep on trying, I guess.

Something I'm going to try and do more of are pictures of people with their birds. That photographer at the national show was doing the right thing. Pictures of people are more interesting than pictures of birds. And pictures of people interacting with birds are more interesting still. I could resort to the use of flash I suppose, but it's a pain to lug about. Maybe next time.

While the regular photographer was otherwise engaged the chap I'd been talking to was using the 'studio', so I had a go from the sideline.

The lighting set up is just right for what it's designed for. The regular photographer uses on camera flash for fill, and with patience over the posing he gets consistent results for people who want to look at the birds from a fancier's point of view. From my point of view the birds might as well be made of pottery as the pictures are all the same.

Although the bird on its own is a (slightly) technically better photograph than the one of it with its owner, I much prefer the latter as a picture. There's something going on in it that anyone can relate to. Whenever someone says that photography is 'all about light' I want to scream. If the subject isn't of interest the 'best' lighting in the world is wasted.

Could birds and people become a project? I suppose it could, but once more as soon as I find myself making mental notes on how to plan it out I find myself losing interest. It's that distinct lack of a work ethic in my make up. Doing anything to a plan feels like work. And I can't abide work!

More poultry show photos here.

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Out of step

Every time I recommend a lens to someone on a forum I get slated by the resident experts. The lens is always a dog. Soft as can be or terribly slow. It's as if being small and lightweight, or having a really useful zoom range, is irrelevant when choosing lenses. I suppose if you have the strength to carry around every lens you own in a big bag, along with a flash gun, tripod and a full set of filters, then a small useful lens isn't worth having. But if you prefer to take a camera almost everywhere without wearing yourself out light and useful trumps heavy and sharp. The funny thing is that the useful lenses I have are plenty sharp enough. Well, they are for me.

I have a sneaking suspicion that those who only use the 'best' lenses have to justify the money they've spent on them by imagining that the difference between useful (cheaper) lenses is immense. When it really isn't. There might well be a difference, but whether is is noticeable in real life I doubt very much.

Having been told that one of my favourite lenses was a real dog I thought I'd better reappraise it. I took some photos with it in order to zoom in on some fine detail. Strangely it looked perfectly fine to me - even zoomed in to 100%!

I wonder how many times I've taken photographs of that sculpture thing? There's something about it that I'm sure will make a good picture, but I've never quite managed it. That's a feature of my photography, shooting the same subject over and over.

There are some greenhouses I walk past every time I go along the canal. I've photographed them time and again too. I think I made a decent picture of them recently, at the second attempt. Some poppies had sprung up in front of them and were in flower. One dull day I tried using the camera's pop-up flash, but the sky was grey. A few days later the sun was shining, the sky blue and something seemed to click. I don't pretend it's a great picture, but as part of my ever growing collection of pictures from the village it makes a kind of sense.

Lo and behold, it was taken with a 'less than optimal' zoom lens. I'd better not mention the UV filter on the front or the Image Quality Police will have me banged up!

I find myself increasingly disinclined to bother posting on 'that' forum'. All that ever seems to matter is image quality. Be that sharpness, creaminess of bokeh, or perfect lighting. There's so little interest in making pictures. Don't get me started on the state of street photography. Any old crap passes muster there. And what's this fascination for going to events and taking tightly (but often badly) framed shots of 'characters'? Oh dear, I'm ranting!

It's 'street', man. Well, it's a man in a street!

All this is by way of saying that I'm stuck. I've got ideas that I can't seem to organise, or find the time to carry out. The Big Project I was planning did just what I thought it would do. Fizzled out. The reason was too much planning. I got as far as making some dummy pages for a book, starting to write an introduction to the project, even making a list of subjects and how to photograph them. That was where I went wrong. Doing all that used up my creative urges. I'd done all the thinking. All the interesting stuff. What I should have done was jump straight in taking photographs. There was another aspect that put me off. It was all getting a bit journalistic. A bit regimented too. I prefer restrained chaos where I'm never sure what might happen next. That element of chance that might lead to success or dismal failure. But which is always thought provoking.

This goes against the grain for some people. At the moment I'm struggling to read The Creative Life in Photography by Brooks Jensen who stresses the need to visualise the finished project in as much detail as possible because that creates a strong compulsion to complete the work so you can hold it in your hands. Visualising the finished work in all it's detail has precisely the opposite effect on me. I knew exactly what my Big Project would look like, so there was no need to actually make it. The planning, organising, layout design was interesting and challenging. Taking the pictures to slot into the gaps in the design would have been boring. I had a shooting list that would have become a case of ticking off items as they were done.

Back to wandering around aimlessly snapping away for me. The funny thing is that somewhere in my disorganised mind I'm sure there is a master plan guiding me and one day all these random images will coalesce into a Great Big Project. All I have to do is hang on long enough to find out what that is!

Chicken attack

Never work with children or animals - especially chickens! Mostly chickens are fine if twitchy subjects, but they are inquisitive. I suspect this one could see itself in the front element of my lens, which was why it poked its head inside the hood to try and have a peck.

I was doing a favour photographing, or trying to photograph, fur and feather for a friend's daughter who runs and animal sanctuary. The brief was a bit vague. As in 'take some pictures of the animals' vague. The weather wasn't kind. The flat light wasn't too much of a concern as bright sunshine would have made for harsh shadows and tricky exposures with white feathers and fur. It was the rain that was off-putting.

My hat is off to anyone who makes their living taking photos to order. And an additional round of applause if they photograph animals for a living. I'm sure pets in a studio are problematic, but farm animals in pens and paddocks simply will not take any direction!

Trying to get decent pictures of horses when all they want to do is eat grass is frustrating. At least you can but a rope on a horse and while it may not drink, it can be lead. Goats, on the other hand, just stare at you. Or sneak up from behind...

One thing I was glad of taking along was the longer zoom. Even for the horses it proved worthwhile and got twice the use of the 24-70 I'd imagined would suffice. It's drawback being with the smaller animals and aviary birds. It wouldn't focus close enough.

To my way of thinking, and looking, the best pictures of domesticated animals, unless one is doing something interesting,  are ones where they are interacting with each other or with people. Even the frame above with the horse on a rope is more engaging than the ones I have of a horse on its own. The individual horse pictures without a person in them that 'work' best are the ones where there are other horses in the background. Of course these sort of pictures are limited in their usefulness in terms of graphic design. Which is why it's good to have a clear idea of how the pictures will be used.
Do you need to leave space around the subject to allow for text to be overlaid? Can you frame tight? Stuff like that helps you know what to aim for. It's no surprise that if I hadn't have a brief of sorts the pictures would have been a bit different. I did get a bit creative, in an editorial sort of way, by photographing one of the rescue hedeghogs next to an ornamental one. The sort of cheesy picture you'd see in a local free newspaper. A pity about the background, but sometimes you're stuck with what you're presented with.

This little venture proved to me that I was never cut out for the life as a professional photographer. Apart from the sloppy technique that would let me down at crucial moments, I really don't like having to make 'other people's photographs'. Occasionally I let go and took some photos for myself, like the donkey's ears. What I'd have been happier doing would have been photographing the place and the staff at work as well as the creatures. Making pictures in a more documentary style, I suppose.

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Pottering

It's a while since I posted anything on here, which is not because I haven't taken any photos, I have taken lots, but because I haven't had much to say about them. But since writing over on 'that photography forum' the other day that I'm coming to think there are two sorts of photographer - instinctive/reactive ones and planners/controllers - it sort of fits in with what I have been doing with my cameras.

Most of the time I've been using my compact. Not because it slips in a pocket, but because it's flexible to use and the results are perfectly good enough for the use they have been put to - blogging. With a bit of care they are good enough to print to at least A4 too.

There's the nub. I take photographs when something presents itself to me as a likely subject. To some people that's plain wrong. They have to have an idea of what to photograph before they pick up a camera, while having a camera to hand is what makes me  think about taking pictures. For the planners that camera choice is important, for me anything available will have to suffice.

It's the same with projects. I had this 'big project' in mind. Made a few pictures then sat at the computer and wrote introductory notes and plotted out how to present it in book form. I even got as far as making some dummy page layouts. It was all there in my head how the finished thing would look. All that remained was to gather some information and take the photos to fit the blank spaces in the layout. That was when I lost interest and shelved the project. Probably for good.

It seems to me that no matter how strongly someone might advise you to work in a particular way your have to find strategies for making photographs or developing projects that work for you. There's no single right way. My main strategy is the haphazard one of having a lot of ideas lodged in my brain and taking photos to suit them when they crop up on my aimless wanderings. Sometimes I'll get it in my head to go and do something specific. A case in point was a return to the marsh.

Trying to make pictures about a flat, open space is quite difficult. The wide views never really capture any of the spirit of the place. I suppose I could wait for a dramatic skyscape and take the easy way out. But that's not my style. The approach I seem top have adopted is to make pictures of details where land and water interact. Some as single images, some as pairs or more of pictures.

I'm still not sure if this is the best solution, but it's the one I'm running with at the moment. There's every chance it'll prove to be yet another dead-end!

At the other end of the scale the Autoflora project has, I'm pretty certain, been put to bed. The end result being a simple set of four pictures. I couldn't see any need to explore the concept any further by looking at other ways in which plants and cars cross paths. The pictures of overgrown car parks and tracks seems to be based on a different idea altogether.

Making diptychs, grids and strips of pictures has become a bit of a habit for me. Or has it become a style? I do like the way they can say more than a single picture, yet don't need to go over the top like some typology projects do. A whole book of pictures of different examples of one kind of thing can be tedious. Not to mention a bit pointless. It's an easy path to take though, which is probably why it's popular among a certain section of photographers. Ones who like planning things and knowing what they'll be doing next. What I'll be photographing next remains a mystery.