Essentializing

Breakfast Table
Originally uploaded by Poundstone.

A link to this via this brought me to this: Crown Point Press founder Kathan Brown talking about how artist Wayne Thiebaud talks about his work as a process of:

"essentializing....as a sauce reduced in cooking"

Now, normally I don't like fake words, but this one seems interesting and useful . By focusing our attention on *anything* we can "essentialize" it. We can make it urgent, we can call it *important*. And to me, there are so many wonderful reasons for something to be important: if it's beautiful, if it says something about our lives, if it conjures or somehow holds a memory...

I've been thinking a lot lately about the pictures I take. It may seem weird to say this, but I like them so much. I feel them. And pictures like the one up there, of a simple breakfast table, evoke so much emotion to me - these dishes, this sun, that shadow the butter makes - these elements all feel like words in a poem. They're specific and evocative. I don't know if the photos feel that way to people other than me. Although, while I'd love other people to love them, that's not my primary concern.

At the show (mentioned in the last post) at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, some of the first photographs taken with 35mm cameras were on display. And the writers of the text surrounding the display were making the point that this new kind of highly portable camera had made photographers free to capture all kinds of scenes - not just formal portraits. Candid shots became a possibility, and people began to look more like real people in their real lives - moving living and breathing people rather than paper dolls.

For me, the digital camera (in part because of its format, and in part because I don't have to think at all about paying for processing) has given me the freedom to start *seeing* new things, chronicling beauty anywhere and everywhere I spot it. And by seeing more, and looking more, I've found beauty in more places than ever before - and in places I never would have otherwise looked. Like the breakfast table.

From Love

Skyshow 2
Originally uploaded by Poundstone.

On our recent vacation, I found myself saying to Kortney: "I really believe that two people standing next to each other with cameras will take two totally different pictures if one loves what they're looking at and the other doesn't." Or something close to that. It sounds crazy. But I'm more and more convinced that it's true, and not just with photos, but with any sort of expression, creative or otherwise. It's hard and scary to put your heart into everything you do, but if you don't, why do it at all?

By the way, I made this observation after visiting the *excellent* exhibit at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego. The link is here: http://www.mopa.org/pages/exhipages/currenex01.asp

My Photography Lessons Learned

Contemplative Sophie
Originally uploaded by Poundstone.

I believe I've said this before here: I used to suck at taking photographs. The viewfinder on my digital camera changed my life. All of a sudden, what I saw was what I got, and photography became more like composing a little piece of artwork, which I'm good at, instead of a frustrating technical experience.

But the other things that have transformed my pictures into something much better than they had been: Three simple rules.

1) Turn off the flash. Use daylight and lamps to your advantage. If you're in lower light, overexpose the photo a bit. (That is, turn up the exposure a few notches. Consult your camera's manual.) You can also use the photo editing software to lighten up a picture if it's too dark. In my experience, these options are always better than flash pictures. Always.

2) Take one, if not two steps closer to your subject. Don't be afraid to cut off the top and bottom of your subject. Closer is almost always more interesting.

3) Take a bunch of photos. With digital cameras, there's no downside to taking a whole mess of pictures. You just delete the rejects later. Presto! You're much more likely to get the shot you love if you're willing to take a bunch to begin with.

The only caveat with this rule is, as Frank Horvat says, "Photography is the art of not pushing the button." In other words, wait for the RIGHT shots. Eventually you'll be able to feel when the right shot is in your viewfinder. And it's so satisfying to catch it.

There. It's off my chest. Hope these little rules help somebody out there as much as they helped me.

Frank Horvat, photographer. I can't remember how I first found him, but his whole approach, his subjects, and particularly his series "1999, A Daily Report" (it's on the Web site) and his book "Trees" (check your library) seem exactly right somehow. www.horvatland.com.