Joe Baraban’s Digital Photography Blog

Look ma, no Photoshop!

I was hired by an advertising agency in New York to shoot a photograph for their client who was the New York Lottery. The campaign was called, “Hey, you never know”. Since we had to shoot in the same state as the lottery, I sent a location scout out to find a highway that would be able to fit both the stretch limo and trailer and the camera car as well. Easier said than done!!!

In fact, it wasn’t happening. Because the limo was so long, and the trailer added even more, I couldn’t get back far enough to get it all in the Panoramic camera I was using. Why a Panoramic you ask? Because the ad was going to be on the sides of the buses in Manhattan. This way, the art director wouldn’t have to crop, making the photo a lot sharper.

If this image was to be shot in the digital age, it would be sooooo easy!!! You just shoot the limo and trailer in some large studio, or anywhere for that matter, then CGI it into the background. How much fun is that????. Maybe for the digital technician!!!

Back then it all had to be shot in the camera, so what did I do? I rented a runway at a small airport outside of the city and I sat on the camera car (panoramic camera in hand) while we both traveled down the runway at the exact same speed (at sunset) while I shot at a slow shutter speed. That way, I could blur the background. I talked the agency into painting the trailer ping and putting the dog (held up by three people) out the roof. Don’t worry, we were only traveling ten miles an hour!!!@

Now that was fun!!!! Here’s the setup:

In my online class with the BPSOP, and my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshop I conduct around the planet, my students work on incorporating the elements of visual design and composition into their photographs, and we also work on creating as much of it as we can in the camera.

Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.

Follow me on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/barabanjoe/

JoeB

  I’ve been trying now for a while today, trying to locate the author of one of my favorite quotes, “Don’t let the low hanging fruit keep you from your goal”.

Nowhere on the information highway does it mention it. However, I did find an article that in a matter of speaking, is a metaphor that fits perfectly.

“Pick the low-hanging fruit first”?

In business, going for the easiest win first can mean a quick payoff, even if the fruits of your labor are, well, a bit misshapen. But according to 30-year apple-picking veteran Henry Rueda, starting with “low-hanging fruit” is a load of horse apples. Rueda says it’s common practice to pick trees from top to bottom so that the sacks of apples that pickers carry around their necks grow heavier as they work downward.

To pick the low-hanging fruit first would mean climbing against gravity with an increasingly heavy load—and also preventing heavily-shaded fruit from ripening. “Fruit that is high up, exposed to the sun, ripens the fastest,” adds USDA plant breeder Gennaro Fazio. “You want to pick the low-hanging fruit last, so it has more time to develop.” Using this phrase can make you look less than intelligent even though it’s one of the most common sayings.

So, my fellow photographers, what the hell does this have to do with the price of beans, a.k.a. photography?

In my online class with the BPSOP, and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet, I work on getting people to take a ‘Master’ shot first, then segue it to other ways to look at the same subject. In other words, you want to work your way down from the top.

The  Master shot will help you stir up those creative juices; think of it as the oil to get your motor running. Once you do, then you can look at all the lower hanging fruit. One reason that immediately comes to mind is the quality of the light.

It would make sense that the subject near or at the top is going to have the brightest light on it. If you spend time at the bottom, you’re going to miss the light at the top. Chances are that there will also be light at the bottom so when you come back to it, it might be the softer, warmer light that memories are made of. Above all, depending on where you put it in relation to your subject, will make the difference between a potential wall hanger or a photo destined to fall on the cutting room floor….as in deleted!

Shooting the low-hanging subjects will (maybe) give you the quick payoff…instant gratification, but it won’t fill your basket (compact flash card) with choices. It’s the choices that will give you the best chance to go home with a photo you can put over your fireplace.

Visit my website at www.joebaraban.com, and check out any upcoming workshops. Come shoot with me sometime. Follow me on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/barabanjoe/

JoeB

As I tell my online students with the BPSOP and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet, there was actually a time when you had to create your pictures in the camera. During that period of time which goes back before most of the new age digital photographers were crawling around looking for our pacifier, Kodachrome was the film of choice.

I shot Kodachrome 25, and when I needed high-speed film I switched to Kodachrome 64. Not only was the word Adobe linked to a type of house in the Southwest, but you had to wait until your film came back from the lab before you could breathe again.

What that did for photographers like myself was to make us rely solely on our own wits and knowledge of the camera.

We had to know that 1/250th of a second at F/4 was the same exposure as 1/125th of a second at F/5.6, and 1/60th of a second at F/8. We also had to know that the depth of field would change according to the aperture.

Don’t get me wrong, I love CS5, and especially the content-aware tool!!! Now, if I can’t move to the right or the left to remove a telephone pole growing out of someone’s head, I use that tool as part of my thought process; however, I would rather embrace the challenge of creating my photographs in the camera.

For me, the reward is knowing that I’m a good photographer that can solve problems and not a computer artist or digital technician that relies on a machine to fix something I could have taken care of at the point of conception…that is at the point that my camera and I created/made a picture together.

🙂

The three pictures above were a part of a campaign for Microsoft. The campaign was about being the best you can, and excelling in whatever endeavor you choose. The art director wanted something in the field of sports to make their point so I made a list I thought would make the best visuals.

I had diving in the back of my mind and had already started to pre-visualize how the photos would look. The agency and client liked my idea so we started scouting locations where there was an Olympic pool.

The direction of the light was critical to my idea so after looking at several pools across the country, I decided on the pool in Pasadena, California; just down the street where the Rose Bowl is played.

Ok, I had the right pool, so now it was time to secure some divers. As usual, when I’m shooting sports of any kind I want the best people out there.

The visual part of the sport is important, as in the form, so I want the people that can do just that. I had my producer talk to the swimming clubs and organizations to get a list of names. We were in luck!!!

There were several young women that were trying out for the US Olympic team that lived in the area. I thought you couldn’t do better than that since their form would be perfect.

We paid three young teenage girls to come dive for me at sunset. I used three because one would get too tired climbing up to the top platform. I had each one doing their best dive for me one right after the other for the few minutes of time I had to be in the best light.

The swan dive was the easiest since I shot her with just the available light against a blue sky. With the other two, I waited until the sun went down behind a large hill so all I had was the sky behind them.

I lit these with a small softbox I had set up on the top platform next to me. I waited until the sky behind the girls read the same as the light from the electronic flash and used what was called a synch delay so the flash would go off at the end of the exposure instead of the beginning. This created a slight movement.

I edited the selects down to these three and sent them to the art director to pick one for the ad. They wound up using the shot with the girl in a swan dive and as I said, there’s absolutely no post-processing of any kind in either of these three photos.

Visit my website at www.joebaraban.com, and follow me on Instagram: www.instagram.com/barabanjoe

JoeB

Look ma, no Photoshop!

Here’s another post in my never-ending quest to bring to life the: over the top, incredible, amazing, unbelievable, and yes even scary idea that you can actually create your pictures “in the camera”.

I started teaching workshops in the early eighties when we used film, and Adobe was thought to be a type of building material that went into houses in the southwest part of the US. Through the years I’ve seen the transformation from film to digital, and for the most part students of mine that I teach online at the BPSOP and the “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet fell in love with photography after the sorrowful end of “cellulose acetate”…momma they took my Kodachrome away!!!

🙁

For the most part, my fellow photographers think that Lightroom and Photoshop are just part of the process; a needed part of the process. An integral part of picture taking, the results being a good photo that we can show our friends and family and watch them react favorably with plenty of “Ooh’s and Aah’s.

Well that’s all well and good, and truth be told I also enjoy Cs5, but my first thought is to take on the challenge of creating my photos before I pull the trigger (that’s Texas talk for clicking the shutter). That includes cropping in the camera. You see, by not cropping in the camera, you’ll never know where the edges of your frame are. The best thing that ever happened to me was that I’ve spent the majority of my forty-six-year career in film and without the added help of post-processing…why you ask?

Because I think it’s made me a stronger photographer.

🙂

The photo above was taken for Cessna. I was in a shoot plane designed for taking air-to-air photos of their line of aircraft. As you can see, one side of the plane is completely open. We took off first and I positioned our plane so the Citation Jet would get the best light. As the jet approached, I sat on the edge with my feet hanging out and I started shooting until it veered off, leaving a lot of turbulence in its wake. We went through the steps a couple more times until I felt I had it “in the can”. You see, there wasn’t a way I could view my shots in the back of the camera!!!

Checking the direction of the light.

Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.

Follow me on Instagram.

https://www.instagram.com/barabanjoe/

JoeB

A funny situation.

I teach people how to use the elements of visual design and composition to create stronger and more memorable images. Images that people won’t forget in the moments just after looking at your photo. Images that are compelling and will leave an impression days, weeks, and yes, even months afterward.

In my online class with the BPSOP, and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet, I stress the fact that “light is everything”, and should be considered first when composing your photo. One of my favorite pearls of wisdom is, “You find the light and you’ll find the shot”.

Now I’m not referring to the shooters that like to prowl the city streets looking to capture an emotional photo that has some kind of consequence, or as followers of Henri Cartier-Bresson work would say, “The Decisive Moment”. These are the type of photos that rely more on a quick finger hitting the shutter release and timing than of light. Instead, I’m talking about the type of photographer that likes to create beautiful photographs in any other genre that are timeless representations of reality. To me, these are the type of photos that require great light. Landscapes, Architecture, environmental portraits, to name a few.

OK, here’s where the Quick Photo Tip comes in. As I tell my students and fellow photographers, there is one genre that doesn’t need quality light to be memorable and that’s Humor. Humor is the one concept that can replace a day of flat, gray, and uninspiring light. Whether it be a funny situation, an awkward expression on a loved one’s face, or perhaps something as simple as a misspelled word on a sign, if it’s funny that’s all you might need.!!!

Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com and follow me on Instagram.  https://www.instagram.com/barabanjoe/ Check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me some time and we’ll have a few laughs.

JoeB

Nothing like window light!

When I was starting my career almost fifty-four years ago, there wasn’t a lot of money for equipment, especially lighting equipment. That is if I even knew what to do with said equipment if I had the money to buy it. I relied on my training in Art to get me through any lighting scenarios. What I mean is that I used available light to paint and that often meant using window light. As a result, when I grew up I was confident enough to use the same available window light for just about any kind of job that walked in the door of my first photo studio.

In fact, in the early days, I had a small space that was the bottom floor in an old house. My lighting set-up was a large window in the front of the house that faced North. I lit everything there from portraits to still lifes. At the time, I didn’t realize that it was the best possible way to light people and by the way, during the last few years, it has made a huge comeback.

In my online class with the BPSOP, and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshop I conduct around the planet, I always suggest available window light and at the same time stressing to avoid fill flash like it was the plague. Even on a gloomy day, there’s going to be enough light coming in from the outside to create a quality portrait. In the winter months, I tell the students that don’t think there’s anything to shoot until the thaw, to shoot indoors using the light from a window. Even when I could afford to take lighting with me on assignments, I would still look for available light from a window first since I was always tried to create it with my strobes and softboxes.

As is the nature of window light, side lighting is going to be the easiest way to light people. I prefer this light since it adds depth to the subject’s face. What I mean by “adding depth” is to make one side lighter than the other, and use a small white reflector to bounce a little light back on the dark side. This falls under one of the basic elements of visual design I teach in my classes called Form.

Form refers to the three-dimensional quality of an object and has but two dimensions: height and width. To create the third dimension, namely Depth, you have to side-light the object; otherwise, it will appear flat with no sense of shape and volume.

Look for rooms with multiple windows that will offer different kinds of lighting. one of my favorite ways to light a person ( as in the above photo) is to have them side lit with a window just out of the frame, and have windows in the background you can blow out. Ok, here’s a good time to tell you that whenever someone tells you that “clipping the highlights”  is not recommended, don’t walk away from them…RUN LIKE THE WIND because that person is going to have you take average, predictable photos; who wants that?

Take a look at this slideshow where the only source of light is a window somewhere usually out of the frame…but not always.

PausePlayPlayPrev|Next

Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this Blog Come shoot available light with me sometime. Follow me on Instagram.

https://www.instagram.com/barabanjoe/

JoeB

Transcending the ordinary

I teach fellow photographers how to incorporate the elements of Visual Design and composition into their photography. In my online class with the BPSOP, and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet people sometimes become complacent in their approach to their photos. They’re no longer interested in being the slightest bit critical of any of their images, and therefore are not putting any effort into the final results.

I once had a man taking my online class tell me that he wasn’t really interested in using these elements to take stronger photos. He told me, “I’m only interested in taking halfway decent pictures”.

My first thought was why in the world was he taking my class, so I asked him. He told me that he didn’t think it would require as much work as it turned out to be, and after the second week in my four-week class, he quit participating.

If your photographic goals are to take halfway decent pictures, then all I can say is go for it. Follow the same path you’ve been following and before too long you’ll be there. Odds are that you don’t have very far to go if you’re not already there.

If you’re determined to become better at your newfound love or passion or if you just want to improve on a twenty-year-old passion, then you’re going to have to commit to working at it. One of the ways is to “Transcend the Ordinary”.

Henry David Thoreau once said, “It’s not what you look at. it’s what you see”. I’ll add to that with one of my older “Personal Pearls of Wisdom” and tell you that “if you don’t like what you see, then photograph what you’d like to see”.

Don’t settle on walking up to a situation, stopping and bringing the camera up to your eyes, and snapping off a couple of frames. You might walk away with a good photo, but chances are that you could have taken a photo that no one else will find interesting but you. Now, if you only take pictures for yourself with absolutely no intention of sharing them, then proceed the way you are.

If you’re like most artists (and we are artists whose medium is a camera instead of a paintbrush), then think about ways to take an ordinary situation and take what I refer to as “Up a Notch”.

The next time you go out shooting, don’t look for the same ways to shoot the obvious, instead look for new ways; ways you conjure up in your imagination.

When you’re composing your shot, and it feels or looks like photos you’ve seen before, DON’T SNAP THE SHUTTER!!! Walk away because the best photo you’ve ever taken could be a photo you saw in your mind that was right around the corner.

In the photo above, I was shooting a leasing brochure for the apartments the man was living at. The client wanted a shot that conveyed the idea that when you came home from work, you could come by the office and get a free cocktail and go out by the pool.

I’m not sure how many times this idea has been photographed, but it could be up in the millions. One of the problems was that the pool area was surrounded by buildings so there wasn’t going to be any “Golden Light” to help. I had to shoot it when the sun was much higher than I liked.

I knew I was crossing into the “been there, done that” world and refuse to go without a fight. I walked around the iron fence and put the man where he would be backlit. The rim light around him and the glow of his gin and Tonic made the shot work. I had transcended the ordinary!!!!

Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com and follow me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/barabanjoe/be sure to check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime, and it won’t be ordinary.

JoeB

I don’t always Walk on By

Ok, so my guess is that you’ve never heard of this guy. Well, it would take two things that would help…being old and loving CW music…Country and Western, that is!

I qualify for one of them, maybe both. I’m old enough to know Leroy’s rendition (Dione Warwick made it famous). I’m not a fan of current CW music because to my ear it all sounds the same. However, I do love the music from the forties and fifties.

The other day I had on a classic Country and Western CD, and this song came up. When it did, I immediately thought of what I ‘preach’ to my students that take my online classes with the BPSOP and those that come with me on one of my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I have been conducting since 1983.

The title of the song is, Walk on By and the reason why I identify it to my teaching is that I’m invariably being told by one of my fellow photographers that even though they can’t seem to create a good composition, they go ahead and shoot it anyway.

Personally, I can’t think of a worse (photographically)  decision…if your goal is to become a stronger shooter. If you’re not happy with your photo, then skip it…Walk on by. The best photo you’ve ever taken could very well be your next one, and it could be waiting for you right around the corner.

In the old days when you were shooting film, and you had to pay not only for the film but the processing as well, you might have given it a second thought. Unfortunately, in the digital age, you can shoot as much as you like and not worry about the cost.

I say cost in a monetary sense. The cost to your ability to pick and choose based on the quality of the subject matter and the following composition is priceless. It’s hurting you far more than you can imagine.

Give this some Digital Thought the next time you’re out shooting. If it doesn’t feel right, then it’s probably not….Walk on By and think of this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QlqQA8CyjE

Visit my website at www.joebaraban.com, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this post. Come shoot with me sometime.

https://www.instagram.com/barabanjoe/

JoeB

Look ma, no Photoshop.

Every time I write one of these posts, it reminds me of great memories and days gone by when you had to be a good photographer. When in order to eat every day, as in three squares,  you had to be able to take photos in the camera without any help after the fact; when Adobe was a type of house in the southwest part of this country.

Don’t get me wrong, as I tell my online students with the BPSOP, and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet, I’m not some kind of purist that refuses to use post-processing, I use it all the time to tweak my images. I can tell you that on occasion, it comes in mighty handy when I just can’t what I want in the camera, or I can’t leave something out no matter where I move to or stand.

It’s just that for me, I like the challenge of doing it all in the camera, and as a result, I can look at myself in the mirror and feel good that I accomplished something without any help from the new digital world created by lightroom and Photoshop. That makes me feel like a good photographer and not a good computer artist; I mean where is the line drawn between the two?

The above photo was shot for an advertising agency in Houston that handled Shell Oil. Every year Shell picked a city where Super Rigs from all over the country would gather and have a competition to see what twelve trucks would win a spot to be on next year’s Shell Rotella calendar. It was a big deal and an honor to have your truck represent one of the months.

I was given full reign to come up with an idea for the calendar and decided to take an environmental portrait of all the truck owners next to their Super Rigs. My producer was sent there ahead of time to find some locations based on our initial conversation. For the month of October, I decided on a scary theme mixed with some humor, and as I always say, if it is worth taking seriously, it’s worth making fun of…as in death and the Grim Reaper.

I told this owner of my idea, and would he like to represent October and Halloween. He was all over it like a cheap suit. We found the wardrobe and took Darin and the truck to an old Victorian cemetery. I placed all the lights in the cemetery, lit the truck, and Darin, then with a fog machine smoked it ll up to create the mood.

This was shot in one exposure without any help from any post-processing. In other words, all in the camera.

Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.

https://www.instagram.com/barabanjoe/

JoeB

This is what I waned to see

We recently went to the Van Gogh exhibit here in Houston, and there were several of his quotes written on the walls. One, in particular, struck me as the way I not only teach but the way I personally approach photography.

In my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct all over the place, and in my online classes with the BPSOP, I encourage my students to realize that we’re artists. We have chosen the camera as our medium. A camera on a tripod is just the same as a blank canvas on an easel.

My personal approach is that I rarely see things as they are, rather as I’d like them to be.  I see things in my mind, and if I can see them there, I can usually create them in the camera.

Van Gogh said, “I dream of painting, and then I paint my dreams”. I’ll walk up to some location/photo op and not necessarily see what’s there. In other words, based on my thought process, I have no problem moving things around in my composition to see what I want. Of course, this is predicated on whatever permissions I need to get ahead of time.  If I need another one of those chairs that will introduce another shape or color, then I’ll move it. Conversely, if I need to simplify my composition, then I’ll take one out.

Photography, unlike painting, is the Art of Subtraction. When you use a brush on a blank canvas, you add subject matter until you get a finished work of art. In photography, you take away subject matter until you arrive at a finished work of art.

In my fifty-two-year-plus career, there have been many times when I was about to start on a project or leave for a destination I had pre-scouted before the start of my workshop,  and the night before I dreamed of how I wanted to arrange my composition.

So, my fellow photographers, think about the artist inside you. Don’t just go around photographing what you only see, but also what you’d like to see. Don’t follow the path well-traveled, start a new one and be the first one to go down it. When you do, think about coloring outside the lines.

Visit my website at www.joebaraban.com, and check out any workshops I may have coming up. Come shoot with me sometime.

https://www.instagram.com/barabanjoe/

JoeB

Here’s a really good tip for those who shoot in a square format: It’s virtually impossible to create Tension (which gives your photograph strength, and intensity) in a square.

The reason is that we don’t perceive our world in a square format, we perceive it in a rectangle, and here’s the proof:

Stand up and look straight ahead with your hands down at your sides. While you’re looking straight ahead, very slowly raise both your arms at the same time, while continuing to keep your arms straight;  also, keep your fingers extended straight out. Now, wiggle your fingers while you’re slowly raising both arms at the same time.  Still looking straight ahead, stop when you see your fingers wiggling.

Now do the same thing, but this time have one arm extended straight above your head and the other stretched downward right in front of you. Looking straight ahead slowly move your hands as if to meet at eye level in front of you. Again, wiggle your fingers and stop when you see them moving.

If you were to draw a line connecting all four points where you first saw your fingers wiggling you would be drawing a rectangle. That rectangle is in a 2X3 ratio, the same as a 35mm camera’s viewfinder.

And that’s how we see the world we live in.

Most people that shoot in a square format wind up cropping their image, but I never crop my photographs. People that crop their photographs will never become aware of the edges of their frame. In both my online class with the BPSOP, and my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshop I conduct around the planet I always have the students submit their images right out of the camera. That way, I’ll know their thought process at the time they clicked the shutter.

I always want to create a good photograph in the camera. When you look at all the photographs on my website, I want to remind you that none of them were cropped.

Check out my workshop description at www.joebaraban.com, and come shoot with me sometime.

https://www.instagram.com/barabanjoe/

JoeB

Years of art classes

Over the years, I’ve had countless people from the way to young to the not that old ( me for example) ask me what photography classes should they be taking; they say this for several reasons: One being that they’ve run out of ideas since they’ve taken so many. Or, they’ve become bored with the same old, same old approach to learning new things and digital cameras are above their pay grade. I’ve even been told that they like the instructor and therefore didn’t get anything out of the class, and finally, they’ve learned all there is to know about Photography!!!!!!!!!!!

I also run into similar questions in my online class with the BPSOP, and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet. Well, I always have the same answer…don’t take photography courses, take art classes.

A brief synopsis of my background will reveal that I’ve never taken a photography class, nor have I ever studied under or assisted another photographer. It wasn’t because I thought I was too good for all that, it was because I just didn’t know you could!!! When I went to college (1964-1969) the only photography classes that anyone could take were in the Journalism Department and were described as photo-journalism. Photography was not really considered a form of art. A camera was something you used to take pictures, and a brush or pencil was something you used to paint or draw pictures…and never the twain should/would meet.

However, in my opinion, I did something far better than taking photography classes. I took art classes.

From the time I was ten, I was into art, in any form. I was allowed to take two art classes in high school, and I studied at the Kansas City Art Institute. I took art classes all through college and settled with a degree in journalism. I took classes in design, composition, illustration, figure drawing, watercolor, oil painting, printmaking, color theory, and Art History, and I’m sure I’ve left out a few. I didn’t pick up a camera until I was twenty-one, and the moment I did and looked through the viewfinder, it was love at first sight; from that moment on it was instant gratification. I didn’t have to spend days or even weeks painting a picture.  The best part was that I still considered myself an artist, I just changed the medium from a canvas on an easel to a camera on a tripod.

it was a natural progression in that I simply applied everything I had learned in all my art classes to photography. All the elements of Visual Design I had studied over the years were still applicable.

So now, when I’m asked what photo classes to take, I always tell people to take art classes instead. Put your camera away and pick up a colored pencil. Sign up for Design 1 or composition 1 at your local school, and see where it leads.

Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.

https://www.instagram.com/barabanjoe/

JoeB 

Shooting right into the sun at sunrise is about energy.

Ever since I started teaching workshops, back in 1983, I’ve collected quotes written by various artists. Whether they were photographers, painters, writers, musicians are of no relevance. The important thing to me is that they are artists, and at the top of their game in their respective fields.; of course, the quote has to deal with some area that I’m interested in.

Years ago while studying a body of work by Ansel Adams, I came across a quote he said that has stuck with me all these years, and one I mention in my online class with the BPSOP, and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet. Ansel Adams said, “There are no rules for good pictures, there are just good pictures”.

What makes this quote so important to me is that I’m always defending it to my fellow photographers. If I had a dollar for every time a student told me that he was taught that shooting into the sun is a bad thing, or practice the Rule of Thirds, or the Leading in Rule (always have your subject walking into the frame), or how about this one….stay away from the color red, it’s too hard to photograph (who in the world said that?), I’d be on my Island right now. I’d be sitting on a chaise lounge on my beach, waiting for another blue and frothy drink to be brought to me; a drink with an umbrella hanging perilously down from one side.

Now I’m not suggesting that you don’t know what these rules are, as it’s important to know them. I’m suggesting that as soon as you know them…forget them. That is unless you want to be taken down the one-way road to mediocrity.

So my fellow photographers, what constitutes a good photo? Well, if you’ve been following my posts, you would remember a category I called “did it do it”. On my list is concepts that I think make a good photo. At least they do for me, and I’ve thought about this list for most of the fifty-three years I’ve been a photographer.

I can tell you from years of experience, the students of mine that stop listening to people who lived and died by these silly rules and started shooting what felt and looked good never looked back. As I’ve always told my kids, “Color Outside the Lines”.

Visit my website at www.joebaraban.com, and check out my workshop schedule.

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JoeB