≡ Menu

Personal Pearls of Wisdom

Personal Pearls Of Wisdom: Make It Don’t Take It

Making pictures is a lot more fun than taking them.

Making pictures is a lot more fun than taking them.

The first workshop I ever taught was at the Maine Media Workshop in 1984, and up until the last few years I’ve been teaching while shooting advertising and corporate photography ever since. That’s thirty years of looking at my fellow photographer’s photos.

Thirty years later, I’m semi-retired and now teaching online with the BPSOP, and still conducting my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops around the planet.

If I were to pick out one thing that I’ve seen over the course of my teaching career, it would be the fact that the majority of all my students just go out with their camera and take pictures. I wrote a post about it called “I came, I shot, I left”, which somewhat touches on the subject at hand.

One of my favorite lines that I say to my students is, “I don’t photograph what I see because I never see what I want, so I photograph what I’d like to see”. What does that mean you say? It means that I’m in the business of making, not taking pictures. My background isn’t in photography. Truth be known, I didn’t hold a 35mm camera until I was twenty-one. I was an art student who loved painting and design. The day I picked up that camera was the day I changed my favorite medium, a paintbrush, to a 35mm Pentax Spotmatic with a 50mm lens.

I still consider myself an artist. Now, instead of a canvas on an easel where I was making works of art, I have a camera on a tripod, and I’m now making pictures.

If you’re out with a camera over your shoulder with the intent of coming back with your ‘work of art’, and you’ve taken my online class or my workshop, you have an ‘Artist Palette’ with you. You’re using the elements of visual design to help you see things you wouldn’t normally see and be able to make a picture from what you looking at by using one or all of these Elements.

Think about going out and making pictures, here’s what I mean: Before you click the shutter, take some time to walk around your subject, center of interest, or even the entire location your about to shoot in. Shoot it from different points of view. Before you even bring the camera up to your eye, look where the sun or light source is coming from. Position yourself to side light then backlight your subject. I’m not a fan of front light, but there’s time when it works so look for it as well. I wrote a post about looking at things in a new way. It’s also about making pictures.

Think about scouting the location ahead of time to check on the direction of the light. Maybe there’s some props you’d like to bring to help tell some kind of story. Being a storyteller is about making pictures. Maybe adding a person would help, so you drag one of your kids (you do have to pay them something if you want their undivided attention), or a spouse or friend. If you live in or close to a large city, Google up that cities Tourism Bureau or Film Commission for places to shoot; they love to help photographers. What about festivals (lots of photo ops) that come once a year? These are the kinds of things that change your thought process, and now you’re also in the business of making pictures.

Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, and follow me on Instagram: www.instagram.com/barabanjoe. Check out my new workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.

JoeB

Check out my new workshop on the six concepts in the Psychology of Gestalt: Gestalt Workshop link I was very […] Read more

Since I started my photography career right after the dinosaurs disappeared, there was no information highway to get information from. […] Read more

The first workshop I was ever asked to conduct was for the then Maine Workshop (changed to the Maine Media […] Read more

While shooting an assignment for United Airlines I had gone to Ho’okipa Beach on the north shore of Maui to […] Read more

When I was an active advertising and corporate photographer, one of the areas of photography I was and still am […] Read more

I suppose it comes from the old days, my youth, when I worked for UPI and then AP as a […] Read more

At the beginning Friday of my four-week class I teach online with the BPSOP, and the first day of my […] Read more

To be honest, as some of you just might know, I stole this line from Matthew 7:7, and not being […] Read more

Henry David Thoreau once said, “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see”. This is a […] Read more

In several of my past classes with the BPSOP, I’ve been asked about the importance of Visual Tension. So, I’m […] Read more

I’ve been conducting workshops since the early eighties, and over the years I’ve been known to occasionally spout out something […] Read more

One of the most important Pearls of Wisdom I share with my online class with the BPSOP, and with my […] Read more

This is a category that I enjoy writing in. Although most of my pearls of wisdom are created by yours […] Read more

One of my favorite Pearls I’m always asking my online students with the BPSOP, and my “Stretching Your Frame of […] Read more

One of my favorite Pearls of Wisdom that I often say to my online class with the BPSOP and in […] Read more

  One of the many ways to create visual interest and tension is to get the viewer to  believe what […] Read more

I get a lot of my ideas for these posts from either looking at photographs in various places, reading something […] Read more

As most of you know, one of my favorite topics to discuss with my fellow photographers is “The Light” . […] Read more

I’m quite sure a lot of you have heard this at one time or another by lots of different people […] Read more

When I talk to my students in my online class with the BPSOP and in my “Stretching Your Frame of […] Read more

When I’m online with my class with the BPSOP, or traveling with my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind“ workshop, I […] Read more

As the followers of my blog, my online students with the BPSOP, and the photographers who have attended my “Stretching […] Read more

I’ve been an advertising, corporate, and editorial for fifty-three years, and in that time I’ve enjoyed teaching and showing photographers […] Read more

Ok, I’m not sure what category this fits into so I’m thinking three of them: My Favorite Quote since there’s […] Read more

Is anyone out there old enough to remember this famous line, “Ok Mr. DeMille I’m ready for my close-up”? Well […] Read more

First of all, let me define what the Rule of Thirds means for those that have been lucky enough to […] Read more

  As I hope a lot of you know, I’ve had a post come out every five or six days […] Read more

One of the comments I’ve constantly heard from both my online students I teach with the BPSOP, and my “Stretching […] Read more

When I’m working with my online students at the BPSOP, or at one of the “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” […] Read more

Spanning almost forty years of teaching photography workshops, I have compiled a list of my own “Personal Pearls of Wisdom” […] Read more