I had something to say
Gordon Parks was a well-known African-American photographer who broke the race barrier shooting for magazines such as Life and Vogue; he then went on to directing and screenwriting.
What struck me when I first read some of his thoughts was a quote he had once said, “If you don’t have anything to say, your photographs aren’t going to say much”.
When I’m critiquing images submitted to me in my online classes with the BPSOP, and during our daily critiques in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around our (round) planet, I can usually tell right off that the photo they took had no meaning. No real meaning because the photographer didn’t have anything to say.
This will usually occur when someone has taken instead of making a picture. I have seen it when a photo has been submitted for a critique in my online class, but more importantly when I’m walking around when one of my workshop participants.
I understand that these photographers want to take as many photos as they can since they’re in places where most people don’t ever get to see. However, I would rather take fewer images that say or mean something, just enjoying the experience, than bringing the cameras up to my eye because that’s what it’s there for.
It boils down to editing my photos before bringing up the camera or deleting them when sitting in front of a computer. For me, taking precious time to stop and ‘take a picture’, is just burning a lot of daylight. After all, I figure that the best picture I will have ever taken up to then is the one just around the corner enveloped with beautiful late afternoon light.
Having said all this, there is something to making your family slide show last awhile. Describing your feeling at the time of conception in other words when you click the shutter, to the people that you bribed with dinner and wine, can take the place of the photo standing on its own conveying what you were thinking at the time you clicked the shutter.
Visit my website at www.joebaraban.com, follow me on Instagram, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.
JoeB
