I looked at the whole enchilada.
When I’m working with my online students at the BPSOP, or at one of the “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet, there seems to be a recurring theme. Photographers will invariably shut their minds out to anything except the immediate subject at hand, which includes telling whatever story they’re trying to sell to the viewer.
Most of the time, they’re not even aware they’re doing it because they’re usually shooting too fast to begin with. They run around with their heads cut off and shooting anything that comes into their periphery; sometimes regardless of the subject matter.
At best, when there is a subject worth shooting, they’re so focused on placing the subject in the best light and the best positioning in the frame, that they forget about the rest of the environment. That is, the balance between the Negative or Positive Space that’s surrounding the subject/main center of interest, the contrast between the light and dark areas, or whether the colors compliment one another. Way too much time might be spent on coming up with some esoteric title.
It could be as simple as making sure a telephone pole or tree isn’t growing out of someone’s head. What about DOF? Don’t you want to know what’s going to be in focus from the front to the back? You don’t want to find out in front of a computer.
It’s “The Whole Enchilada”, that’s going to take your photograph what I call “up a notch”. It’s not just the pretty girlfriend, wife, lover, or grandson, granddaughter, mom, dad, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, etc, or your dog, horse, parrot, turtle, or cat. Nor is it any inanimate object. It’s the relationship between these subjects/objects and the environmental reality they happen to be in, or that you put them in.
One of the best ways to check on these relationships is what I talked about in an earlier post. I use what I refer to as my “Fifteen Point Protection Plan”. Or the Border Patrol, or checking the four corners.
Right before I click the shutter, I look around each and every IMAGINARY black dot that’s covering my focusing screen. You should try it sometime, I’ve been using it for fifty-three years, and it really helps!!!
In the above photo, it may look like a photo that didn’t take me very long to shoot, quite the contrary. I placed her in different places in this environment and settled for this one that because of the Figure-Ground concept in Gestalt, I had her head in front of the black area.
I purposely chose the shallow DOF to make her stand out; also part of Figure-Ground. I also placed her at the edge of the frame to generate Visual Tension. There’s nothing brighter than her face so the viewer will go straight to it. The light is coming from ten on the invisible clock…my favorite. She’s looking out which implies “content outside the frame”.
Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, check out my 2018 workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime. You’ll love my Protection Plan!!!
This coming July 29th will be my 30th anniversary teaching at the Maine Media Workshop. I’ve always picked this time as it’s the week of the Lobster Festival down the road in Rockland. This offers a unique set of photo ops, different from the Maine Coast, fishing villages, and lighthouses. The Lobster Festival is all about color, design, light, energy, people watching, and environmental portraits everywhere you look; some people are there in costumes and love to be photographed.
In conjunction with The Santa Fe Workshops, on October 2nd I’ll be leading a group in San Miguel de Allende. A beautiful oasis and artist colony and the entire city is a UNESCO site.
Come join me for a week of fun and photography…what could be better?
JoeB
