I've had the opportunity to look through boxes of slides from a few years ago (ok, a decade or two ago). Two things strike me. First, I can usually see what I was striving for back then. I'm still reaching for the same brass ring, my "vision," were I so presumptuous to claim one, hasn't really changed much. Second: Oh, man! The missed opportunities! I saw some great things, and made rather embarassing photographs of 'em. I suppose that's good as an inspiration to get out there, but, ouch!
What's been your experience through the years, short or long, as a nature photographer?
I don't think of it in terms of either/or. I believe both vision and skill evolve along with our personality and life experiences. Then again, I tend to think about most things in a dialectic way.
Guy
Posted by Bill Chambers on January 9, 2007 at 11:47 PM
Guy thinks in dialectic terms, I think in dyslexic terms. I really don't know if my "vision" has changed that much, but I probably have refined it a good bit over the years. Certainly my ability to communicate it has changed, in large part due to my membership here at NPN. I too look back at old slides and think about some wonderful opportunities missed, but that's just part of the learning curve, just as I hope I will look back in a few years and think the same thing about te images I'm shooting now - as long as you can do that you're making progress.
Posted by Steve Foss on January 10, 2007 at 12:00 AM
I think it's quite a matter of personality, how we view our past work. I've been a writer for more than 20 years, and I can't stand to see some of the clumsy constructions that won praise from others back then. It embarrasses me, what I was doing then. I've been in photography as an amateur for about that long, but have only gotten serious as a pro shooter for three years. Still, I find myself looking at older slide work and my first-gen digital stuff, and vowing to re-shoot some of it because of the way my eye has changed in just a few years. When someone praises a photo I shot four years ago, I have to physically restrain myself from saying: "Well, yeah, thanks, but look at how I shot that JUST LAST WEEK!"
We just don't see ourselves and our work through the eyes of others — unless we settle down and let them teach us how good we are.
Okay. I checked the American Heritage Dictionary ca.1976. You're being dialetic! I wonder.
Pete D.
Posted by Frank Winters on January 10, 2007 at 9:25 AM
I sometimes think in dyspeptic terms, especially when cleaning the sensor on my 20D!
And what I think is that if your vision is staying the same you are in a rut. Personally I am looking at things more closely with more respect for the world around me. I am more interested in detail and the significance of what I see than ever before. And I have learned a little about photography along the way.
Posted by Dan Borzynski on January 10, 2007 at 9:58 AM
Yes! (to either/or/and on the questions)
If I was shooting the same subject, the same way, with the same goals, for the same reasons, there would be no reason to continue to shoot. Been there, done that. But new skills, ways to see things (from here, in many cases), and new goals makes it hard to shoot the same subject the same way, and that makes it fun.
I think Hank understands what I meant. Dialectic logic assumes that everything is in transition between two opposites and ever-changing. Heraclitus (allegedly) described the concept as: "you can't step into the same river twice".
Guy
Posted by Frank Winters on January 10, 2007 at 11:50 AM
Here is a modern definition of dialectic from Answers.com:
"The art or practice of arriving at the truth by the exchange of logical arguments.
The process especially associated with Hegel of arriving at the truth by stating a thesis, developing a contradictory antithesis, and combining and resolving them into a coherent synthesis.
Hegel's critical method for the investigation of this process.
The Marxian process of change through the conflict of opposing forces, whereby a given contradiction is characterized by a primary and a secondary aspect, the secondary succumbing to the primary, which is then transformed into an aspect of a new contradiction. Often used in the plural with a singular or plural verb.
The Marxian critique of this process.
dialectics (used with a sing. verb) A method of argument or exposition that systematically weighs contradictory facts or ideas with a view to the resolution of their real or apparent contradictions.
The contradiction between two conflicting forces viewed as the determining factor in their continuing interaction."
In my town we have had some issues that have caused people to be at odds with each other. Using dialectics might be a way to resolve this -- two contrary views can, after all, be used to arrive at one truth by "resolving them into a coherent synthesis."
I like it -- thanks for using the 50 cent word, Guy!
Posted by Mike Maples on January 10, 2007 at 12:14 PM
OH MY!!!! I feel completely ignorant...or is that dialectically dyslexic and dyspeptically discursive?
Mostly I feel serendipitous with respect to my photography. Over the years I have captured a series of pleasant surprises while failing miserably at trying to capture anything resembling a "vision". Most times my attempts at capturing my vision result in images that pale considerably when compared to my mind's eye view.
I look back at my old work and see a plethora of average images with flashes of brilliance scattered here and there, but there was a similarity in theme or "vision" among the similar subjects. Images I thought were "cool" back then still look "cool" today and I still realize most of them were accidents because I had not come close to mastering my techs back then.
Nowadays my work is far better technically. I get a lot more "keepers" with respect to correct exposure, focus, DOF and even composition compared to way back when. But I don't feel that I see things the same way. I think I have focused so hard on making my images technically correct that I've lost some of that "vision". I see wonderful shots by others that are completely backlit or sidelit or framed very tightly and I realize I would not have even taken that shot for technical reasons and therefore missed an opportunity at capturing a unique moment or effect for lack of vision.
I am working now on getting my vision back and realizing that it's not necessarily a good image just because it's sharp, well composed and properly exposed. There needs to be a reason for taking it. Working in an Engineering environment (my day job) makes it easy to focus on the technical but I used to be an artist in school. I was always drawing, writing, painting...I know there's an artist still in here somewhere. I've got to find him and tell him I now have enough technical skills to attempt capturing his vision.
Posted by Nathan Buck on January 10, 2007 at 12:17 PM
I don't know about seeing things in a dialectic way...I see them in a diabetic way though. I definitely see my vision changing. My ability to improve the way that vision is communicated certainly has improved, but my vision definitely changes also.
Nathan
Posted by Frank Winters on January 10, 2007 at 12:36 PM
Mike I agree with you and I think photography is overly focused on the technical. Somehow we need to get beyind that either by ignoring it or perfecting our own technique. Either approach will work -- what will not work is where most of us are -- in the middle.
Posted by William Brozy on January 10, 2007 at 2:03 PM
That's kinda funny Mike cause my flashes of brilliance tend to be a plethora of Timothy Leary type flashbacks
Now if I only had the ability to photograph those....
But honestly, the vision quest should never end. And personally, I think in some ways digital hinders that growth. To be continuously checking a histogram insuring an image is captured correctly/technically has become a bit of a hinderance. SO this year, no more histograms - I decided the moment is more important than the binary.
Posted by Mike Maples on January 10, 2007 at 2:14 PM
Ah haa...another child of the 60's?
Posted by William Brozy on January 10, 2007 at 2:20 PM
70's but it was all primarily the same....
Posted by Richard Wong on January 10, 2007 at 4:01 PM
I barely passed philosophy in college, and barely passed art history at grad school so all this is above my head. My vision always changes as I am near-sighted and in need of a new prescription.
Listen to music of your youth while looking for photos. I well recall searching for landscape photos, but getting angrier by the minute and zeroing in on all the enviro problems I was noticing. Spent a fruitful period trying to document those, but didn't realize till later that I had been listening to a CD of Dylan's 60's era protest songs. Changed CDs to the soundtrack from Country, and all was beautiful again.
Can someone explain the "vision" part to me? It always comes up when people discuss photography. What do you really mean by "vision" in this context?
Thanks.
Posted by David Senesac on January 10, 2007 at 8:14 PM
I shot 35mm Kodacrhomes in mountains many years from an SLR atop a Benbo. Had a few dozen boxes of slides that just this last year in a two week effort pruned down by two-thirds. So yeah, I recently relived my forgotten journeys in the mountains and got a sense of what I was doing way back and how successful that was. Even in my early days, I never with intent restrained my vision to some style. Instead I seemed to grow into seeing mountains from the wide perspective versus the tele and that is still true today.
The Sierra Nevada is a vast natural arena that for a photographer takes many years to get familliar with what is really worthwhile to work and what is not. And that process of learning never ends but rather over time of trial and error one simply refines what works. And through the years I've been a student of nature reading and studying the earth and natural sciences such that what I look at today has much more meaning. In the beginning one needs to experiment more in order to be able to evaluate back home what works and what doesn't. There is a difference between our physical experiences of beauty and form than what film and a camera captures. As Rowell related seeing as the camera and film see. Thus from a novices eye's they see much that may strike their fancy, but only some of that can be effectively captured. Geometry of elements, the patterns of color, and the form they create is not something one learns to capture with skill that is then static on a plateau. And I've experimented wasting as much film as the next person. I am ever amazed at how much better I become over the years and that is humbling. One learns to recognize subjects that years before were merely passed by. That is particularly true for the small and subtle. Over the years equipment and film have changed as well as post processing and print media. All that has affected what I was doing then and today.
I've had dozens of prints up and off my walls for a couple dozen years. That was a practical way of getting to understand what makes a workable image for printing. My vision of what makes a great print has evolved and changed. I like others look at magazines, picture books, go to galleries, museums, art fairs, with each molding my sense of visual art that over the years contributed to what my own work became. One learns to understand that other's taste in beauty varies considerably such that ordinary folk are often in wonder on images most photographers will see as quite flawed while not being able to relate to images that we on the other hand value. And that photographers themselves have considerable differences in aesthetic preference.
When I moved up to a 60x70mm system I had to learn restraint and to be selective as film was no longer cheap while effort was weighty. So when I moved up to 4x5 I had already payed those dues, though with large format with an intent on creating large prints the quarry is not often the same nor is captured with the same framing and composition as with smaller formats. In fact there is much I shoot today as with closeups of wildflowers that I still point my little cameras at because those end products work best as a small prints. And there are other subjects that I could never effectively capture with smaller fixed lens systems that with view camera movements opens up a whole world of new possibilities. ...David
Anil, I can't speak for the others but to me it's the ability to "see critically", as in be able to identify and create successful compositions.
Guy
Posted by Paul Grecian on January 10, 2007 at 8:46 PM
Vision for me means the final product, composition, perspective, focus (many meanings here), light, color, subject, motion (or not) - the whole concept which may end in the field or just begin.
Paul
Posted by William Brozy on January 10, 2007 at 10:05 PM
Anil - (to me) a vision is the means that directs you through your personal photographic journey (or whatever sojourn). A vision separates a nature generalist, from a photojournalist, from a landscape photographer, from a ...
It's finding what really fans the flames. In the field, sometimes the silliest things make my heart race. It's finding that rush, capturing that moment and hopefully as your own.
What I meant my vision was that eternal optimism that THIS photograph will stir a viewer's heart because I made it just so. Not to get all mushy and stuff, but I photograph things I love. This is probably why my old slides still look like my dear slides to me. I know some say that photography changes the photographer, but I'm wondering if what happens is that your skills finally catch up to you heart. Or perhaps I'm hoping that that happens at some time? I'm stilll working on it myself.
For me, certainly my ability to use my tools to more effectively express my vision has drastically changed for the better over the many years, but I don't think that my vision has change that much IN SO FAR AS MY HEART IS AT. I still love the same "stuff" that I always have.
What has changed most significantly is my ability to "see". Freeman Patterson calls photography "The Art of Seeing". I have studied Mr. Patterson's work for several years paying careful attention to what he sees and how he sees it. As a result, I have found that my ability to "see' has become much more refined and I am now better able to see a beautiful image, or at least the potential, than ever before.
I have the highest respect for Mr. Patterson and the highest compliment I can pay him is that I have gained considerable insight into his character and who he is by getting to know his work.
Discussion
25 repliesWhat's been your experience through the years, short or long, as a nature photographer?
Pete D.
Guy
We just don't see ourselves and our work through the eyes of others — unless we settle down and let them teach us how good we are.
Pete D.
And what I think is that if your vision is staying the same you are in a rut. Personally I am looking at things more closely with more respect for the world around me. I am more interested in detail and the significance of what I see than ever before. And I have learned a little about photography along the way.
If I was shooting the same subject, the same way, with the same goals, for the same reasons, there would be no reason to continue to shoot. Been there, done that. But new skills, ways to see things (from here, in many cases), and new goals makes it hard to shoot the same subject the same way, and that makes it fun.
Continuosly!
Often in a single setting.
Always over the course of a day.
Or am I being discursive?
Guy
"The art or practice of arriving at the truth by the exchange of logical arguments.
The process especially associated with Hegel of arriving at the truth by stating a thesis, developing a contradictory antithesis, and combining and resolving them into a coherent synthesis.
Hegel's critical method for the investigation of this process.
The Marxian process of change through the conflict of opposing forces, whereby a given contradiction is characterized by a primary and a secondary aspect, the secondary succumbing to the primary, which is then transformed into an aspect of a new contradiction. Often used in the plural with a singular or plural verb.
The Marxian critique of this process.
dialectics (used with a sing. verb) A method of argument or exposition that systematically weighs contradictory facts or ideas with a view to the resolution of their real or apparent contradictions.
The contradiction between two conflicting forces viewed as the determining factor in their continuing interaction."
In my town we have had some issues that have caused people to be at odds with each other. Using dialectics might be a way to resolve this -- two contrary views can, after all, be used to arrive at one truth by "resolving them into a coherent synthesis."
I like it -- thanks for using the 50 cent word, Guy!
Mostly I feel serendipitous with respect to my photography. Over the years I have captured a series of pleasant surprises while failing miserably at trying to capture anything resembling a "vision". Most times my attempts at capturing my vision result in images that pale considerably when compared to my mind's eye view.
I look back at my old work and see a plethora of average images with flashes of brilliance scattered here and there, but there was a similarity in theme or "vision" among the similar subjects. Images I thought were "cool" back then still look "cool" today and I still realize most of them were accidents because I had not come close to mastering my techs back then.
Nowadays my work is far better technically. I get a lot more "keepers" with respect to correct exposure, focus, DOF and even composition compared to way back when. But I don't feel that I see things the same way. I think I have focused so hard on making my images technically correct that I've lost some of that "vision". I see wonderful shots by others that are completely backlit or sidelit or framed very tightly and I realize I would not have even taken that shot for technical reasons and therefore missed an opportunity at capturing a unique moment or effect for lack of vision.
I am working now on getting my vision back and realizing that it's not necessarily a good image just because it's sharp, well composed and properly exposed. There needs to be a reason for taking it. Working in an Engineering environment (my day job) makes it easy to focus on the technical but I used to be an artist in school. I was always drawing, writing, painting...I know there's an artist still in here somewhere. I've got to find him and tell him I now have enough technical skills to attempt capturing his vision.
Nathan
Now if I only had the ability to photograph those....
But honestly, the vision quest should never end. And personally, I think in some ways digital hinders that growth. To be continuously checking a histogram insuring an image is captured correctly/technically has become a bit of a hinderance. SO this year, no more histograms - I decided the moment is more important than the binary.
Listen to music of your youth while looking for photos. I well recall searching for landscape photos, but getting angrier by the minute and zeroing in on all the enviro problems I was noticing. Spent a fruitful period trying to document those, but didn't realize till later that I had been listening to a CD of Dylan's 60's era protest songs. Changed CDs to the soundtrack from Country, and all was beautiful again.
Thanks.
The Sierra Nevada is a vast natural arena that for a photographer takes many years to get familliar with what is really worthwhile to work and what is not. And that process of learning never ends but rather over time of trial and error one simply refines what works. And through the years I've been a student of nature reading and studying the earth and natural sciences such that what I look at today has much more meaning. In the beginning one needs to experiment more in order to be able to evaluate back home what works and what doesn't. There is a difference between our physical experiences of beauty and form than what film and a camera captures. As Rowell related seeing as the camera and film see. Thus from a novices eye's they see much that may strike their fancy, but only some of that can be effectively captured. Geometry of elements, the patterns of color, and the form they create is not something one learns to capture with skill that is then static on a plateau. And I've experimented wasting as much film as the next person. I am ever amazed at how much better I become over the years and that is humbling. One learns to recognize subjects that years before were merely passed by. That is particularly true for the small and subtle. Over the years equipment and film have changed as well as post processing and print media. All that has affected what I was doing then and today.
I've had dozens of prints up and off my walls for a couple dozen years. That was a practical way of getting to understand what makes a workable image for printing. My vision of what makes a great print has evolved and changed. I like others look at magazines, picture books, go to galleries, museums, art fairs, with each molding my sense of visual art that over the years contributed to what my own work became. One learns to understand that other's taste in beauty varies considerably such that ordinary folk are often in wonder on images most photographers will see as quite flawed while not being able to relate to images that we on the other hand value. And that photographers themselves have considerable differences in aesthetic preference.
When I moved up to a 60x70mm system I had to learn restraint and to be selective as film was no longer cheap while effort was weighty. So when I moved up to 4x5 I had already payed those dues, though with large format with an intent on creating large prints the quarry is not often the same nor is captured with the same framing and composition as with smaller formats. In fact there is much I shoot today as with closeups of wildflowers that I still point my little cameras at because those end products work best as a small prints. And there are other subjects that I could never effectively capture with smaller fixed lens systems that with view camera movements opens up a whole world of new possibilities. ...David
Guy
Paul
It's finding what really fans the flames. In the field, sometimes the silliest things make my heart race. It's finding that rush, capturing that moment and hopefully as your own.
What I meant my vision was that eternal optimism that THIS photograph will stir a viewer's heart because I made it just so. Not to get all mushy and stuff, but I photograph things I love. This is probably why my old slides still look like my dear slides to me. I know some say that photography changes the photographer, but I'm wondering if what happens is that your skills finally catch up to you heart. Or perhaps I'm hoping that that happens at some time? I'm stilll working on it myself.
regards from your visionary Pete D.
Anil: I don't know if I'm qualified to explain "vision", but when looking at photographs I can sure tell when a photographer has one!
What has changed most significantly is my ability to "see". Freeman Patterson calls photography "The Art of Seeing". I have studied Mr. Patterson's work for several years paying careful attention to what he sees and how he sees it. As a result, I have found that my ability to "see' has become much more refined and I am now better able to see a beautiful image, or at least the potential, than ever before.
I have the highest respect for Mr. Patterson and the highest compliment I can pay him is that I have gained considerable insight into his character and who he is by getting to know his work.
Bob