In the field, if I don’t feel an immediate response to a scene, I look for something else. I never force myself to shoot just for the sake of shooting or to break an impasse. Some photographers advocate shooting something, anything, just to get you moving under those circumstances. That’s pure nonsense. Why waste time on useless junk when you know in advance that it’s useless junk? Snapping the shutter or pressing the cable release is not an athletic act, so I don’t have to warm up doing it, and you shouldn’t either.
This grand crescendo of granite rises lyrically as evening light brings out each ridge, each buttress. I used a red filter to cut through any haze (though no haze was apparent), and to enhance the clouds by darkening the blue sky.
Figure 1-2. Mt. Clarence King
But once I get that spurt of adrenalin, I work hard to find the best camera position, use the most appropriate lens, choose filters for optimum effect, take light meter readings, and expose the image with great care using the optimum aperture and shutter speed. All of these things are important and require thought and effort. The initial response is spontaneous, but the effort that follows is not!
I believe this approach is valid for photographers at any level of expertise, from beginners to the most advanced. When you find something of importance, it will be apparent. It will be compelling. You will feel it instantly! You won’t have to ask yourself if it interests you, or if you are enthusiastic about photographing it. If you don’t feel that spontaneous motivation, you will have no desire to communicate what you feel. (I think the prime motivation for most snapshots is either the knowledge that someone else wants you to take the picture, or your own desire to take it to show where you have been. Neither of these motivations are concerned with personal interpretation or with personal expression, and neither have that internally compelling aspect.)
It has long struck me that people who attempt creative work of any type—scientific, artistic, or otherwise—without feeling any enthusiasm for that work have no chance at success. Enthusiasm is not something you can create. Either you have it or you don’t! True enough, you can grow more interested and enthusiastic about something, but you can’t really force that to happen, either. If you have no enthusiasm for an endeavor, drop it and try something else. If you are enthusiastic, pursue it! Just be honest with yourself when you evaluate your level of enthusiasm.
Ask what you are drawn to, what intrigues you. Most likely you will take your best photographs in the fields that interest you when you have no camera in hand. If you are deeply interested in people—to the point of wanting to know them thoroughly, what really makes them tick—it’s likely that portraiture will be your best area. If you want to know more about people than their façades, it would follow that, with camera in hand, you will dig deeper and uncover the “real” person.
Are you excited by passing events, or by action-filled events, such as sports? Are you fascinated by the corner auto accident, the nearby fire, the dignitary passing through town today? If so, you may be inclined to photojournalism or “street photography.” The latter term encompasses a wide cross section of candid photography that was elevated to an art form by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Weegee, and others. The approach differs greatly from formal portraits in that the subject matter is usually unrehearsed and often unexpected. This type of photography (which is certainly a form of documentary photography at its best) is geared to those who seek the unexpected and transitory.
Consider a further aspect of this pursuit: the most incisive efforts in this realm often don’t concentrate on the event per se, but rather on the event’s effect on the observers or participants. In many cases, emphasis on human reaction and interaction reveals more about human nature—and about our world—than the occurrence itself. Straight photojournalism is all too often involved with the event, and only on rare occasions rises to the insightful commentary that transcends mere recording to become true art.
Note
It has long struck me that people who attempt creative work of any type without feeling any enthusiasm for that work have no chance at success.
Are you stimulated by pure design, or by color arrangements? Perhaps abstraction is suited for you. Brett Weston was a prime example of a classically oriented photographer using the “straight silver print” and abstraction applied to almost any subject matter. Experimental pursuits such as multiple exposures, photomontage, double- and multiple- printing, solarization, non-silver methods, the nearly infinite digital opportunities for subtle or radical manipulations, and any other conceivable approach is fair game in this realm. The only restraint is your lack of imagination or your unwillingness to experiment.
Perhaps your interests lie elsewhere. Analyze them. If you cannot define your interests, try your hand at a number of these alternatives and see which appeal to you most and which least.
I have evaluated my interests, and it may prove instructive to see what I have found. Today I photograph a wide variety of subjects, but I started from a more limited base. Initially nature was my sole interest. Slowly my interests grew to include architectural subjects and then branched out widely within both of those broad subject areas, while making forays into other areas. As Frederick Sommer once said, “Subject matter is subject that matters!” I realized that there was no reason to limit myself unnecessarily.
My initial interest in nature was all-inclusive. I was (and still am) drawn to trees, mountains, open fields, pounding rivers, tiny dewdrops at sunrise, and millions of other natural phenomena. I am fascinated by weather patterns and the violence of storms, the interaction of weather with landforms, and the serenity of undisturbed calm. Geology excites me, and I feel awed by the forces that create mountains and canyons. All of these phenomena appear in my photographs along with my interpretations, my awe, my excitement. Without a camera I would still exult in them. With a camera I can convey my thoughts about them. Then others can respond to my thoughts, my interpretations, my excitement.
Soft, hazy sunlight made this photograph possible. Bright sun would have been too harsh for the delicate tones I sought. The bleached branch at the lower right maintains the lines and movement of the diagonal trees. The rippled reflections were more interesting to me than a mirror reflection would have been because they reflect only the vertical trees, not the diagonals.
Figure 1-3. Ghost Aspen Forest
In 1976, near Yosemite National Park, I came across a grove of aspen trees killed by flooding from a beaver dam. The pattern of dead trees was remarkable, but the bright sunlight was too harsh to allow a photograph. However, my observations of cloud patterns that day indicated to me that a storm was coming within a day or two, and if I could return the next day I could obtain a photograph under hazy sun or soft, overcast lighting. As expected, by noon the next day a layer of thin clouds—the immediate precursor of the storm—softened the light and I made my exposure. My interest in weather helped me make the photograph (Figure 1-3).
A strange-looking landscape and my interest in natural history drew me to take a series of short hikes—once or twice a day—in late 1978 and early 1979 through an extensive area of the Santa Monica Mountains in southern California that had been burned by a chaparral fire. Starting two weeks after the fire, my walks took me to unusual vistas, through the velvety blackness of mountains and valleys, and, in time, through the spectacle of rebirth as the region burst into life again (Figure 1-4). I chose ten of the photographs made during that four-month period for a limited edition portfolio titled “Aftermath”. The photography ended up as a major project, but it began as a sideline to my interest in the natural history of the region under special conditions.