Principles of Photographic Improvisation – There Are No Mistakes
Here it is almost the end of August and I haven’t posted since mid-July. How easy it is to get out of the blogging habit. Even staying mostly home during the pandemic, it is easy to get wrapped up in things and forget to post. Well, I probably should finish the series I started on the Principles of Photographic Improvisation from the book The Soul of the Camera by David duChemin. My previous two posts covered the first three principles Saying Yes, Contribute Something, and Try Something. The fourth principle is There Are no Mistakes.
Wow, there are no mistakes. Seriously!. I have trouble with this one. It seems like I make mistakes all the time. I use the wrong f-stop or ISO, I try to hand-hold at too slow a shutter speed, or I focus on the background instead of the subject. I delete a lot of images after I download them. Not just ones with bad exposure, but also because I typically shoot multiple shots with the same composition with slightly different exposures or trying to capture the “right” moment. For example, I shot my niece’s socially distanced wedding last weekend, taking around 1,500 images. I’m slowly editing those down, and will probably delete 1,000 to 1,200 of them.
DuChemin talks about how photographers often talk about their “keeper rate” as if photography is “a baseball game and someone out there is recording our stats.” Guilty as charged, Mr. duChemin. I mentally think about my keeper rate, not so much as how many I keep (I probably keep too many), but how many are worth keeping and turning into something other than a raw snapshot. DuChemin continues, describing how his own language is often littered with negativity, for example, saying that he went out shooting and “every frame was crap.” (Another admission, I’ve said that too.) He says such an attitude suggests that “we should go out, press the shutter, and end up with a great photograph. As if musicians sit down at the piano and come up with a finished piece the first try. They do not. But they might find a few melodies or harmony that provides clues about the rest of the song the will, eventually, become a classic.”
He asks, “there was a reason you pressed the shutter; what was it?” He’s right. Every time we press that shutter button, we do so for a reason. Our eye saw something and we tried to capture it. Our capture may have been imperfect, or even plain bad, but there was a reason. You need to explore that reason, examine why you tried, and learn from the experience to, perhaps, do better next time. DuChemin suggests those imperfect frames are “part of a process. If you discard them without first giving them a chance to speak, you’ll miss whatever possibilities they were just about to whisper to you. That’s how the creative process works…”
If you are like me, you might come upon a great scene and you start shooting. But as you shoot, you change up the composition a little, or pick a different aperture, or move over ten feet, or get down low. As you explore the scene with your camera, you might learn from you earliest shots, and the images grow better. When I’m editing, most often the earliest shots in a series of images of the same subject are the ones that I throw away. Why, because they often they are bad. But also because I learned as I shot, and the later images are better. I might not keep them, but they are useful to me. In that sense, he is correct, there are no mistakes.
In several posts ago, I mentioned how I’ve been trying to get a shot of Mount Rainier with the moon rising behind it. I tried in June without much success – while you could see the moon and the mountain, the light didn’t cooperate with my vision for the image. I tried again in July. This time, the mountain and the rising moon were covered by clouds. I tried again in August, and this time, I was successful (I’ll post those images in my next blog). Were those two earlier attempts mistakes? Were the images I did take not worthwhile?
The ones I took in June I will probably not do anything with. But I did learn from them; the experience helped me with my technique, and therefore, did help with my successful shots from August. And going out to shoot in July wasn’t a mistake either. I didn’t come home with any images of the moon, but I did shoot the three images featured here, as well as several other “keepers.” And I certainly wouldn’t call any of them mistakes. (In case you are wondering, all three were taken from Dune Park here in Tacoma.) So perhaps there are no mistakes, the only true mistake is not learning from our imperfect attempts.
Principles of Photographic Improvisation – Contribute Something and Try Something
In my last post, I mentioned how I am reading The Soul of the Camera, the Photographer’s Place in Picture-Making by David duChemin, and I described his first of four “rules” or “principles” of photographic improvisation – agreeing or to say “yes” and not “no.” Today, I look at the second and third principles – Contribute Something, and Try Something.
To contribute something, you need to make the scene your own. DuChemin explains, ” Photography is not objective… We bring our own thoughts, opinions, points of view, and interest to the scen and to every single decision, from aperture to focal length to shutter speed to composition. We chose what to include and exclude. It’s not so much about what’s there as it’s about what I see and how I see it.”
Say you travel to a famous landmark or scene and want to photograph it. Don’t worry about how others have done so, make the scene you own. Sure, take that one composition that you’ve seen before, the shot the maybe even inspired you to come in the first place, but then explore the subject scene on you own, making your own compositions. Or as DeChemin says, “Own it. Add to it. Make every photograph you create a collaboration with what’s before you.”
This, I think, directly relates to the third principle, try something. DuChemin urges his reads to “take a risk and try something. Don’t just wonder what would happen if you moved the camera over to the right. Move it! Slow the shutter, use a wide lens. Listen to the questions, but don’t let them go without a response. And if the first answer doesn’t work, try again.”
It doesn’t even have to be a famous scene, just maybe one you’ve been to or photographed many times before. Do you take the same shot again and again? Perhaps. But to improvise, you’ve got to make it new again for you. Maybe try black and white, or shoot it with your phone instead of you DSLR, or shoot only high-key images, whatever! Sometimes to make it your own you need to try something different.
For example, for the past several years, I’ve been offering walking photo tours of downtown Seattle. These tours are great for my clients, as they see Seattle through fresh eyes. But I’ve seen it and shot it all before. It’s a real challenge for me to find something new. So on a couple trips, I pulled out the fish-eye lens. Now, a lot of what I shot didn’t work so well, but some of the images aren’t so bad. In fact, they are kind of fun, and definitely something I made my own by trying something I hadn’t done before, even after shooting the same places dozens of times before – such as Pioneer Square (above and below), the ferry terminal (below), and the waterfall garden (below). That is photographic improvisation.
Principles of Photographic Improvisation – Say Yes
I’m currently reading The Soul of the Camera, the Photographer’s Place in Picture-Making by David duChemin. This book is full of nuggets of photographic wisdom, and I can highly recommend it to any photographer who wants to improve their game. You will not find much in the way of technical details about how to shoot great images. Instead, duChemin discusses the photographer’s mind and it relationship to picture-making.
There are easily dozens of blog post topics I could cover based on this book, but for now I’ll discuss his four “rules” or “principles” of photographic improvisation; the first of which is to agree or to say “yes” and not “no.” That is, say yes to the scene in front of you even if it was not what you expected or intended. You could say this is to go with the flow (which duChemin also talks about earlier in the book). Say yes to photographing what the world gives you rather than turning your back on the scene and giving up because it isn’t what you wanted. Accept what’s there and make the most of it.
Not much of the moon could be seen behind Rainier earlier this month due to clouds
A couple weeks ago, I went over to Fox Island Bridge to take a photo of Mount Rainier with the full moon rising behind it right before sunset. This situation only happens on two days each year: the day before the full moon in both June and August. Last August I tried for the same shot with only limited success. I was disappointed from that shoot, and that probably set me up to ignore the principle of saying yes. The weather was not ideal, and the view of the moon was not very good. I snapped a few shots, including the shown here, and packed up and went home disappointed. I failed to look for what else nature might be offering up. It was a few days later that I read about duChemin’s first principle.
I should have known better even before reading the book. I had a similar idea earlier this year. Back in February, I wanted to photograph the full moon setting behind the Olympic Mountains at sunrise. On the appointed day, I got up early and drove across town to Brown’s Point in Northeast Tacoma. When I got there, the Olympics, let alone the moon, were obscured by clouds. I climbed back in the car and headed toward home, thinking that perhaps I still might get some decent sunrise shots from the Cliff House parking lot. Sure enough, Mount Rainier was visible and the rising sun painted it and the low hanging clouds, as shown on the featured shot above and the other images below. I didn’t get what I wanted, but I said yes to what was given, which wasn’t bad at all.
Smoke Correction – Reducing Smoke Induced Haze
Though clear now, the skies of Washington State, and indeed most of the Pacific Northwest, have been very smokey almost the entire month of August. The smoke is from wildfires, both in the United States and Canada. I fear, with climate changes, this may be our new “normal” for August, as smokey skies have been prevalent in August the past several years.
As long as the smoke is not too thick, smokey skies can have some advantages to landscape and travel photography. Though I tend not to, some people like the sunsets provided by smokey conditions. I do, however, appreciate that smokey conditions can soften light and can extend golden hour conditions by changing the color of sunlight. On the other hand, they can also dim sunlight so that the light during the actual golden hours is weak.
In my opinion, the disadvantages outweigh any advantages gained. I am fond on blue skies and wide vistas. Smoke can suck the blue out of the sky and obscure views with haze. I also like to use telephoto lenses to pull in distance subjects. Obviously, this does not work so well if there is a lot of smoke.
On my trip to the Palouse last month, the skies were quite smokey. Not smokey enough to totally ruin the trip, but I certainly did not have ideal conditions. The Palouse is known for its blue skies with great clouds. On my last trip, the sky, though clear, was more of a dusky gray. It was also cloud free on except for one day. So much for the wide sky shots I often favor, such as this one I posted on instagram. I found myself following several techniques to minimize the effects of the smoke.
1. Limiting distance in my compositions – instead of including distant hills and vistas in my compositions, I selected relatively close subjects, or chose compositions where the distant background was less important. For example, on my August visit to the Palouse, I did shoot one evening from Steptoe Butte. However, with the smokey haze, I chose one of the lower viewpoint instead of going to the top, and I mostly shot compositions with subjects relatively close to the butte rather than subjects thousands of meters away.
Instead of photographing distant hills from Steptoe Butte, most my images were of nearby hills such as these. This image also has the sky eliminated and uses the Dehaze correction described below.
In this example, I chose to photograph this barn near to the road (and also eliminate any sky).
2. Eliminating or limiting the amount of sky in my compositions – with the sky not the blue color one expects, in many cases, I tried to either totally eliminate the sky from my composition or at least limit the amount of sky in the shot.
In this scene from Latah County in Idaho, I purposely minimized the amount of sky in the composition. It also uses the Dehaze and selective color corrections described below.
Here, concentrated on details of these old trucks in Sprague, Washington, eliminating any sky from the composition.
3. Processing using the Dehaze slider in Lightroom – I often use the dehaze slider in lightroom, and not just to remove haze; I like the microconstrast it adds to images. However, smokey conditions are what the dehaze slider was made for. While processing images from the August Palouse trip in Lightroom, I found myself adding more dehaze than I normally would.
Another sample of an image where I used the dehaze slider more than normal. This image also uses the sky color correction described below.
4. Adding blue back into the sky in Lightroom – I typically do not do selective color corrections in Lightroom. Typically I’ll set the color balance for the entire photo and let well enough alone (saving selective color adjustments for Photoshop if I want to do them at all). But with new masking tools for the gradient and brush tools, I found it relatively easy to add some blue back into the sky in Lightroom. Typically, I’d make a fairly tight gradient (or perhaps the brush too) and apply it to the area of the photo containing the sky. Then, using the range mask tool in color mode, I select a wide portion of the sky. This usually masks most of the non-sky areas, but to be sure, I’ll check the Show Selected Mask Overlay checkbox (which uses a red tone to indicate where the gradient is effective). Depending on the image, I may or may not need to do some cleanup of the mask with the eraser brush). To correct the sky, I’ll move the temperature slider toward blue, typically move the exposure slider down about 1/2 to 1/2 a stop, and move the clarity slider down as well. Depending on the image, I may also increase the dehaze slightly. Sounds complicated, but it is fairly easy with a bit of practice. This technique does a nice job on restoring sky color (see the examples below).
This is the Genesee Valley Lutheran Church in Idaho. Here I’ve used the technique described to reduce the smokey haze from the sky. The same image without the correction is shown below
Without the selective sky color correction.
Non-golden Gold
One thing I like about the Palouse is there are still plenty of good shots to be made outside the golden hours. Granted, when photographing in the region, I still aim to shoot in around sunrise and sunset, but I keep shooting well into the day. I captured all the images presented here more than four hours after sunrise and more than four hours before sunset – in other words, in the middle of the day. And maybe some of them might be better if shot during the golden hours, but I think some are pretty good anyway. Perhaps some might even be photographic gold?
It’s great to be able to capture a few good shots outside the golden hours, because in mid-June in the Palouse, the sun rises very early (a little before 5 a.m.) and sets quite late (just before 9 p.m.). This makes for a very long day. My normal schedule for shooting in the Palouse is to: get up early and catch sunrise, then drive around shooting and scouting until about 11 a.m.; eat lunch; return to my motel and plan the afternoon/evening shoot; take a nap; head out again shooting/scouting starting about 3:30 or 4 p.m.; shoot sunset; drive back to the motel, plan the morning shoot, and go to bed.
There are a couple of reasons why the Palouse can offer photographic gold during the non-golden hours. First, is the tendency for the skies to have white puffy clouds in the afternoon (and sometimes in the morning). The shadows cast by the clouds can give definition to the landscape, breaking up the flat light of mid-day. Secondly, there are plenty of subjects available that work well at almost anytime of day.
Now, I wouldn’t recommend making a trip to the Palouse and ignoring the golden hours, but if you decide you don’t want to get up at o-dark-thirty some morning, know there are still some decent photography waiting for you out there. As always, your comments on my musings and/or images is most welcome. Enjoy these shots of mid-day Palouse.
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