Infinity

Preface

This is not a primer. Although it may seem so, I'm not really telling you how you should do things. Rather, what follows are reflections on how I sometimes make a photograph. A few things might translate to your experience, others will not. I think this post will probably have limited interest—that's ok—it's something that I've wanted to write about for a while. And caveat lector—this is a long post and I'm a hell of a lot windier than normal.

I've had some modest success as a photographer, cabinetmaker, artist, working in the business world, as a stay at home dad, volunteer, PTA President, supporter of the bride, home chef and general dilettante. A commission to make a duplicate of Madonna's bed in her New York city apartment now resides in a fashionable area in San Francisco, one of the few custom commissioned pieces I've done. Before I retired as vice president of an architectural millwork firm in Dallas, I had a hand in shaping some the most beautiful commercial interiors in the city. We live in a home filled with beautiful art. I have a cabinet shop in my garage now filled with photo production paraphernalia. I married up. We have three gorgeous, talented kids. Life is good.

Though I began taking photographs in 1967 with a 35mm SLR camera purchased in a PX in Vietnam, it's only relatively recently that I've gone digital and worked to become more prolific. My images are hanging on office walls and homes in San Francisco, New York, Santa Fe and in other countries. They've been displayed in galleries and are for sale at a premier art and gift shop in Dallas. They've been sent as gifts and purchased by clients in an even wider global arc. But really, I'm aware of my limitations. I think it's a good thing to acknowledge that one never gets off the learning curve doing the things you love. 

My book that was published more than a year ago is not quite remaindered yet and still available on Amazon. It's been a modest success considering it took more than a year to put together. Though it only earned me a high-four figure return, what that really boils down to is a much more modest pennies per hour in the grand scheme of things. I did all the design and page layout myself, which probably helped the publisher decide to produce it since they didn't have to do any of that work themselves thus saving overhead and increasing their own modest profit. All they had to do was ship the files to Singapore or Taiwan to get it printed. Because it was a photography book, the digital files and print-ready high quality PDF that I made from the original Adobe InDesign files took nearly all the space of two dual-layer double-sided DVDs. Images for print get enormous sometimes—the two-page full bleed image background spread for the table of contents and Library of Congress CIP pages came in at 284 MB all by itself. 

When all is said and done, it was a labor of love and a great experience. Part of the book contract with Pelican Publishing includes their right to accept or refuse the next book proposal. They're interested in seeing a few chapters of what I proposed, which is encouraging. One result of all this is the realization that for most people, getting a book produced and marketed by an established publishing house is not a great way to make money—and it's usually much less so when you self publish. There's the cachet of course—dropping the phrase without too much unctuous conceit "Oh, I have a book" which is, I know, on the knife edge of hubris—I'm still glad that I didn't need the book to put franks and beans on the table.

What follows

A Macro View

What Makes a Good Photo

Composition

Presentation

Equipment

My Workflow

Things to consider

A Macro View

There is an enormity of scale in sheer numbers vis-à-vis ability and artistry. Consider the following with regard to photography and my awareness of the need for humility and self realization:

• There are nearly seven billion people in the world.
• Including mobile phones, about half that number have cameras.
• Continuing the extrapolation, and acknowledging that I don't really know the correct numbers, a certain percentage of that three billion take good photos—let's say about a billion can take a decent photo.
• Perhaps half that number are artistic in that endeavor.
• Part of that 500,000,000—maybe 1%—are extraordinary artists.
• A smaller portion of that 5,000,000 are avant-garde photography artists. Your guess on that number is as good as mine—but it's a hell of a lot.

Indeed, I am a grain of sand. Billions of photos are taken every day. Each represents a suspended, infinitesimally-small slice of time. Some few of them are astoundingly and profoundly beautiful—a small portion even literally breathtaking. Somewhere in that broad expanse of numbers—along that linear matrix of ability and artistry—from the three billion to the avant-garde—is me. I don't mind being a molecule of water in the tsunami. The joy of simply doing it comes from the expectation of a personally pleasing result and the hope that it might please someone else. Really, that's good enough. And then, once in a while, when I get the cam home and the images uploaded to the large display where I can actually see what was done and I get that little exhalation of breath—that's the encouragement to continue.

I've been lucky indeed to have several breath-suspending moments. I know I'm not an avant-garde or famous photo artist (although my son is)—I think I'm more than a snap-shotter—a bit better than average. I'm still learning and I don't think I'll ever get to a point where I sense that I've arrived. I can't be Ansel Adams or Edward Weston. It's a mistake to try to be someone else. I can only be me and do what I do. Of course they provide inspiration, but I can never be them no matter how hard I try or how good I get.

Here are a couple of examples of what I mean when I said I'm sometimes surprised by the result of my own hand. Both of these shots were taken soon after making the transition from film to digital. Even though I've had years of experience in deciding f/stop, speed, light orientation and composition and that those things come into play though the equipment paradigm is so different, there are times when another serendipitous element intrudes—luck.

Right place, right time = luck. This jaguar at the Fort Worth zoo is usually not seen during the middle heat of the day. It happened that a nearby baby in a stroller was screaming its head off. The baby being bugged also bugged the jaguar (Panthera onca) and brought him out of his secluded midday nap. He stared at the baby for a full two minutes, which made the shot easy. It's a simple step to anthropomorphize and imagine him thinking "If you don't shut up I will eat you." A lucky shot to be sure, but often luck is enhanced by experience and it helps to be ready before the opportunity presents. 

Here's an example of what I was taking about when I get back to my home office and look at the image in a larger size that what's afforded by the LCD on the back of the camera. I think the fine detail in his mane made me stop breathing for a second. Larger view can be seen here. Also note that the experience of being surprised or stunned by the result when the details are revealed is not all that common. If I get a hundred shots that I really like out of the 10,000 I take every year, I'm doing pretty good. And that doesn't mean all 100 of those are salable either.

What makes a good photo

Scroll up and take a look again at the lead image for this post. The image has been sold many times over and because of some personal and emotional connections that it evoked, it has been given to a few friends as well. People who have railroads in their lives and backgrounds sometimes see their own past in the image and perhaps the small detail of the clouds reflected in the rails enhances some wistful remembrances.

I'll talk next about what it is that makes a good photograph—some of the elements of which apply to the four images above.

Composition

Composition is more than what is framed in the viewfinder—what you see when you look through your camera. There should be an underlying structure in your composition. Perhaps you know from experience when you begin a course of instruction in the art department of a high school or college that you're required to do some seemingly basic and simple things. You draw squares, rectangle and circles. You graduate to drawing cubes, shapes and spheres. You learn where the source of light is and how to represent shadows because of that light. Part of that basic instruction includes discussions on lines, shapes, balance, negative space, contrast, themes within a closed space, perspective, eye movement, holding the viewers' eye and a plethora of other terms and concepts. These are applicable to photography as well. If you want to take better pictures, it might be a good idea to read an Introduction to Drawing book.

In photography, structure is comprised of more than the elements, but how those elements interact by means of color, contrast, shapes and light. In the lead image at the top of the post we see some of those elements. There are triangles in the mountain and the rails going off to infinity. There are horizontal lines in the horizon before the mountain and in the railroad ties as well as different sized rectangles in those ties. The top third of the image holds the sky. 

Once an image arrests your attention, you're free then to find and enjoy the details that comprise the whole. The shapes and sheer number of the bedrock stones, indeed adding a cognizant symmetry to the concept of infinity presented by the rails. Look closely at the rails and you will see clouds reflected on them, an additional metaphor. It's a simple composition, but it took about a half hour and a dozen or more shots to get this one that I liked. 

Even before taking some preliminary shots, I walked around to see where I wanted to place the basic simple elements. I took some quick shots hand held and "chimped" them. (Chimping refers to looking down at your viewfinder display to see what you've just taken. It's not much use to me for detail since my eyesight is so bad, but it gives me a broad concept of the composition. Chimping is often decried by many photographers who define themselves as purists, but I think it's a useful conceptual tool even though I don't use it much.)

I just mentioned that the sky filled the top third of the photo. I don't always follow that structural composition, but it's important to know what it is, what it means, and the history and even metaphysics of the concept. It's often called the Rule of Thirds, but even the simple description of the rule has some underlying structure. Then once you know what it is, you can choose to ignore it if you want—a rule to be broken.

Imagine two sets of parallel lines when you look through your viewfinder, much like this:

The lines divide the composition into three equal spaces horizontally and vertically. There is a long history of the subliminal effect that when you use the rule of thirds in composing your shot, the image becomes more pleasing to the viewer. 

Take this shot of the beloved Jenny from the Dallas Zoo as an example. I wrote about her plight some time ago on OS, found here.

This is a nearly full-sized image, only cropped a bit at the top to remove a metal cable running across from left to right—the ratio remained the same. Even though it's a static image, there's quite a bit of eye movement going on from the viewer's perspective. The first movement is following the arc of the tusk leading into the image and terminating at the top of the mouth. It's that top portion of the grass that I chose in composing the image to represent a focal point. Now look at the image with an overlay of the Rule of Thirds.

You can see that in addition to the divisions, the intersections of the lines are also important. The bunch of grass follows the vertical line, and the division of colors in the background follow another horizontal line. Admittedly, your enjoyment of the photo may depend on your enjoyment of elephants in general and especially a closeup of her profile. You can see a larger version of her without the overlay here. Note the details in her skin, the breakdown and separation following the tear duct. 

As a followup to the previous story on her, she's doing fine now, though moving a bit slower due to her age. She has a new bff, a younger female named Gypsy and a huge new natural habitat where she can wander, and take an occasional dip in a oversized, artificial but safe manmade lake.

There is an additional subliminal construction, though it's much more difficult to use while composing a shot in your viewfinder. It is so closely related to the Rule of Thirds, that if you employ that construct, you will often find that you are using the Golden Mean as a compositional tool. So while some photographers pooh pooh it, what is also known as The Divine Proportion has roots going back to ancient times. Notwithstanding the mess of The Da Vinci Code, there is beauty in the Fibonacci Sequence and how it's expressed from mathematics to nature and framed by the Golden Mean. You can see a representation in the following overlay.

Take a moment to watch this beautiful rendition on how the Fibonacci Sequence relates to the Golden Mean. I'm not allowed to embed it from either YouTube or Vimeo because of EMI ownership restrictions, but it's simply a lovely short movie well worth watching. You can see it here on Vimeo or here on YouTube. 

The Golden Mean has long been understood to instill subliminal pleasure in the viewer. 

You don't have to follow the preceding rules when you frame your image, but it helps to know about them, to see if they will make your image stronger, and if not, abandon them. All the above information aside, composition can be distilled to a few basic components. It is simply the pleasant arrangement of elements within the viewfinder that will result in attracting the viewers eye and keeping it there to explore the details. 

Our eye must constantly measure, evaluate. We alter our perspective by a slight bending of the knees; we convey the chance meeting of lines by a simple shifting of our heads a thousandth of an inch…. We compose almost at the same time we press the shutter, and in placing the camera closer or farther from the subject, we shape the details –taming or being tamed by them. –Henri Cartier-Bresson

Composition is the strongest way of seeing. –Edward Weston

If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough. –Robert Capa

Patrick, a Western Lowland Gorilla at the Dallas Zoo. This is not a crop, and wasn't taken with a very long lens, the Nikkor 105mm Macro. It was taken less than three feet away from him, and thankfully a 30mm thick lexan barrier between us. A larger version is here.

The first thing you might notice is the arresting stare from Patrick. His eyes seem too human, our inability to read minds and expressions puts us ill at ease, yet there is beauty and a recognition of power. After taking in his eyes, his broad nose, the wrinkled and supple skin, we're drawn back to his eyes. Did you notice first off that his left eye, to your right, is 1/3 of the way into the image? Or that his right eye is about 1/3 of the way from the top of the image? Nor did I when I was taking it. It was a lucky shot.

Again, the Rule of Thirds is a rule waiting to be broken. I think it's essential to understand it and consider while composing before you can effectively discard it. Some very good photographers and photography teachers hate the concept. I think it is a useful structural component. Many viewers of your photos won't even know it's employed if you choose to use it, but may be pleased in part that you did without realizing why.

Presentation

What used to be known as photos and the darkroom is now known as photos and the computer. Sure there are purists who espouse and adhere to the concept of SOOC—Straight Out Of the Camera. I'm not one of those. Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Richard Avedon, David Muench or Diane Arbus all used the darkroom to change and enhance what came out of the camera. All the images from those folks are copyrighted, and though the use of images from them would generally be considered Fair Use in this semi-instructional setting, I'll use a couple of images that are in the public domain to illustrate the point.

This photo which has become known as Migrant Mother shows a small detail that illustrates the point that you, the photographer, are the artist. It’s up to you to make decisions on how to present your art. The woman in the photo is Florence Owens Thompson, a migrant pea picker in California. The photographer is Dorothea Lange working for the USDA Farm Security Administration in 1936. It was part of a public works project, as such resides in the Library of Congress and is in the public domain.

Now look at the original unretouched print.

Notice how much brighter the final version is. Note too what's in the bottom right corner of the original. You see Florence's thumb on the tent pole. Dorothea felt that the thumb was a distraction. It's a minor point, but in the published version you can still see the ghost image of the thumb, it wasn't completely removed in the darkroom dodging. Dodging was done by having a small non reflective black disk on a long wire. While the image was being exposed in the darkroom in the enlarger the photographer would wave the black disk above the section on the projected image to diminish the element she wanted removed. It was important to keep the disk and the wire in motion to prevent the outline of the disk from registering on the print. 

It's much easier to do digital dodging and burning, and a host of other effects, on your computer.

This illustrates a simple point. You own the image, it's your art. You get to choose how your art is presented. Of course it's quite different if your a string photographer working for an agency or a newspaper and reporting on news events. I can affirm that the photos I took of Sarah Palin were actual and true. I didn't put the bloodshot lines on her eyeballs, nor fake the Bump-It thing she had on the top of her head.

Here's a personal example. In a 2008 OS post I used the lead image here for a bit of whimsy. (In the space-time continuum that encompasses Open Salon, 2008 is nearly prehistoric with scant little archaeology going on—which is ok, it's mostly about what's happening now on OS—I'm not a prolific poster, but stretched out over nearly three years my 111 blog postings seem to reach back into an impenetrable mist.) Here's the image:

You'll see right away, after knowing what the original image looks like, that it's a mirror stitched image performed in Photoshop. To extend the allusion a little, I removed some clouds from one side or the other and allowed the low tree in the distance to just remain on one side. A lawyer friend of mine saw the image and complimented me on finding such a perfect example of twin tracks disappearing into infinity. I told him right away what it was, as I disclosed in the blog as well, and he still liked the combined image.

A different example of digital darkroom voodoo can be seen in another post of mine. Two years ago I wrote a Photoshop tutorial on how to make a tilt-shift image. There are tilt-shift or perspective control lenses available, but at more than $2,000 for one of those, it's a bit more cost effective to do the same thing in Photoshop.

Here's a tilt-shift image from Diamond Head in Hawaii:

Here's the original un-tilted shot for comparison:

The tilt-shift lenses were originally designed to compensate for the distortion you see when taking photos of architectural elements with a wide angle lens. A shot taken with a normal wide angle lens at close quarters will render what should be straight lines into curved artifacts. You can see a tilt-shift lens here. You will have seen Ansel Adams in situ with a full frame camera on a sturdy tripod—it's the type of camera that has an accordion bellows sticking out the front. The modern tilt-shift lens mimics the ability of those old cameras in changing the perspective by means of bending the bellows to change the alignment aspect of the lens to the film plate.

In addition to the adjustments for architectural photography, tilt-shift is used to isolate a particular element in a photograph. A side effect of that is that the finished image often looks like a small constructed model. I like the effect, and it's a fun thing to do. On the tilt-shift post I did, linked above, there are many more examples. Looking at those make me want to do some more.

The point I'm making is that unless you're doing news photography or documenting history, your photography art is your own. It's up to you to present it in just the way you choose. You're the artist.

Equipment

I'm often asked for advice on what to use, what to purchase. I don't much like giving advice that leads to expensive purchases, so I usually keep it pretty simple. You can get lovely artistic photos from a pin hole camera made out of a shoe box. But not many want that much work to produce an image that way on a regular basis.

If someone is asking about a DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex camera) the first thing I try to determine is if there are any lenses on hand from a previous camera. Buying glass is the most expensive part of having a camera over time and it's just economical to stay with the brand on hand. One caveat is than Nikon has many more legacy lenses that will work on modern bodies than does Canon. You may not have auto focus with lenses made in the 60s or 70s, and will have to use the lens in manual mode on the older ones, but Canon has changed the mount system over time that renders their older lenses unusable.

If lenses on hand are not an issue, I usually recommend staying with either Canon or Nikon brands. It's not a hard and fast rule, but there are a few reasons for making that recommendation. Those two companies are on a competitive track, leapfrogging each other with features and cam abilities. It cycles. Sometimes one has the most acclaimed camera, sometimes it's the other. You can get either of those cameras serviced just about anywhere if a problem arises. And they both have a wide range of camera bodies that will fit the budget and needs from amateurs to pros.

But it's much like the issue between Macs and PCs. I'm not an evangelist for a particular camera or computer. I think you should use the one you want to use that allows you to get your work done the way you want it to be done. Panasonic, Sony, Sigma or any other camera body and lens assortments are fine choices as well. Get what you want and get out and shoot.

I will say though, that my current cam body is a gem. It's highly regarded and beats every other current camera in a number of areas, but especially with regard to low light ISO sensitivity. ISO denotes how sensitive the image sensor is to the amount of light present. You can practically take shots in the dark with it. In time, it will be trumped by another camera's abilities, but for now, I'm really delighted to have it. Normal ISO for a DSLR is from 100 to 200. Here's an image of Popper at ISO 10,000—which isn't even the highest setting on the cam. It's one thing to have high ISO abilities, but this cam does it with little to no "noise." Anything above 1600 on another cam and you'll start to see spotty artifacts and grain in the shot. If you click on the image below you'll be able to select a larger size. There's virtually no noise on Popper's face. Note too, that the image is not post processed in any way, it's SOOC to demonstrate the ISO abilities. 

There was one shaded lightbulb about 10 feet away, and behind her. That's amazing performance. I shoot with two cam bodies, an older Nikon D300 in DX format and the new FX (Full Frame) Nikon D3s. 

If I had to recommend a particular lens to get, and if you didn't get a kit lens with your cam body bundle purchase, it would be to get a fast 50mm lens. Both Canon and Nikon make f/1.4 50mm lenses. Most kit lenses are zooms. There is a fundamental difference between a zoom and a fixed focal length lens—often called a prime lens. With a zoom lens on your cam, you stand in one spot and frame the image with your hand by adjusting the zoom. With a prime lens you compose your image with your feet. By that I mean that you have to walk closer or further away to get the composition you want. I think this is an enormously effective instructional technique. It gets you to thinking more comprehensively about how to frame an image. It makes you  a better photographer. A fast prime lens, one with an f/1.4 or f/1.8 aperture opening, will allow you to take shots with less ambient light. That too makes you a better photographer. Built in flashes on the tops of cams are notoriously harsh. If you have enough light, use it. The image of Popper above was taken with a 50mm lens.

The lenses I tend to use the most are the 20mm f2.8, 35mm f2, 50mm f/1.4, 85mm f1.4 (all primes) and the gorgeous 14-24mm f/2.8 and equally estimable 24-70mm f/2.8. 

My post on the Contrabando site has photos taken exclusively with the 14-24mm lens. It's a beautiful piece of glass. The recent Tulum post has photos taken exclusively with the 24-70mm lens—equally as nice.

But really, here's the deal. It doesn't matter if you're using a point and shoot, a film camera, a consumer cam, a pro-sumer cam or a pro model. Take some compositional care in your images and you'll get better results. 

My workflow

I shoot in RAW format (no, 1IrritatedMother, not IN the raw) which requires post processing on the computer as the image out of the camera is often very flat. It's a result of each little pixel being packed with information. When you shoot in jpeg format, there is a loss of information as the pixels are required to guess what their neighbors are doing, thus allowing for compression based on inference. So it's often the case that the RAW image has to have the contrast adjusted, the curves reset, the exposure and white balance changed to match what was seen by the eye. 

It's ok to shoot in jpeg. Working with RAW images takes some time, both in learning how you like to process the images, and in actually doing it. Most of the time when you're shooting in jpeg you can use them right away as is or with a few minor adjustments.

Many of you have seen my workspace office before. You can see what I mean by having problems with my eyes and waiting till I get to the office to see what I really have to work with. 

There are two 23" displays connected so that it's a 46" desktop. I have the application on the right monitor and it displays the single image I'm working on in the left one. The application on the displays is the one I use to store, manage and process images. I have several internal and external hard drives, both SSDs and SATAs for storage and backup. The program I use is called Aperture. It's the Apple professional app for photographers comprehensively better and with more features than the iPhoto app. If you're on a PC there's a similar program called Lightroom (Lightroom works on a Mac too, and many professionals swear by it on both platforms.) If I need to do any detailed work that isn't easy enough with the tools embedded in Aperture, it's easy to open a particular image in Photoshop with the built in transition to do so. I think the learning curve is a bit easier on Aperture than for Lightroom, but ymmv. If you're up to date on your OS version on your Mac, and have the AppStore application installed you can get Aperture for $80. That same program is about $200 on Amazon or from the online Apple store. Lightroom runs about $250 on Amazon.

I print to a nice Epson professional printer up to 13" x 19" in house, while anything larger than that I use a photo service bureau, White House Custom Color, to produce my images. 

I mat and frame images in my former, still-under-the-debris cabinet shop, being careful not to stir up any latent dust. I use wholesalers to get mat material, plexi/acrylic, glass and framing stock. I use a dry mount heat press to mount images on backing boards before matting and framing. It's all what you would expect, but don't often see behind the curtain to see how it all comes together.

Things To Consider

Be thoughtful

When we shot film, we had a built in limiter. Film, processing and the time involved all cost money that came out of your pocket. It's a much smaller portion of money to shoot digital images, especially over a period of time

So when we shot film, we were more careful in composition, because if you shot three rolls of film, about 100 images, it cost about $30 from soup to nuts. That made you think more and have a plan or a goal in getting a particular image. You can now probably take 100 shots in a minute or two on a digital camera, but what will you have? Each digital camera has a number of expected "actuations." That means the number of times the mirror flaps up to expose the sensor and all the other electronics going on before it all fails. It's a high number, usually much higher for pro bodies, but it's there nonetheless. Progress is always being made to make that better, but the MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) means that eventually you'll need a sometimes expensive repair. So while my D3s is tested to beyond 300,000 actuations, a lower priced body will be well below that.

What I'm saying is go ahead and shoot, but think about composition and you'll get a higher return on "keepers."

I'm not saying you should afraid to shoot away, just encouraging you to think about your compositions. As Wayne Gretzky said in a different context, but one that applies, "you miss 100 percent of the shots you never take."

Categorize When You Get the Images Loaded, Not Later

My photo application, Aperture, has a rating system for images. You can assign one to five stars to an image (well, you can leave it at the default 0 as well). I use three of those rankings. It's either 5, 3 or 1. 5s are the winning images that could sell for good money. 3s are what might sell in a smaller size, at or less than 11 x 14. 1s are the shots that might be useful for a particular project. It makes it easier to sort and find those images. And, to be sure as I inferred before, there aren't that many 5s.

Have fun

There are as many ways to compose, take and render photographs as there are photographers. There is no "right" way to do things. My way is not "right"—it's just what I do. Over time my methods and results will change. Your art is your own. Go forth and shoot.

And thanks for stopping by, even if it's just to look at the pictures. 

Larger version of the Mustangs of Las Colinas mare is here.

all photos, unless noted otherwise, copyright © barry b. doyle

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