Shot in the Dark
1. Always always always take your camera with you.
2. Always always always take the shot.
We were just going to eat dinner at the mall, so I almost left my camera behind, but in the end I hauled it along. "You never know what you're going to see," I told myself.
After eating and windowshopping, we were headed back to the car when a streetlight caught my eye. The scalloped edge, the wire guard, the rippled, crustacean underbelly.
"I don't think I can make this work," I said, taking off the lens cap. "It probably won't turn out right," I said, adjusting the ISO. "But it's worth a try," I said, standing directly under the bulb and contorting myself to just the right angle, my legs tangled, corkscrewed.
Click.
Ahhh.
It wasn't until I started writing again that I noticed how much being in a writerly frame of mind affects how I experience the world. For me, having an outlet--be it a poetry contest or a blog entry--makes every unusual thing stand out in greater relief against the backdrop. People say interesting things and I make a note of it; something funny happens at work and I start planning the best way to retell the story. I am more attentive to patterns, to tone, to facial expressions.
Same thing goes with being a photographer. With a camera in hand, details are sharper, and everyday happenings take on new meaning. People standing at a bus stop are no longer just people standing at a bus stop but characters in a scene. My eyes become a lens: I squint them for soft focus, put on sunglasses for a filter, tilt my head to the side for a better angle. A great shot could be anywhere. As an amateur, I think they are "found" more often than they are "created."
All I did to that was add a border. I didn't crop it, I didn't convert it to black and white, I didn't adjust the contrast or the levels or the sharpness. This shot--this composition was just sitting at the mall outside Rubio's. I'd walked by it a dozen times.
Of course, there is something to be said for manipulation. I regularly crop my photos and run them through the Photoshop mill. But that works both ways as well; discovering a new technique in Photoshop is likely to get me out taking more pictures to compliment the new technique. Creativity fuels creativity. When I discovered how to make animated gif slideshows, for instance, I started taking pictures that would work well together in sequence. They don't always turn out, but from of those failed loops often emerge great still shots I wouldn't otherwise have captured. A lot of the time it's a game of chance.
While sizing these streetlamp photos today, I noticed I had three that went together. I thought about posting each one individually. I thought about stacking them into a triptych. I thought of a good old-fashioned slideshow. And then this happened:
Creativity fuels creativity fuels seizure-inducing madness.
It's not the best use of the technique, but you can bet I'm already thinking of better ways to show it off.
A couple of weeks ago Simon and I took a free course on iMovie, iDVD, and GarageBand, Apple's music mixing program. Nothing yet has come of it, but be warned. The multimedia blitzkrieg is nigh.
LOVE the colours....so glad you didn't convert it to black and white! It reminds me of looking at one of those jellyfish that light themselves up against the black of the sea...great shot :)
I agree with Tan. The first thing I thought of was a jellyfish. Very cool and interesting. I'm so glad you carry your camera around with you.