eye of the beholder, Part 719

 

goldmorning, originally uploaded by nezua.

at this point i’m still learning the DSLR, this canon. i haven’t really begun to push it yet, to that place where you find your sketches, your inner eye stretches, your bellysoul retches. gotta learn the tool first. gotta know the tool well first. gotta be aligned with the tool to such a degree that it requires as much thought as opening your arms to launch the shutter.

on the whole, i think i know photography pretty well by now. but Photography contains a vast depth of information and variance and opinion and exhibit and tricksofthetrade and lore and everyday with new technology gains even more, so it’s one of those things where you always wonder what about it you do not know still, but i’ve covered the bases without shortcuts, i guess. in fact, i guess by now one would expect me to know a little more than the basics. after multiple schools and years and cameras and all. i’m not trying to fake humility. as it is an art and a science, both, photography (and Understanding of same) really is an area that is hard to quantify, so i’m trying to be cautious in my usual cockiness. and there is more than any one person can hope to have a full grasp of at any one moment, no matter how practiced you are.

but i know the square inverse law of light falloff, i know kelvin, i know about the green spike in the fluourescent wave length (and how to counter it), i know three point lighting, rule of thirds, i understand the relationship between ISO, shutter speed, aperture opening, distance to lens, distance to background, blur, depth of field and how to dance with Circles of Confusion. i know gels and inkies and flags and how to manipulate specific ranges of the color spectrum when bringing them to the grayscale…. i think i have the hard parts down after…20 years of study/practice.

and at the same time, there are still areas where i know very little. i don’t know about burst flashes, i’ve spent far more time changing film in the dark, or changing motion picture film in a bag than i have programming or designing shots with strobe lighting in studios. i could spend a week with a sports photographer and come back bursting with knowledge i never had. i’m sure, in fact, any expert in their field—be it travel, sports, extreme sports, nature, studio, commercial, macro, or micro photography—could really pad my knowledge base nicely. i’d like that, of course! and i find you i will pick your brains so lock down that cabeza! i guess this is why i don’t understand people dismissive of education in this area. i …could never feel like that about photography. i might lack humility in certain areas (and that is often a choice) but how can you be so confident about such a practice? one so large that it contains so many areas and masters—and with styles so at odds?

i’m not a master…i’m just someone who has loved and studied and practiced photography in various forms for 20 years. and yet, i’ve not specialized. and that is because i have so many interests. you see, you can see, even now, i move back and forth between them. always been that way. so i have many areas i can move to. painting, writing, music, photography, videography (i think of those two very much related almost the same), sculpture, physical arts such as gymnastics/martial arts/dancing. if i only had photography as an area of interest, or maybe two areas, I definitely would have specialized by now. as it is i think i really enjoy macro photography…abstract photogaphy, be it architectural details or the human body…and i definitely enjoy a certain documentary aspect, journalistic aspect. but even in photography, i find it hard i guess to just narrow it down to one. but i’m thinking on it. this is why i have to live to be 100 or so (not sure i see this happening). so i have time to master one or more of the arts i’ve played with all my life. (tho i guess if i feel i’ve approached mastery any area, it would be in my writing.) then again i see being a “master” as including possessing a body of work that you feel honestly demonstrates your current ability and wisdom in any given discipline or given discipline+life. i have the potential in many areas (which i think shows through to people) and the desire. the rest is time and practice and sacrifice. but i do hope to be a master one day. and that is why i watch those people i feel are masterful very carefully. in any area.

i think we have lost a bit of this…from what i read. i don’t see as much apprenticeship and respect for masters of craft in this country as i’ve read about. i see it in certain areas. it exists in camera crews. the DP (or in europe, the DoP) is the master. designs the lighting. if s/he doesn’t want to, s/he doesnt have to do anything else. can design all the lighting, the operator can shoot it, the gaffer can direct the grips to light it. the DP essentially has to understand the job of all those under her or him. but all the others know that the DP sees more than just their area. an AC (first or second) will assist in hopes of one day being a DP and gaining all the knowledge they can on the way. (gaffer not so much, gaffer is a master in his/her own right.) in these crews, knowledge and experience in craft is KING. is COIN. is very very valuable. i love that aura. it’s why i love school. i love the aura of knowledge and truth having respect. of people who feel it is COOL to learn things. to study things. to master areas.

i loved studying photography and cinematography! i loved it. i could have stayed in school for a decade studying it. i can’t imagine a lot of things more fun than the study and practice of understanding light and color and how to court the two. (tho i think if i ever went back to school it would be to study sculpting or painting and history…or dance. or all of them.) and i have to say that photography in general (again for me, at least) really took a few years before all the consistently couinter-intuitive formulas (re light/aperture/depth of field numbers, etc) just “made sense” in my mind without thinking them all through.

but every tool brings a new challenge and new information, especially with these cameras. some of it is learning how to translate prior knowledge. it is fun to see when your old school knowledge can plug into the new digital medium. for example, on the XTi/EOS 400D there is a Picture Styles button. and you can design your own settings. it will let you choose monochrome, for one, and then tweak variants. you can put a yellow or red or green “filter effect” on top of monochrome. now…if you just buy the camera and study the manual, and use that setting, you still might not know what it’s about. but having learned photography (and cinematography) starting with black and white film before moving to color, you learn all about light and chroma separate from how they work in our eye. you study how they WORK. properties of light and such, how those properties behave when captured by different means. you also train your eye to see this world of color in tones that correspond to the gray scale. you learn that in the world of black and white, red and green can be the same. you learn the size of particular wavelengths’ sinewave. you learn what that means to a person with a camera loaded with Pan-X. you learn what it means in the physical dimension when you “see” any certain color, and when you dont’ see others. so you begin to see the light around you as a Thing, a physical thing that must behave in certain ways, and each color in its own way. you shoot black and white photography using color lights and color filters and why would you do that? to stop certain wavelengths from reaching the film, in the latter example. so when you want ghostly white skin from many existing lighter skin tones, and black skies in the daytime, you pop on a deep red filter. and so on. each color will affect the world differently, affect your scene differently…depending on what’s in your scene. and i’ve done this, and retain the knowledge of what each filter will do in photography and cinematography.

so when i found that batch of settings (monochrome + Yellow filter effect, etc) i was thinking HEY! niiice! i know what’s going on here. and i know just what setting i want. that was a good feeling.

but i still need to do a bunch of this. of finding out what this camera can do. how to make certain things happen. just now dipping into front and rear curtain flash, which is cool. i’m very glad you have the ability to affect this. soon i’ll probably setup the black backdrop and do some flash/bulb exposures with smoke, flowers, liquids. i’d love to have models to shoot. i’ll need to find some people who can do this, pose for me. like i did back when i was…20, and i posed nude for the art society. well, not regularly. i tried it once, they really liked me, but i didn’t go back. they asked why not? “i only did it for the experience” i said. which i did and am glad for. in fact i found it a bit unnerving. actually. not the being undressed and on display in an entire room of artists, male and female. nah. i found how they chatted with each other about daily thisNthat as they drew very unnerving. i was stretched out on a chopping block and people were talking weather and soccer games. as they drew my naked body. very odd.

sun is up. soft, gray, dim dawn this time. time to switch to illustrationing. hey. seven am on a sunday? time for work!

suddenly i think of my adoptive father who used to get such a kick out of telling me how lazy i was. what a schmuck. wonder what he’s up to these days.