Tag Archives: photography

The cost of a photograph

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Back in July, 2019, when I started writing daily, I wrote ‘Photographs in my mind’. In it I spoke nostalgically about the era of print film and the unknown of if I got the shot I thought I did, until after photos were developed. I also wrote about the photos I ended up not taking, and how some of those are more memorable than the ones I did take. Here is the end of the post with one particular shot that came to mind today.

There was the shot I lined up at Pike Place in Seattle, of an older man sitting on the hood of a parked car enthralled in a book, while cops on the street behind him tended to a fender-bender. I can still see the image that I did not take, feeling like I was invading his privacy.

We seem so much more free to take photos now, always having a camera in our pocket, and not a concern of the cost of taking one more shot.

But of all the shots I didn’t take, the photographs that still linger in my memory. These come to me from an era when film was the only option and the cost of the next shot lingered in my mind.

Today I thought of a different kind of cost, not financial, but maybe social, cultural, or personal. I thought of the potential photo I didn’t take above, and how I felt that I would have been invading this man’s privacy, stealing a moment from him. This made me think of children having photographs and videos shared on social media by parents. Precious moments, but also embarrassing ones. I then thought of photos shared without permission, voyeuristic images shared in confidence then reshared in anger, more often than not by a vindictive, jilted, or just plain mean ex-boyfriend.

I thought of photographs that perpetuate stereotypes, or promote cultural exploitation. I thought of videos that show people at their worst going viral and how they typecast a person on the bases of a single act, one transgression, an embarrassing moment memorialized as the defining of a one-dimensional character.

We don’t live in the film era anymore. We live in an era that is not just witnessed, but fully documented. And I wonder, what is the price? What costs are we paying for the free availability of endless videos and photographs?

Vertical panaramas

I like taking panarama shots. I love the look of them (although the rest of my family does not). I think they give a good feel for what the visual experience was like beyond the view from a camera lens.

But I also like taking vertical panaramas. And while like the horizontal ones, they can distort the view, like in this square courtyard:

And they aren’t always needed like in this case (first image is an unneeded vertical panarama):

Here it is again without using the panarama:

… But sometimes I really get a kick out of them. Here are a few to enjoy:

La Sagrada Família, Barcelona

Monserrat, Spain

Royal Palace, Madrid

And just an hour ago I took this one from a ferris wheel in Bordeaux, France

I’ve never printed them, and so it’s not like I do anything special with them. Also they can be hard to find on my camera roll because when you take them vertically they don’t always show up in the phone’s panarama folder. But I really like them. I enjoy taking them, and sharing them… even if my family doesn’t enjoy them as much as me.

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A final shot, Wells Cathedral in England, taken back in the summer of 2018:

I want, I wish, I hope, I dream

Tonight is our first event of the year where we invite parents into the school. We are having a meet the teacher event followed by a PAC – Parent Advisory Council – meeting. In preparation I am putting up a wall of photos of our students and staff (the Inquiry Hub community is 100 staff & students). I did this 5 years ago, and 5 years before that, so all of our students from grade 9-12 have not done this with me before.

It’s a black & white portrait of each kid with a quote underneath it. The quotes all start with one of 4 prompts: I want…, I wish…, I hope…, or I dream…

Here is a video describing the project from 5 years ago (starting at the 4 minute mark).

This is the process for getting these photos:

1. Ask students (in a form) to share the response to four questions:

I want…

I wish…

I hope…

I dream…

I try not to give examples. (I learned a couple lessons here. The first lesson I learned the last time I did this is to ask a follow up question: “What’s your favourite answer”, to help guide my choice when I pick their response to go with the photo. The second, hard lesson I learned this time is not to also ask for a school goal in the same form… this resulted in a number of students focusing all of their answers on school goals.).

2. Take high quality headshot photos of students with a blank background. I used a green screen, but a blackboard or even a white wall works. The main secret is to not have kids too close to the background. Another trick is to tell them NOT to look at the camera. Even just a class of 30 faces staring at the camera would look like a mug shot wall, and so looking away from the camera gives a softer, easier to look at collage of faces. (Another hint, set the camera up to take a black & white photo and save yourself conversion time.)

3. I created a black frame on PowerPoint with 4 boxes, having a slightly larger one on the bottom for text (with size 20 font and a light grey text rather than full white). I also set the slide size to 8.5″ x 11″ (the same size as letter paper). Then I add the photo, right-click it and ‘move to back’ behind the frame, then size the photo inside the frame and adjust the placement. (Another tip, once you’ve got the frame with text box set up, and you’ve tried the first photo and text and are happy, duplicate this slide, delete the photo and text so you have an empty frame on the second slide. Now duplicate this slide as your master.)

4. Convert to PDF, then take a Zip drive to Staples or your business print shop of choice, and print on 80 stock photo paper. Doing the prints here will cost under $1 each instead of several dollars at a photo place and the quality will still be great as long as your photos are high resolution and focussed (use a tripod in step 2). This year I shared a link to a password protected file that I opened when I got to the store, rather than carrying a Zip drive, but it took over 5 minutes to download because the file was over half a gig in size!

5. Place the photos on your wall. I did 3 rows alternating 4 and 5 columns of photos on the panels in our hallway. I don’t think they need to be done so neatly, but with the writing on each image, I suggest space between the photos and not an overlapping collage.

Here is part of this year’s wall with student faces blurred with an app. The pictures are very sharp.

The overall effect is pretty powerful and the wall really makes a statement. I love that everyone’s voice in the community is shared.

I first did this with a Grade 9 class 22 years ago, and it’s still a favourite project that I enjoy doing. And with that, I’ll leave you with my photo. Out of respect for privacy, I won’t be sharing clear photos and readable quotes of students, you’ll have to visit the school to see it.

Know the rules to break them

On Friday afternoon one of my teachers invited me in to talk a bit about portrait photography. I had told him that I did a lot of photography and that I’d be happy to pop in at some point, but I hadn’t planned a lesson. And so I shared a few key concepts like the rule of thirds, and moving subjects away from the background to eliminate the look of a mug shot, and gave a few more suggestions.

As I did so, I surprised myself with how much I knew as a result of years of doing wedding photography. Except that when I did weddings, I did them on film. I didn’t have the instant feedback of seeing a photo right after I took it. I wasn’t sure that I got the shot that I wanted. It was a lot more challenging to photograph a wedding 25 years ago.

The students had an assignment to replicate a few photos from well known photographers, and so after explaining some key composition rules, I told the that they will probably notice that a number of the photographs they were emulating broke the rules I was sharing. I told them that the reason good photographers could break the rules is because they understand them extremely well. “You need to know the rules in order to break them and still get a good shot.”

To explain this further, I shared some artwork rather than a photograph. I showed the Picasso’s bull.

I described how Picasso truly understood art, and that for him to draw a bull and give the full essence of it with just a handful of lines, he had to understand and appreciate what else he saw and understood about the essence of his subject. And he had to know his craft well, to be able to see what was needed to represent the minimalist view.

Most new photographers are better off sticking to the rules and paying attention to them until they really understand them. Only then can the break the rules well and still take a good photo. I also talked a bit about the uncanny valley in photography. For example, if you are taking a photo and the horizon is off of horizontal by 3-4 degrees, then the photo looks awful. We know it’s crooked. But take that same photo and tilt it over 30 degrees to focus on something in the foreground and the photo can work.

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but when it comes to photography, and the composition of a good shot, there are certain rules that make a shot aesthetically pleasing. Unless you really understand these rules it’s not easy to break them and still pull off a great shot.

I think this rule about breaking rules applies to a lot more than just photography.

Eye of the beholder

I did a little digging and found this:

The proverb, ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder‘ is attributed to Margaret Hungerford who was an Irish novelist.Hungerford lived between 1855 and 1897, and she tended to write using a pen name: ‘The Duchess’. In her novel ‘Molly Bawn’ (her most well known book), she included the idiom ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder‘.

Plato said something similar, but the Hungerford quote was the one I was looking for.

In our basement my wife put up a painting and I really dislike it. To her, it matches everything nicely and she likes it.

To me it isn’t art.

I’m not opposed to abstract art. There are abstract paintings I can appreciate, and like. But to me this isn’t art. It’s visual noise. It feels more like a distraction than an attraction. I don’t see an artist expressing themselves, I see a mess of paint on a canvas.

While I believe beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder, I also think art has an innate beauty. I can look at a photograph and tell you that it is good, or I can tell you that it is poorly composed, or that it is beautiful even if the subject matter isn’t.

I think abstract art is like that too, and I think this painting was not done by a good artist, or even if it was, it certainly wasn’t one of their best works. I’ve threatened to paint over it. My wife isn’t amused.

If you know an abstract artist (and you admire their work), please ask them what they think of this painting without an explanation first. I’m interested to see if they agree that this isn’t good art, or if it’s simply true that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder and I’m simply not beholden to the beauty of this piece.

Sharing and reflecting

I’m really enjoying my Facebook memories popping up. My daughters save memories on Snapchat and I also enjoy the memories they share from years ago. This morning a Facebook memory of me being at school late at night popped up and I took the 10+ minutes to watch it now, 4 years later.

Here it is:

It is interesting to hear my thoughts on the power of Microsoft Teams a few years before the pandemic made this a regular way to meet.

It’s exciting to be reminded of the school photo wall I’ve done a number of times in my career. I think I’ll get the wheels in motion and do this again this year.

It’s embarrassing that despite my enthusiasm to reengage with a MOOC, I’m still a MOOC dropout all these years later. But at least I made it to week 3.

The biggest takeaway is that we live in a world where it is easy to share, and when we share our memories, we get to enjoy them all over again. These digital reminders of our past allow us not just to connect with others, but also to connect with otherwise forgotten memories.

Hikes at Kokanee Park

Yesterday the air in Nelson was much better. The day before, thanks to nearby forest fires, Nelson and neighbouring Castlegar had the worst air quality in Canada. With better conditions we decided to take a couple hikes in Kokanee Provincial Park.

Hike 1 was along the river, among some towering old growth trees.

Hike 2 was around a beautiful lake.

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After the previous day that took our breath away with smoke, these hikes were breathtaking in more ways than one.

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This morning we climbed Pulpit Rock. It’s smokier than yesterday, but we couldn’t even see this spot from the city across the way 2 days ago. Hopefully the worst of the smoke is over.

Appreciating Art

The saying ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ is one that holds true when it comes to my appreciation of art. I have very particular tastes and it drives my wife crazy.

Whenever we redo a room and look at decorating the walls, my wife focuses on colour. She’ll find a nice painting or photograph and either take a picture of it to send to me, or she buys it she keeps the receipt, knowing full well that I might see it and hate it. This isn’t the most annoying attribute I have, but it certainly ranks high up in the annoying scale. It’s not that my wife is bringing home artwork that is ugly, it’s that I will look at it and instantly see something I don’t like.

I think part of it comes from years of taking photographs. When I look through the lens of a camera, I want there to be balance. Balance of lighting and exposure, balance of composition, balance of colour. That doesn’t mean symmetry and it doesn’t mean colour coordination. In fact, I like when a picture is able to break the rules of photography. For instance, it is best to follow the rule of 3rds in photos, placing key items in the image on the quadrant lines of a photo cut into 9 rectangles, 1/3 lines both horizontally and vertically. But there still has to be balance they way I described above, especially when that rule is broken.

My lack of appreciation for a work of art can be intellectual, where I think the image lacks balance in a specific way, and my lack of appreciation can also be visceral. I can look at a painting and the entire aesthetic bugs me… or in the same way an image can speak to me, and I love it.

That said, I don’t consider myself an art critic and I don’t go around telling friends that their choice of art work is ugly. But at home, I don’t want to look at a painting or photograph that I can’t appreciate and admire.

As I said, I know part of this pickiness comes from taking photos, but I wonder if the aesthetic I appreciate is something that others would agree with or if my art appreciation is strictly in the eye of this beholder?

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PS. It has taken my wife over 20 years to stop me from buying my own clothes and now I get compliments all the time… that never happened with things I purchased for myself. My pickiness doesn’t make me necessarily think I have good taste. 🙂

Photographs in my mind

We used to take our negatives to a film processor to have them developed. Then we waited. Long ago we waited for a week, and eventually that time was reduced to just an hour. We’d collect the envelopes of photographs and before we left the store we were going through our shots one-by-one.

This one isn’t focused. This one has a blurry arm from it moving during the shot. In this one her eyes are closed. In this one he looked away. And this one, yes this one goes in a frame.

I say this with a bit of nostalgia, for there was something I enjoyed about the process. About the not knowing how good a shot was until long after I took the shot. About the surprise of a shot being better or, sadly, worse than I thought.

Film also gave me something else that I miss. As a photographer using film, every click of the shutter costed money. This made me more selective about the shots I would take… and not take.

It is an odd thing that I have photographs burned into my memory, but they are photographs that I never took.

There is the lost kitten jumping after a minister’s tassels during a wedding. I was being paid as the photographer and didn’t want to ‘waste the shot’ since they paid me by the roll of film.

The shot I did not take of the salt flats of Utah that faded into the sky without a horizon line. A brilliant memory that probably would not have made a good photo anyway.

There was the shot I lined up at Pike Place in Seattle, of an older man sitting on the hood of a parked car enthralled in a book, while cops on the street behind him tended to a fender-bender. I can still see the image that I did not take, feeling like I was invading his privacy.

We seem so much more free to take photos now, always having a camera in our pocket, and not a concern of the cost of taking one more shot.

But of all the shots I didn’t take, the photographs that still linger in my memory. These come to me from an era when film was the only option and the cost of the next shot lingered in my mind.