“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
~ Ansel Adams ~
Ft. Myers Beach - FL
Photographers are blessed with the task of turning chaos into order. Tackling the unruly… and making it ruly. Sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t. It’s often harder than it appears as things don’t always play out as expected.
I’ve always been a fan of previsualization. By definition, this is the ability to visualize the scenes or sequences in a movie prior to filming. Although photographers aren’t making movies per se, the process is similar.
This sounds good and often does work, but for anyone who’s wandered into Times Square (NYC) around sunset on a sweltering July evening, knows that previsualizing the madness of such a place is near impossible. The visual stimuli is tantalizing & overwhelming at the same time. So much commotion… what to leave in and what to leave out of the frame becomes paramount. It takes a fair amount of flexibility and thinking on your feet before you can comfortably snap a single frame.
Army West Point Boxing - NY
Winter Park Ski Resort - CO
Depending on the venue… travel, sports, corporate, street and so forth… you hope for the best and take what the Photo Gods give you. Sometimes the results are stellar (hopefully this happens more often than not) and on occasion, you don’t capture all the images you were hoping for. This doesn’t mean you failed; rather, it’s a subtle reminder that getting rock solid images is hard work. Depending on the venue, you may have the option of going back and shooting additional frames the following day.
These random images become orphans to a certain extent. They didn’t complete or fulfill a story, so they end up in a Random or Misc file
folder. Once again, it doesn’t mean they’re bad images, but simply don’t fit into a larger theme.
Lord knows we all have plenty of these pictures stored in the Cloud or on our external hard drives. Personally, I label these folders ‘Misc 2019’ and add a new year to the file name when January 1st comes to town each year. It’s an endless loop; but going back at a later date to rediscover these images can be a very rewarding & gratifying process.
