Once Upon A Time In The Far Off Land Of Nod - There Was Film

And Jack Came Home With A Magic Bag Of Beans

Back in the days of film there was only learning how to take great photos and any real magic was done in the darkroom. Sure you could double expose shots, special filters or some other tricks with timed exposures or distortions but mainly the everyday photographer was kinda in the dark when it came to working on or correcting an image, unlike anything we can do today! But... have we or are we losing something valuable along the way with today's technology?

When I got back into photography after 20+ years into this wonderful age of digital I had been manipulating photos for several years before the purchase of my camera creating what I call photo art. Once I had a camera back in my hands learning how to take the camera off of AUTO settings was a nightmare and I really really wanted to learn more. Someone had suggested I join a camera club and that they knew of one in my area, so that I did.

If you want to have fun and learn something with others sharing the same interest join a camera club or any other group that might share your interests. The first meeting I attended was a competition night and what a spectacular array of work. My desire was to learn how to take better photographs and I was sure this was the place I needed to be. What I found out is that the emphasis was not on taking a better image it was all in creating the best image through photo manipulating software. Sure I did learn more of what to watch out for when taking a photo and that they strive for the sharpest possible image, but I never learned how to take a quality photo through the camera club I belong to. And I guess today there are so many different thought processes when it comes to photographic vision and art. Which admittedly still has me very confused.

Images you see in advertisements are ALWAYS manipulated and it truly is amazing what they can do with an image. More than not models are not the people they were when they were photographed and become creations of someone sitting behind a computer. This is not a new process since photo touch ups have only really changed technology. This I believe has always sent a sad message to our youth as to what the perfect person should be. Not even to mention food photography, which is totally not even eatable! Especially not when you add things like regular dish soap to coffee to get little bubbles for fresh brewed coffee in your cup look.

Many photos today are manipulated into photo art to look like a painting or modern art and at what point is this line crossed from a well taken photo to a thing of manipulation or does the great genie of the photographic world even care? Are there even categories in competitions for the untouched photo?

When I shoot a wedding or event I want to take the best photo I can so I do not have to spend countless hours color correcting and manipulating photos, I work a full time job already. Now don't get me wrong I like having the ability to vamp up an image to give it a more appealing edge but I also find great joy in knowing I can have an outstanding image without having to move it on over to a program.

So now that Jack traded the family cow for a magic bag of beans what other magical advances will photography be headed for? I guess the sky is the limit!!

Shout.. Shout... I'm talking to you so come on

Finding Your Photographic Voice

What does it mean to find your photographic voice? Is it an inner whisper which must be heard during periods of stillness? Will my photographic voice shout out through my passions and beliefs? Will I know it? How long will I have to wait? What happens if I do not find it or least I forget to listen? Maybe just maybe my photographic voice isn't anything other than what I enjoy shooting. These have been my thoughts and questions this past week after my instructor told me I need to take it slow and just shoot to shoot, not for anyone or anything and find my photographic voice.

If my photographic voice is anything like what I choose to paint, it might be stillness, calm and seclusion. What happens if it manifests as the voice of death after the job I have chosen to take in this life? Will I be labeled as macabre or spiritually in tuned? Or maybe it will have to do with artful things my eyes just enjoy seeing?

I am not sure and I am hopeful I don't have to wait long.

Class Week 1 - Portraiture - In those eyes

I have blogged my classes backwards because I think this class had the most profound effect on me and I wanted to save the best for last. This was the first day Jen & I were taking the four week course offered through Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, www.fmopa.org, instructed by Chip Weiner www.chipshotz.com.

The Portraiture class was one of the classes I was most excited about because we were going to a real professional's studio to see real professional lighting equipment and a real professional photographer was going to be instructing us. Okay... I am aware all this "Real Professional Photographer" stuff is probably sounding a little over the top. But this is HUGE for me, and I wanted to get to his studio early, just to sit in heaven (my kinda earthly heaven, alright maybe not heaven but darn close to it) for just a moment, HUGE!!

Well, Jen was driving and I kinda directed her to a wrong turn off and had to make the, "we made a wrong turn call," I like when Jen drives, I think she finds my helpful driving hints handy in improving her driving skills (I don't know why she has been insisting I drive more often lately). We do have GPS on our phones but we have found and think they have some idiot that directs you on the longest possible route, for some reason when we use our phone for GPS we always seem to be taken on the scenic route.

I believe we did make it to our first class right on time and we got all the awkward introduction stuff out of the way before the model walked into the studio. From the moment she walked into the room I noticed these eyes that will blow you away!! One of the first things Chip asked was what we first noticed about this model and the words, "her Eyes!" came popping out of my mouth.

Photography is all about the light and working with studio lighting is unbelievable how you can shape a subject, but I think one of the neatest things was to watch Chip interact with the model. How when he wanted her to move in a certain way he used body language to explain it. I've fumbled with posing people and getting them to do what I want when trying to photograph someone and I would say it is liken to a gawky teen dancing their first dance tripping all over themselves.

Chip worked with us on understanding model releases, aperture and shutter speeds when shooting with studio lighting and a few of my brain cells were busted that day, I really did try and take notes. We used flash triggers, soft box lighting, a reflector for fill source and overhead accent lighting (cannot remember correct name) and all took turns photographing this very gracious model. I'm sure it is one thing to model for a professional but I cannot imagine having to stand around for a bunch of people who do not have a clue as to what they are doing.

It was all kinda intimidating, here you are in a room full of people, who you know, just know way more than you do and the last thing I wanted to do was be the first to shoot so sat back and waited to see what I could learn. When it was my turn it was as if all the other people melted away.

There is something I'm not even sure if I can explain it properly, there is something almost haunting when you photograph a professional model. When you view life through a lens you narrow into someone's life, you see things differently, there is an intimate relationship that takes place between you and your subject, not in a good or bad way it's in a way that you see them, the color of their skin, the shadows, highlights in their hair, the way that person smiles, holds their hands, laughs, fidgets, carries themselves. When they are shy, you try and coax them out or you just try and let them be who they are and take that essence and try and capture it. This intimacy happens with artists when painting as well, you become really aware of your subject. So when I looked through my lens into that model's eyes it was as if she was talking to me through her eyes and it was spellbinding. Up til this point when shooting people my daughter and I try to capture the moment. When posing people we try and be very informal and talk while behind the camera to provoke an honest reaction before the shutter is pressed. With this model I tried to get a reaction from her by talking and there was nothing until after the shutter was pressed. I did manage to get a couple shots of a real expression from her but I think she probably knew what I was after and humored me.

One of the most important things I have learned about my time with a professional photographer in the four week course is not so much that my photography is changing, but more importantly that I have changed. Yes.... I've become way more excited, and way more obsessed about looking at life through a piece of glass which enables me to say something about how I see the world around me. And now I am understanding for the first time how acutely aware I am of my addiction to pixels.

Class Week 2 - Action / Photojournalistic - No Excuses Please

Definition of A Stressful Situation = Driving in unfamiliar areas to destinations not known and assuming the person who claimed they had the driving directions was someone who "CLEARLY" did not gather the proper information from an email about our destination point. Praise the All Mighty for our advancements in technology, that we may check our email accounts from our cell phones. Circumventing possible police involvement and unnecessary blood shed and extensive loss of hair... o_O

Our second class was to focus on action while trying to capture a photojournalist aspect of the event. Our group met at the Tampa Bay History Center. The event was, River Walk for Dad's www.riverwalkfordads.org, June 19, 2010, helping to promote awareness for prostate cancer. This event was founded by Richard Gonzmart who is owner of the Columbia restaurant.

Not rain nor sleet nor loss of limb was going to keep me from ANY of our Saturday classes and it was said by our Yoda, that a good photojournalist always gets to a shoot early and stays late. My idea was to get to the event at 8am, after reading an email from Chip www.chipshotz.com, our instructor from FMoPA www.fmopa.org, about the time he was planning to be at the event. After Jen's and my, dare I say, round about way to get to our destination, well I'm not even sure the exact time we arrived to see a few of our classmates who were trying to find the meeting point. After our group meeting with Chip's instruction on what to watch and try to capture we were out the door.

Backing up a day from the event would be Friday and I left work sick with the flu. Not able to keep anything down that day, it was a relief to be able to go home and sleep. But I awoke at around 3:30 that Saturday morning and my breakfast on our drive downtown was a handful of Combos pretzels and some water.

The day was extremely hot and muggy and despite not feeling well the day before I was physically okay for the event, mentally was another story. Never attending any kind of an event like this before I was kinda unsure of just how they were going to start off. I half expected all the participants would be all lined up and a whistle blown, or maybe some kind of a horn or maybe a voice over a loud speaker announcing the start. Nope they were off and walking down Tampa's river walk where we caught up to them as we all tried to capture images that showed what was going on.

Being flash deficient at this point in the game I was not using necessary fill flash and most of my subjects that day were left looking blah to yucky. My brain was left at home in bed and the severely back lit photos left many of my subjects in the dark or extremely over exposed due to my inability to properly think about switching my manual controls for the challenging lighting conditions. The worst part was that I seemed to always be at the wrong place with a few exceptions and I never saw when the bulk of walkers came back up the path, okay I missed all the walkers coming back in and at one point ventured out to find them, not realizing they had come back and were eating the breakfast provided by the Columbia Restaurant.

As much as I would like to play the, "I get out of taking good pictures card," by being sick and as much as I want to be able to blame my lovely daughter on our driving to the wrong location, I cannot and must take personal responsibility for the short comings of the day. "IF" this had been a paid event for us and not a class outing, the person paying for our services wouldn't have cared what the lighting situation was nor would they have cared about our inability to get our directions firmed up between us, they are paying for results and in the end there are no excuses.
Despite the shortcomings of the days events it was still an amazing day and learning experience shooting with others in the class and being able to see what they saw through their lens.

Physically and mentally exhausted my daughter and I headed to the Columbia restaurant inside of the Tampa Bay History Center overlooking the Tampa River Walk and enjoyed great food and each others company. River Walk for Dad's, what a great event it was, we'll be back next year to see how it has grown!!

Class Week 3 - Cityscape

Florida Museum of Photographic Arts www.fmopa.org lies in the heart of the city in downtown Tampa and the first time visiting the museum with my daughter I knew I wanted to shoot the city around it. There is a certain amount of hesitation walking around by yourself in areas not know with camera equipment. Having a camera stolen years ago has had a lasting impact on how paranoid I am with a piece of equipment that can so easily be lifted and two women walking around streets they do not know with thousands of dollars strung around our necks and stuffed into a bag is just asking for trouble in my book, especially in this economy.

Intermediate Class Week 3 was shooting Cityscape and we met Chip at the Museum 1st thing for our chat before heading off into the land of towering structures. We hit the door by around 8:30 am with the streets being mostly absent of traffic. Never a city girl, my heart was always drawn to wide open spaces, mountain trails, gazing up at stars in the nights sky devoid of city lights. Never venturing into the congested city limits, yet here I was drawn in and ready to photograph what the city was to me. Now in the big city, I felt like a misplaced adventurer captivated by the light, color, shapes and textures with green life thrown into the harshness of straight lines, the work of men.

There was a lot of looking up that day, for me it was in wonder, the beauty of the tall trees as they were over shadowed by mirrored glass, brick lined parks, vacant tables with chairs, parking structures and stairs, water features and fountains were all there. People of the city with boldness spreading God's blessings or just wanting an ear, lingering near.

I don't know how long we spent on the street level before we made our way to the top level of the parking structure where the city towers so magnificently, there reflections are cast and clouds dance on the sides of blue mirrored buildings. For me it was scenery overload, for Jen being out in the morning sun was torture after spending the previous day at a water park with her girls where her waterproof sunscreen had little effect and there she was at class, boiled lobster girl on the hot tin roof making me carry the backpack.

I would have to say one of the most unique spots that day was being able to shoot this metal wire sculpture in front of Bank of America, which is just a massive building. Now Chip had warned us the bank does not like people photographing the building and we probably would see a guard come out and tell us we cannot photograph there. But all we had to do was move onto the public sidewalk they couldn't make us leave. Well heck... Chip had told us about this in the classroom what seemed like a lifetime ago and I totally forgot. There we all were all of us gathered around this thing that I thought looked like a bunch of cable wires that unraveled in a weird way while under tension. When we heard this voice over an outside intercom saying, "YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO PHOTOGRAPH THE BUILDING!!" at that point we moved to the sidewalk which was just a couple of feet away from where we were and there most of us continued to snap away, while the chanting reminder of not being allowed to photograph the building grew in intensity. Not handling the pressure well, I caved, I couldn't even hardly look at the sculpture let alone photograph it.. So I snapped off a few shots of the reflection in the pool as to not have to lift my lens from the ground. (me photographing under this pressure was like cooking this wonderful meal while the fire alarm was blaring, I just couldn't do it) So I just turned around to photograph the bank that was across the street. Thank goodness they didn't have mean voices screaming out of their building. I wonder how much you get paid to do a job like that or if they had to put the building on lock down due to our convergence upon the building with all our menacing black camera equipment? Hey maybe it was the bright red lettering on our camera straps that said Canon.. hmmm?? My daughter Jen got some incredible shots of this sculpture.

Shooting the city was amazing! Chip's wit, humor and willingness to help push us from our comfort zones to enrich our own photography was greatly appreciated.

Class Week 4 - Flora, Fauna & All That Gardeny Stuff

I don't know how I came about the museum but it took several months to work out a schedule with my daughter and make our way to the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts www.FMoPA.org in Tampa. On a regular basis before our visit I would search the museum's website and always checked out the classes, dreaming and wondering what they would be like.

There seems to be a number of photographers who pride themselves on being self-taught and the idea of taking a class is just so beneath them. I do not understand this logic. Not knowing where I stand in my knowledge of my talent or abilities, I say bring on the teacher or just any really knowledgeable photographer I can suck the life knowledge out of!!! It's really hard for me to behave sometimes when all I want is the power of knowledge. To rule the universe!! Okay not really, I just wanna take pictures.

So one day I did it, called my daughter and said I am taking a class at FMoPA and I got her to sign up for the four week intermediate course with me, instructed by Freelance Photographer, Chip Weiner www.chipshotz.com and here I start us out at the end of the four week course.

Friendships have started over the four week period and the mixed feelings that morning of, "Oh Yay!! we have class!!" to "Awww this is our last one". Jen & I had to be on the road at 6:30am to meet up with the group at the Florida Botanical Gardens in Largo, FL. Jen needed a coffee fix so we stopped at Starbucks and I needed batteries for my flash unit, I had to be prepared!! You want to show that instructor you are not going to waste his / her time by not being prepared. Make sure you learn from your mistakes, I'd like to think we have. [Had to purchase a flash card on our way one time to an outing Jen & I were going out on, Jen didn't remember to bring one :( Then there was another time Jen again forgot to put a card in her camera, wow I let her have it about being responsible and making sure we have everything we need BECAUSE we could be doing a wedding and then what. Someone within the group we were with loaned Jen a card. That was the same day I went to take my first picture and realized my battery was still at home charging. MY BAD!! Yeah... I ate my words that morning. Lucky for me we had someone within our group that was able to loan me a fully charged battery. It's easy to forget things and just as easy to put everything together the night before and if you have to make a list, just do it.]

So this was our last day, the dreaded day I would force myself to use my flash unit as a fill source of light. Over the last one and a half year period of trying to learn Everything I could wrap my brain around, flash had not been one of them.

There was an expected rain shower maybe later in the day..... NOT!! Rain started while we were meeting the group in the parking lot. I've shot in a light shower under the cover of an umbrella, not an issue. So as we met in the parking lot that morning we sheltered under the cover of an overhang on the gift shop building for question and answer. The rain let up and we were on our way with Chip demonstrating an off camera lighting technique before we went off to explore the gardens.

Flowers are not my best subject and to add the certain death of my unwanted flash, yuck!! I wasn't happy. Chip stepped in to work with me on setting the proper aperture and shutter speed to get the proper fill light. Making me really think about what I needed to do to get the proper exposure. My brain doesn't like numbers; I just cannot process numbers very easily in my head so anything related to numbers sends me into a panic. As hard as my brain had to think that day I got really worn out.

It's one thing to put pressure on yourself just thinking about composition, natural lighting, controls on the camera and now this blasted flash!! Gosh it was tough and I did not think one image would be worth keeping, almost making me feel like this was a lost cause. It was getting muggy out and I was starting to just sweat, but that was due to how hard my brain was working.

When you are out with your camera and experimenting on manual settings, mostly everyone you meet with maybe the exception of that one person who has a much bigger lens than you or other gear that makes them stick out, simply sees that big old camera around your neck and has no clue you might be unsure of what you are doing. They just see a photographer that is going to get incredible pictures.

Knowledge is power and though things might be hard to grasp at first stick with it, frustration will give way to familiarity were new challenges reap rewards.

Go out and get snap happy :)

Luuuucy...... I'm Home!!!

Definition of Photographer - one who practices photography; especially : one who makes a business of taking photographs. When formal training was never an option how as a photo enthusiast, hobbyist, aspiring photographer or whatever correct label we should go by, well.... how and when do you know those big wide gates have opened for you to join the elite ranks or is your name read from a sacred scroll letting you know you have arrived? Phone ringing off the hook for jobs, or piles of money? Personally I am waiting for the piles of money, need more equipment o_O Lots and lots more equipment.

At 50, I am finding myself pushing harder to learn as much as I can as fast as I can so I can get out there and join this wonderful beautiful race. As a budding watercolor artist and photographer my desire is to be able to one day sell or hang in a gallery. The thought of making money through a talent is something I am striving for. As a perfectionist the push for knowledge is a hunger, darn near driving me to insanity. From just about the moment I open my eyes in the morning, day in day out, all I see is light, shadow and color, photographs screaming all around me, "you missed me!!" Or the best one, "hey idiot, where is your camera!!". There is this feeling within me like a bubble ready to burst screaming to me, "You Are Almost There". If this was a real voice.. 1) I would seriously be concerned for my mental health.. 2) I would be screaming back... "Where!!"

Because I have been mostly self taught, I am not sure where gaps of knowledge lie or what I might be missing or what wrong misinformation am I relying on. My greatest fear is that I am chasing gold dust in a thunderstorm. What drives me is this undying passion to capture that uncatchable catch. To freeze a moment in time that says something about how I see the world that reaches into someone's soul and strikes a cord. The camera to me is not only a tool but a source of expression, without it I am not the same person. With it my wallet is a little lighter and this too is a concern and I wonder about this great expense I have chosen, what happens if I fail, what happens if this is nothing more than a pipe dream. Maybe I'm like the worst singer who only thinks they can sing, or maybe I am nuts.

So maybe this is the lot of the aspiring photographer, to become seduced by the lens, to seek yet fear the gathering of knowledge and to be possessed by the perfect capture.

I must give credit to my daughter for this amazing Leopard picture :)