I saw a post on Facebook yesterday that made me grimace and laugh out load almost at the same time.
Someone asked the question, and I paraphrase a tad: “Do you think that here in (state name) we have nowhere interesting or decent to take photos, as against other states?”
Editor: “Other states” presumably such as Western Australia, Queensland etc
Well I have lived in the state mentioned, in a rural part with a bloody big river running through it, and I can think of 20 or 30 spots within a few Km of where I lived, and even within a few hundred metres if I thought long enough.
But I think the real point being missed by the poster was not about actual location. I mean, interesting images can be created from just about anything can’t they Andy Warhol?
It seems akin to suggesting that even though you might have the best camera, camcorder or drone that money can buy, they are still not creating interesting images so are crap pieces of equipment.
Back to Basics
Like anything else, to be good at something, you need to learn the basics. You cannot be a champion racing driver such as Peter Brock if you don’t understand your car, a Steve Starling gun fisherman if you have no concept of tides and weather conditions or a Stanley Kubrick or George Miller if you have no idea what rules of thirds and compositions are.
And yes, you can put the camera settings on ‘A’ for automatic and hope for the best, but to get really interesting images, you need to learn what aperture, shutter speed and depth of field mean and how you use them.
Most important of all possibly, is the use of light. My good mate, Master Photographer extraordinaire, Peter Aitchison calls photography “painting with light” and that is well worth remembering just before you press that shutter. Not what is in the viewfinder, but what do you SEE? Can it be made better? What would moving a metre to the left, or to the right do? Or a higher elevation? Or even a lower one.
Another good mate, Ross Gibb could never have created this shot above left without understanding what light, composition, position and timing is all about as well as knowing his equipment intimately. Trust me, Rossco doesn’t just rock up to Mt Panorama for the Bathurst 12 hour or 1000 and point and shoot all in hope of getting a couple of good shots.
Do not underestimate audio either. If you think it is not that important, go again and have a look at some of the iconic movies by the masters such as Kubrick (I recommend 2001: A Space Odyssey), Ridley Scott (Blade Runner) or many, many others.
Always Learning
At present, we probably have the greatest capacity to learn just about anything, all for free and from the comfort of your own home, or even bed if you prefer. YouTube is an almost limitless resource, all the major creative software publishers such as Adobe have huge tutorial assets available on line for nothing and there are innumerable paid courses for applications such as Cinema 4D, After Effects, Lightroom, and so on.
In the creative game, you can never stop learning – not just from training manuals and videos but from others by studying their methods and ideas.
There is a plethora of opportunities for you to create right at your back door. Even in a wilderness (top and right) there is opportunity for interesting if not brilliant, imagery. But you also need to do your homework.
