Tag: art

Daily Life

I Forgot How It Works

One of the things I love is photography. Specifically, street photography. There’s just something about those types of images that resonate with me. As a sometimes wanna-be photographer, I think I have a pretty good “eye” for images. What I don’t have is the technical background of an actual photographer. Is that important with today’s modern cameras? Yes, and I’ll illustrate why.

The last few years I’ve gotten lazy and stopped carrying a “regular” camera. Instead I’ve used my cell phone. Why wouldn’t you? They take fantastic images and you don’t have to do anything other than push a button. Since all I ever do is post those pictures to my Instagram, the workflow is seamless. So why bother with a real camera? A couple of reasons. The first is that those images are great… for viewing on a phone or small tablet. Blow them up much more than that and you’ll be disappointed. What looked fabulous on a phone screen will show grain, clipping, poor focus, and pixelating on a big monitor or print. Second, Instagram is disappearing as a place for photography. They’ve gone the way of Tik Tok and seem to show nothing but reels nowadays.

So if you want full control over light, grain, aperture, and movement you’ll need to be using an actual camera. So the other day that’s what I did. I dug out my camera and walked downtown to a local bike race. I figured it would be a perfect venue to get pictures of racers and spectators.

The problem was that it had been so long since I’d used the camera, I completely forgot how. I got home and didn’t have a single usable image. Out of focus, poor exposure, bad framing, you name it I did it. You could say that it was understandable since I hadn’t used it in quite a while, but that wasn’t the issue. The issue is that I barely knew what I was doing to start with. Sure, I could make the camera work and get lucky with an image if I went out shooting frequently. But there’s a difference between getting lucky and actually having an understanding of what you’re doing.

If I really knew what the reciprocal shutter speed and ISO was for a given aperture it wouldn’t have made a difference that I couldn’t see my LCD in the bright sunlight. If I knew what the hyperlocal distances were for my lens I could have used zone focusing instead of autofocus (which didn’t work). You get the idea. If I actually understood what I was doing, the camera itself wouldn’t make a difference.

So, it’s back to school for me. Time to start from scratch and relearn photography from the ground up. I want to become competent at the craft so my images aren’t luck – they’re by design and skill. Fortunately in this modern era we have the entirety of human knowledge about photography at our fingertips, for free. Let’s go!

Cool

Wanna See Some Art?

I am a frustrated creator, to use the social media/YouTube lexicon. I go through waves of intense desire to create either photographs or videos. Those waves usually dissipate quickly, mostly because I don’t know what to do the images and videos. That sounds odd, so let me explain.

Making a video is a non-trivial task. You need to put thought into what you’re doing, constantly making sure you’re getting sufficient footage, film from multiple angles, etc… When done, you have many hours of editing, finding music, learning software tools, and rendering time. I’m a beginner, so my results are a bit amateurish, but I’m learning and they’re getting better. Those video’s obviously get posted to YouTube.

Photographs come from a Fuji X100F camera or my phone. The phone images are edited on the phone using VSCO or Snapseed and posted to Instagram. Photos from the “real” camera are edited with Adobe Lightroom… and sit on my hard drive for the most part. I have an old WordPress “photo” site with a few images, but I haven’t updated it in years.

So, what’s the issue? With videos it boils down to – is it worth the time and effort? To actually make any money on YouTube, even just a few hundred dollars a month, is nearly a full-time job. You have to be very consistent with uploads every week and put real effort into making interesting content. You need to identify a niche and focus on it. You need to promote your content. I like making videos, but I’m not sure I’m interested enough to go to that level. Therefore, I’m making occasional random videos for friends and family. Which is fine, but it’s a lot of effort. Do I want to continue?

Photographs are a similar, but slightly different issue. This will sound silly, but what do I do with my pictures? I suppose I can just keep posting them to Instagram for the approximately twenty friends and family who follow. I thought about creating a second, photography-specific Instagram account for the camera images but that would mean actively trying to attract followers. I’m not a professional, an influencer, or at a point in my life where my ego needs the boost, so that doesn’t really fit my personality. I suppose I could make prints from time to time to hang up around the house. I honestly just don’t know what I want to do with the images. The end result is that I rarely take pictures lately.

A day ago, I decided to try and create a gallery/slideshow that would display on the Smart TV in the living room. At least people coming to the house could get a glimpse into my pictures, right? Forty minutes later of trying to create accounts, logging in, and struggling with settings, I still couldn’t get the damn thing to sync with my images. That was the end of my attention span for that project.

Next, I turned to GoPro. They’ve updated their mobile app, called Quik. I’ve played with it a little bit and it seems interesting. Their premise is that the app will solve what they call the “black hole” of photos and videos that just sit on your phone. They have a tool called the Mural that you use to place daily content from your phone, and it helps you organize and create interesting slideshows and videos. I think it would work but will require a change in workflow along with how and where I save images. Again, do I really want to put the effort in to make this happen?

I realize that these are amazing first-world problems to have. I’m enough of a student of the mediums to know that the answer is that you’re creating for yourself. Unless your goal is to make a living with art, it makes no difference if anyone sees what you’ve created. You’re doing it for you. That holds true for photography, writing, or YouTube. I know this.

But as the old saying goes, if a tree falls in the forest – does it make a sound? Well, we’ll never know if someone isn’t there to listen. I’m not ready to abandon all creativity yet. I don’t know what the answer is for photography. If anyone has ideas on what to do with images, I’d love to hear it. YouTube is a bit trickier. I think the answer is to find a style that fits what I do. I need to find a way to document the things that I do that isn’t so labor intensive. If it’s easy enough, I’ll do it. I’ll push my stuff out there so friends and family can keep up with my activities and adventures. And if random strangers also want to see it, so be it.

We live in an amazing time. No more photo books with polaroid prints. No more grainy VHS tapes of family vacations. An unlimited number of ways to share images and art… it’s overwhelming.

Sigh. The life of a creator is hard.