doing some thinking

OK, a lot of thinking.  It is that time of year when I find myself contemplating what I want from myself in the coming year.  What I want from my work and what I feel I can give back.
Among many things, I have decided to practice more mindful shooting.  I have touched on this before, but how I find that I am a sloppier photographer now with digital than I ever would have been with film.  I will take steps to stop and think about my pictures, use my handheld meter as if the LCD on my camera never existed and in turn, take fewer shots for each setting.  I don’t plan on shooting less, just getting the shots I want and then stopping.  It will mean taking a bit more time creating the images, but I will more than make up the extra minutes spent planning when I am not tied to my computer processing them later on.  Plus, it is the taking of the photos that I like better anyway.  That IS where I want to be spending the majority of my time in the photographic process.

I started tonight.  I saw the light at the base of the stairs and knew the twins were going to be passing through on their way up to bed so I quickly grabbed my camera and meter.  I picked the fastest lens I had (my 50mm f/1.4G) since I was going to be using a wide open aperture.  One click of the handheld meter to read the light in the space where they would be sitting and I was all ready to go when they were.  Because it was set up perfectly, I just took a few shots (16 in total), and then we went up to read stories and brush teeth and all that good stuff.  I had under two minutes for the pictures part.  Coming back to my computer I saw I had 7 shots I loved and the others were fine too.  Since I forgot to do a custom white balance the only thing I had to edit in Lightroom really was the color temperature.  I cropped one to a square format in Lightroom as well (the shot of Clover sticking out her tongue in the previous post.)  That was it.  I was done.  Habit had me hanging out looking at the shots for a little bit longer, but I was done.

This is the shooting I want to get back to.  It is also what I will be talking about with Ryan at our Alt Design Summit photography panel.

Don’t get me wrong, if Photoshop is part of the idea for a shoot…something that is just a step in the process of creating the look of an image I see in my head, then I will expect to be spending some time with my laptop, but even then…even when the end result will be manipulated for effect, I want to begin with the best image possible.

so…

This is my focus for the year and what I want is help others do a little more mindful shooting as well.  If you are interested, I will be taking submissions for free fan photo feedback as part of my new blogging series.  Won’t you join me for Thinking Thursday?  It is Thursday here in Australia.  Once a month, I will select up to 5 photos from the new flickr group pool (flickr is free to sign up for if you have not already!) and give constructive critiques on the facebook fan page (where you must be a fan of my page, but aren’t we all already on facebook).  The reason I am not having the images submitted directly on facebook is that the image quality after upload there is frankly, crap.  In addition to the individual photo help, I will be posting all year long here, on the Beyond Snapshots blog and even a few other places (more on that soon) my tips for getting better pictures with fewer shots taken and less time spent in post!  There is quite a bit in the works and with the help of my lovely new intern, Meredith, I think we can keep it all on track with everything else.  Check out the Beyond Snapshots blog for even more information in the coming days.

Peta and I will also be running more of our online classes (looking like the end of February will be the first session!) and my time will be opening up again for individual consulting with photographers either in person or online.  The class registration list is open now.  We will be emailing everyone that is currently on the waiting list.  If you have not already requested a place on that list, please send an email to info@beyond-snapshots.com to get first choice of a spot in our upcoming class.  Last time it sold out super fast, so if you think you might be interested, make sure you sign up now!