I am torn but that question a lot. Clicking for the sake of clicking just doesn’t make sense (practice not included) when I head out with a camera. I love telling stories with my favorite being with photography. But you could say it’s like writers block, staring at a white piece of paper with no words coming to fill them. I gotta click though. So there are times I click for the sake of clicking just to start putting those words on the blank piece of paper knowing they will be erased later. I just wanna get the juices flowing, the mind thinking and the heart connecting.
So after photographing the C-41 I saw this Cessna T-50 “Bambo Bomber” lookin really nice in the light. So I made the first click and while OK, the background is killing me. How to clean it up? Moving closer and going lower are my only options, much like that on the C-41. But even moving in a few steps, zooming with my feet, I made the next click but it still doesn’t really work. I wasn’t satisfied. By getting closer I had to go wider and in doing so, the tail becomes too large in the foreground giving it too much weight. To deal with that, gotta move back and go with a longer focal length.
Once I moved back, I did the “dance,” including those elements I want while excluding those I don’t. At the same time I worked the angle to get the glow in the window. Even after all of this, while I like the photograph it doesn’t rock my world. The light is gorgeous but there is still no story. Yeah, light can be a story but pushing one’s craft means not being satisfied with just great light all the time.
The photography side to me is real simple. The C-41 and T-50 are all 5 image, hand held HDR. Photomatix Pro is used with it’s defaults (excpet Black slider set to 1) to combine the five images. Then I do into PS and add a little Nik, OnOne and finish them with using a Saturation Curve to remove the “blue” HDR tint from elements on the aircraft. I have no clue if these rambles help you at all, but these were the thoughts and challenges I worked through one evening trying to tell stories.
Photos captured by D3x, 14-24AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film