The Photographer's Eye

Praying Tree

Seen on an old highway in southwest Georgia.

CanonEOS 5D Classic, Canon 70-200 f4L lens

 

What does it mean to have a photographer's eye?

I think the indispensable ability is the ability to notice things. 

After that comes a sense of light. Very often, it's the light itself that makes a subject noticeable. Learn to study light -- observe how it falls at different times of the day and different seasons of the year until you can almost feel the way it works with your subject. This is a lifelong learning process and I'm still working at it.

The third element is composition -- the ability to arrange the subject in the camera's viewfinder so that whatever it is that caught your eye stands forth most clearly. If necessary, zoom your lens or move, so that your frame is clean and uncluttered, including only the essential elements that tell the story.

Good street photographers such as Erwitt and Henri Cartier-Bresson have an almost magical ability to simultaneously notice both a subject and the light and compose a photograph in an instant. Others, myself included, are not so fast. But not all kinds of photography demand such quick reflexes. Jay Maisel notices and photographs an incredible number of interesting subjects. Some of them do demand quick reflexes, but many of them are just sitting there, as it were, waiting for someone to notice and photograph them.

As Robert Louis Stevenson said,

             "The world is so full of a number of things                                                                              I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings."

Photograph and text copyright 2021, David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone

 

More about Noticing Things

You think maybe he was unhappy with the postal service or perhaps UPS?

(Found on a makeshift plywood shed beside an old highway in southwest Georgia

-- from Georgia: A Backroads Portrait.)

Canon EOS 5D Classic, 24-85 f3.5-4.5 EF lens

In the first decade of this century I had been slowly gathering pictures for my book Georgia: A Backroads Portrait. In 2011, I decided to finish the job, and in May of that year took some money I had received for an architectural photography assignment, loaded an air mattress and sleeping bag in my 2002 Dodge Grand Caravan, packed my Canon 5D Classic and  20D cameras and some lenses, and set off on a trip around the perimeter of Georgia, photographing whatever I found wherever I found it. Among the many interesting and unusual things I saw was this crudely-painted sign on a little plywood shed in a thicket beside an old highway in southwest Georgia. 

The ability to notice things is essential to good photography, or at least to the kind of photography I like best. The great Elliott Erwitt had an almost supernatural ability to walk down any street and come back with little gems -- photographs of people or things (or dogs) that most of us would never have noticed.

And while Erwitt's milieu was street photography and most of his pictures were of people and dogs, I think the art of taking notice applies at least in some degree to all kinds of photography. It's definitely responsible for most of my best pictures.

Photograph and text copyright 2021, David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone

Taking Notice

 Clinging to Life

Covered Bridge Road at GA Hwy.22, Oglethorpe County

Canon EOS 5D Classic, 24-85 f3.5-4.5 EF lens

 

"(Photography) is about reacting to what you see, hopefully, without preconception. You can find pictures anywhere. It's simply about noticing things and organizing them. You just have to care about what's around you and have a concern with humanity and the human comedy."  Elliott Erwitt

Erwitt, whom I consider to have been the best photographer of the 20th Century and who is, amazingly, still active at the age of 93, also said"All the technique in the world doesn't compensate for the inability to notice things."

Photography, of course, has many aspects. There's commercial photography, a field in which Erwitt and I both made our livings by making photographs to a client's specifications. But while I was merely a journeyman, he was among the very elite, commanding large fees. There's also journalistic photography, architectural photography, portraiture, art photography -- Erwitt was the master of them all. But his real love was spontaneous, candid "snaps," as he called them, of life on the wing. Today, prints of his "snaps" sell for $4,000 and up and have been made into more than 20 books.

As a photographer I'm far from being anywhere near Erwitt's class. But one thing I have learned from him and would hope to impart to you is simply to notice things.

With so much photoblog space these days devoted to technique and equipment, there's little discussion of what photography is really about. Equipment can be purchased and technique can be learned, but the ability to notice things takes dedication and practice. Keep your eyes open and your camera ready.

I made the photograph of the tree at the top of this post at the intersection of Covered Bridge Road and Georgia Highway 22 in Oglethorpe County in May, 2010. I was struck by the fact that even though it had been decapitated by wind or lightning and left with only one live branch, it was stubbornly clinging to life.

I drove by the scene again in July, 2021. The tree was still there. Still clinging to life.

Photograph and text copyright 2021, David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone

Time to Refocus

 

 Autumn leaves in a small, mountain stream.

Fannin County, North Georgia

Canon EOS 5D Classic, EOS 24-85 f3.5-4.5 EF lens

 

I don't think I'm going to write any more about the traveling we did in July to work on the second edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia. At least not for now. I enjoyed revisiting the places I visited and wrote about five years ago, but driving ten or twelve hours a day for several days in a row and then breaking camp, pulling the RV to a new location, setting up camp, and repeating the process soon got old.

Also, we had some mishaps. In addition to the deep cut on Louise's leg which I mentioned in my last post, we had a few mishaps with the trailer. I drove too close to a harmless-looking tree and did some damage to the roof (which I was able to patch with a special RV roof-repair tape). Later, we had an accident that did some damage to the rear and side of the trailer. It's drivable and livable, and we are currently living in it in a very pleasant campground near Toccoa, Georgia while waiting for the replacement parts to come in. The repair people tell me that this is often a lengthy process. Our insurance company has been very helpful.

I still have a tour in southwest Georgia to retrace, and I'm about half finished with the new tour the editor asked me to write. Then I can put this project to bed and move on to other things.

There hasn't been much new photography to do for this second edition, and that's a downer. I get antsy when I don't get enough photography time! However, the publisher will mostly be using photos from the first edition, with only a few new ones. I look forward to moving on, making new photos and writing more about photography, which has been sadly lacking on this blog for some time. Time to refocus!

Photograph and text copyright 2021, David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone