Seeing Photos: Look for Something Out of Place

The Satellite Dish, GA Highway 22, Taliaferro County 

Learning to see photographically is a lifelong process, as I said in my previous post about unleashing your imagination. Another good way to develop your ability to see photographically is to look for things out of place. I call it the principle of incongruity. 

The world is full of strange and wonderful things if we will only open our eyes to see them. Sometimes we even need a little help. My son Rob and I were driving along a street on the edge of Clarksville, Georgia, when he suddenly said, "Look, Dad!" I looked, and sure enough, there were dragons in someone's back yard!

                 Dragons in the Back Yard, Clarkesville, Habersham County, Georgia

 One of the best examples of incongruity I've ever seen is this great photo by B.A. "Tony" King, probably the greatest American photographer you've never heard of.

 

A harp! Abandoned in a farmer's field! Who would leave a valuable instrument such as a harp to molder away in a field? A simple photograph, but full of mystery, showing us the strangeness that's so often present in the midst of the commonplace of life. If our eyes are open to see it.

Signed copies of the second edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia are now available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to me at 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2023 David B.Jenkins. Photo of the harp copyright Judy and Tony King Foundation, 2023

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags: photography    photographic seeing    Taliferro County, Georgia    Clarkesville, Georgia    Habersham County, Georgia    B.A. "Tony" King  

Photographic Seeing: Unleashing Your Imagination

 Crazy, cock-eyed spider

Clinging to Life

The Rise of the Swamp Monster

As I said in my previous post, if you have a reasonably good camera and a lens or two and you can use them to make reasonably sharp, well-exposed pictures, your problem is probably not your camera. Any camera made in the last ten years or so is capable of making those sharp, well-exposed pictures. If you're not getting that kind of results, you probably need to read the manual.

But if your photos are sharp and well-exposed and you're still not happy with them, the problem is probably with your seeing. You need to learn to see photographically.

How do you learn to do that? One of the first steps is to unleash your imagination.

Look at the picture at the top of this post. It's one I've shown a few times before. What do you see? Do you see a bale of hay, several pieces of plastic sewer pipe, and a couple of pie plates? Or do you see a crazy, cock-eyed spider?

Look at the next picture? Do you see a lightning-blasted, nearly dead tree? Or do you see a tree that against all odds is clinging tenaciously to life?

And what about the third picture? Do you see a stump that has been trimmed by the highway crew to keep it from falling across the road? Or do you see a monster rising from the swamp?

Unleash your imagination. Look around your world. See what's there, and then ask yourself, what else is there?

Learning to see photographically is a lifelong project. But learning to let your imagination roam free is a start. More to come.

(The spider was photographed on film, but I can't remember when, or what camera was used. The other two pictures were made with my trusty Canon EOS 5D Classic digital camera in May, 2010 during my first book photography tour around Georgia.)

Signed copies of the second edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia are now available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to me at 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2023 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags: photography    photographic seeing    Canon EOS 5D Classic camera    travel    Georgia

If Your Pictures Suck, A Better Camera Won't Help

Boynton Beauty Salon, Old Highway 2, Catoosa County, Georgia

 On the other hand, it might.

Maybe.

If you're happy with the pictures you're getting from your cell phone camera, why  change? Some people are doing really good work, even professional work, with cell phones. And they're great for quick snaps of family and friends and the like.

Or maybe you have a nice digital SLR, or even one of the new mirrorless ones. Unless you're really screwing things up, your camera is probably giving you sharp, properly exposed photographs.

If all you want is sharp, well-exposed pictures of your family and friends, maybe pictures of the places you go, and the things you see as you go about your life, you probably already have what you need. 

But if you're not satisfied with your pictures, the problem most likely is not your camera. It's with your seeing. 

(To be continued.) 

(Photo made with Nikkormat FTN camera, 50mm Nikkor lens, Kodachrome film.)

Signed copies of the second edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia are now available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com. Or, you can mail a check to me at 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2023 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags: photography    Nikkormat FTN camera    Nikkor  50mm lens

 

Cameras I Have Loved

 

My first good camera was a Nikon F, the leading professional camera of its day. I used it for a few years before selling it at a time when I was short of money. When I began my own business in 1978 I had a pair of Nikkormats (noisy and clunky, but reliable), and later acquired a Nikon F2, which I did not like. However, I had had my eye on the tiny, new Olympus OM cameras for some time, and my dislike for the F2 led me to take the plunge and buy two Olympus bodies and several lenses.

The Olympus OM2n, pictured at the left front, was the camera that went with me to 28 countries on five continents on photojournalism assignments, including our trip to Eastern Europe in 1990. You can read about it here. It's my all-time favorite camera. Sadly, my original OM2n was sold in 1992 when I switched to Canon because my ageing eyes needed autofocus. The one shown is one I bought out of pure sentiment.

The Canon EOS A2, right rear, is one of a pair I bought while working on the Rock City Barns book. They were great cameras, precise, quiet, and reliable; and served me very well for eight years. When I switched to digital photography in 2003, I kept this one. Again, for sentimental reasons.

Front right is my current love, a Fuji X-T20 which I got in 2017. I had never actually handled one before, and when I unwrapped it, I was surprised at how small it is -- smaller, even, than the OM2n. Although I have large hands, I've always preferred small cameras. But the X-T20 was too small. I had reached my small size limit! A nifty little black half-case fixed that, though, and made it handle just right. This was the camera I used most on our trip west in 2018 and to Nova Scotia in 2019, and is the camera I carry with me most days.

Last, but by no means least is the Fuji X-H1, left rear. A powerful picture-taking machine, it's larger and heavier than the X-T20. I used it for most of the new photography for the second edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia. Because of its size and weight, it balances better with my large Canon flash unit, and also with my Fujinon 55-200 f3.5-4.5 zoom lens.

I've owned a lot of cameras in my career, but these four stand out. The only one missing is the Canon EOS 5D Classic, which I used for eight years before upgrading to an EOS 6D. It was a great, reliable camera which made most of the pictures in my book Georgia: A Backroads Portrait. (Still looking for a publisher for that one.)

Signed copies of the second edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia are now available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com. Or, you can mail a check to me at 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2023 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags: photography    travel    Nikon F camera    Nikon F2 camera    Olympus OM2n camera    Canon EOS A2 camera    Fujinon X-T20 camera    Fujinon X-H1 camera    Canon EOS 5D camera    Canon EOS 6D camera    Fujinon 55-200 lens    Eastern Europe    Nova Scotia