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Visual Thinking: Can one distill the essence of a scene and rise above the ordinary?

Having Tom Robbins' sienna photographs triggering Ken Tanaka's insight into how these images might work is the basis for this new daughter thread.



In the northern latitudes, this is the time of year when most green is gone, and sienna, blue, and shades of gray predominate. Snow and ice will provide some relief from this eventually, but neither are in evidence in the Midwest United States at the moment.

The intention this morning was to try and make the best of conditions as they were found. There is little connection with regards to subject matter aside from relative geographical location and being photographed on the fourth Sunday of the month.

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Plowed Field

About ten minutes before sunrise in rural LaSalle County, Illinois.

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Rust and Shadow

An empty barge moored at the Cargill Illinois River loading facility at Hennepin, Illinois.

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Illinois River Floodplain

This region was drained farmland as recently as a decade ago, and has now been restored to its natural state.​

Several photos shot on a single morning on a sunny November day may stretch the definition of theme, but since it's a tough time of the year, maybe I can get away with it. All thoughts and suggestions are very welcome.
 
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Ken Tanaka

pro member
I like your visual thinking, Tom. That 3rd shot is almost a real illusory scene! It could be called "Corn Field at Low Tide", as it looks like a ocean shoreline.

If I may offer a thought, looking at these and your previous images I wonder if you're wrestling with choices when your eye's in the viewfinder? #2 is a good example; object or reflection...take 50% of each. #1 also presents a good example: tracks and clouds -vs- remote farm house at dawn?

When I'm faced with such visual dilemmas I try to shoot the scene several ways. The first frame is usually what my impulses prompted me to shoot. But the next are generally more exclusive to compose certain aspects in favor of others. I estimate that in at least 80% of such cases I ultimately select one of the exclusive frames as more interesting over the original inclusive scene.

Such scenes as yours above really come down to distillation of essence. You have to pause to interrogate your sense of what's the essential attraction of the scene. Color? Form? Pattern? Texture? Juxtapositions? Our eyes flick about to gulp scenes but our lenses must be more discriminating to collect only souvenirs. Think of going there with a child who blurts, "That's pretty!". If you were trying to teach that child to connect with his/her visual sense you might then ask, "Why?". In this case the question would be far more important than the answer would be.

So as an experiment ask your inner-child "Why?" next time.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Ken Tanaka;86550......... said:
Such scenes as yours above really come down to distillation of essence. You have to pause to interrogate your sense of what's the essential attraction of the scene. Color? Form? Pattern? Texture? Juxtapositions? Our eyes flick about to gulp scenes but our lenses must be more discriminating to collect only souvenirs. ...

Ken,

These are good directions. I just am not sure about the meaning of "but our lenses must be more discriminating to collect only souvenirs". Did you mean, "Our eyes flick about to gulp scenes but our lenses must be more discriminating [than] to collect only souvenirs [which sample everything that's there]."?
 

Ken Tanaka

pro member
"Our eyes flick about to gulp scenes but our lenses must be more discriminating to collect only souvenirs."

No, that's exactly what I meant to write. It's most common, and utterly futile, to try to capture whole environmental experiences when photographing landscapes. Tom experienced each of these scenes with his ears, his nose, and his sense of temperature as well as his eyes. While shooting #2 perhaps he heard a nearby crow complaining or a fish jumping from the river.

Among the skills of the finest landscape photographers is to effectively invoke such visually-extrasensory experiences from your viewers' memories. The vast majority of landscape photography we see, even from "accomplished" rock-and-tree snappers falls flat because it fails to accomplish much more than documenting what was in front of the lens at that moment. It may be rendered "pretty", it may be filled with itsy-bitsy (and utterly irrelevant, distracting) details because it was captured with a $60,000 camera rig, and it might be unchallengingly calming on the wall of a medical waiting room or generic office hallway. But it's so often dead stuff that leaves us unnourished. We see it and we immediately forget it because it offered nothing more than a forensic image.

Personally I think Tom's on the verge of transcending from "pretty" to "memorable statements" with his flatland photography. That's why I took time to note Art Sinsabaugh's work to him recently and why I take time now.
 

Rachel Foster

New member
I'm not understanding. I'll have to reread this and ponder a few times.


Ken, are you suggesting the photographer attempt to include commonly recognized symbols in order to evoke cultural associations?
 

Nigel Allan

Member
I'm not understanding. I'll have to reread this and ponder a few times.


Ken, are you suggesting the photographer attempt to include commonly recognized symbols in order to evoke cultural associations?

I think he is saying that a picture needs a visual hook like a hook or catchy melody in a memorable song that you can't get out of your head and which makes you want to play it over and over again in your mind rather than trying to be all things to all people and simply recording what's in front of the camera.

Of course, I am sure I will be told I have completely misunderstood that now :)

...but it still makes sense to me and I am sure that if Ken didn't say that he will soon :) haha
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
"Our eyes flick about to gulp scenes but our lenses must be more discriminating to collect only souvenirs."

No, that's exactly what I meant to write. It's most common, and utterly futile, to try to capture whole environmental experiences when photographing landscapes. Tom experienced each of these scenes with his ears, his nose, and his sense of temperature as well as his eyes. While shooting #2 perhaps he heard a nearby crow complaining or a fish jumping from the river.

Thanks for the clarification. It's not about gathering what the lens can see but rather about collecting in a particular way, just with light, and being able to somehow embed much more than that; feelings, ambience, sensations,thoughts, relevance, consequence, for example. The nature of any of these, will of course depend highly on the presentation and the person receiving this image.

I was not sure if you were merely referring to the lens' inability to make choice for us. You mean that and then the extra step of finding a way to distinguish the image by it's possession of other qualities to be appreciated beyond the "forensic" documentation of what, indeed was there.

I like your position on this and this does leave the $60,000 gear largely unneeded.

Asher
 

Ken Tanaka

pro member
Your confusion is understandable. My message became rather diffused as I pushed a salad into my face as I typed.

What I suggested:

1. Make choices when photographing landscapes and other general scenes. Make the choices by identifying what YOU find so photo-worthy about the scene. By "choices" I mean make exclusive/inclusive decisions. Perhaps, for example, you skip the sky or the farmhouse or the nearby weeds in favor of intensifying the visual values of what you find unique.

2. These choices are what distinguish the finest such work from the dull crowd.

That's the synopsis.

One last, and unrelated, note to consider. I can think of very few memorable landscapes that were photographed with wide-angle lenses. It's a common photo misnomer that wide focal lengths are intended and used mainly for wide landscapes. Not really. Wide-angle lenses are best for tight, close work. The best landscape work I can recall (and I'm not a rock-and-tree guy) was done with longer focal lengths, closer to "normal", or beyond, for the camera. (Ex: 35mm+ for 35mm and 80mm+ for medium format.)

By this I'm not criticizing Tom's work. Just offering a corollary thought to the idea of making choices.
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Bonsoir Ken,
Make choices when photographing landscapes and other general scenes. Make the choices by identifying what YOU find so photo-worthy about the scene. By "choices" I mean make exclusive/inclusive decisions. Perhaps, for example, you skip the sky or the farmhouse or the nearby weeds in favor of intensifying the visual values of what you find unique.

This is simply true and works for every type of photography!

Could be summarized as "frame it!"
 

Mike Shimwell

New member
Bonsoir Ken,


This is simply true and works for every type of photography!

Could be summarized as "frame it!"


Yes, but landscape is deceptive. When you stand in the sunny meadow with the blue sky overhead, the warm scented breeze blowing through your open neck shirt and the feel of grass around your sandalled feet it's so tempting to grab the wide lens and cram it all in. Doesn't matter how much detail there is, it doesn't work as a picture.

Mike
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Frame it!

Bonsoir Ken,
Make choices when photographing landscapes and other general scenes. Make the choices by identifying what YOU find so photo-worthy about the scene. By "choices" I mean make exclusive/inclusive decisions. Perhaps, for example, you skip the sky or the farmhouse or the nearby weeds in favor of intensifying the visual values of what you find unique.

Bonsoir Ken,


This is simply true and works for every type of photography!

Could be summarized as "frame it!"


I would frame, "Frame it!", not on just as the one most holy step in the making of a photograph. Let me try this approach to a photograph. It starts with an idea triggering a concept for a picture, a choice of what and how to photograph and then the many steps in preparing the latent image for presentation. That latter part is at least as important as the framing. The picture is not likely complete by framing, except perhaps for commercial /wedding shoots/mementos or forensic work. The processing is pretty standardized and what is going to be delivered is fairly predictable.

The artistic image, here, "The Photograph" can be added to or cropped as well. Parts might be differently indicated or emphasized. Art Sinsabaugh spent many, many hours waiting, understanding and watching. Only after that effort, he exposed the very long sheet film in his large wooden bouquet sheet film camera. After that, when he looked at his processed negative, he spent many more hours figuring out how best to crop it! Sometimes he carved away the impressive sky, the foreground or both. Not all of Sinsabaugh's decisions where necessarily imagined exactly that way until the time for the actual image preparation for printing.

So "Frame it!", might no be sufficient outside of specific vertical market work, (a wedding or product shoot, for example), where the photographer knows his clients exact needs and is efficient about workflow.

Ansel Adams considered that making photographs was work and a good part of that was done in the darkroom and presentation. The idea that framing is extremely important is not in question. However, it's likely not as important as having enough in the frame to be able to continue to work later, if one wishes, and make final cropping according how the actual negative reacts with our original concept and the concept as it further matures.

Asher
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
With all due respect (to OPFers), is Ansel Adam a kind of a god?
One seem to have always this reference ready in the mouth? (though same sad observation with Henri Cartier-Bresson and consors).
Let's leave in our today's world.

You get much more precise results, if -once your intent is defined- (but how one could take a photograph without a previous intent?) you carefully includes/excludes what's to be in or out.
It is when you click on the shutter, with the mood and atmosphere around you and in your spirit that you feel and create an image.
Hard cropping later is not photography but making an illustration. Wooooop another can of w…!

Bbecause the camera and the chosen lens have to become part of yourself.
Cropping is denying, negative and loss.
Cropping is not a solution to a bad picture, otherwise how would you do if instead of need of a crop you would need to add something? tooooo late!
This is why, I'm against advocating for "shoot large then crop".
One must LEARN to frame correctly when shooting.

C'est cela "avoir l'œil"… and can be learned with practice… (yes I know, there are deseperate cases! LoL!)
 

Nigel Allan

Member
With all due respect (to OPFers), is Ansel Adam a kind of a god?
One seem to have always this reference ready in the mouth? (though same sad observation with Henri Cartier-Bresson and consors).
Let's leave in our today's world.

You get much more precise results, if -once your intent is defined- (but how one could take a photograph without a previous intent?) you carefully includes/excludes what's to be in or out.
It is when you click on the shutter, with the mood and atmosphere around you and in your spirit that you feel and create an image.
Hard cropping later is not photography but making an illustration. Wooooop another can of w…!

Bbecause the camera and the chosen lens have to become part of yourself.
Cropping is denying, negative and loss.
Cropping is not a solution to a bad picture, otherwise how would you do if instead of need of a crop you would need to add something? tooooo late!
This is why, I'm against advocating for "shoot large then crop".
One must LEARN to frame correctly when shooting.

C'est cela "avoir l'œil"… and can be learned with practice… (yes I know, there are deseperate cases! LoL!)

Nicolas - I like you ;)
 

Rachel Foster

New member
I wonder if this discussion might be put in a separate thread so as not to distract from Tom's work?

And to Nicolas: One of my difficulties seems to be over-thinking/over-analyzing the process and losing the big picture in the details. The answer to that is.....?
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Bonsoir Rachel,
And to Nicolas: One of my difficulties seems to be over-thinking/over-analyzing the process and losing the big picture in the details. The answer to that is.....?

get your camera o be part of you, practice! Till "things" become obvious to you.
And yes, cropping as an exercise may help you to understand more precise framing for upcoming shots.

Thinking helps, but instinct does also :)
 

Mike Shimwell

New member
Bonsoir Rachel,


get your camera o be part of you, practice! Till "things" become obvious to you.
And yes, cropping as an exercise may help you to understand more precise framing for upcoming shots.

Thinking helps, but instinct does also :)

And Rachel, have you tried using just one prime lens for a few weeks. Be disciplined and leave the zoom at home a 50 will be fine.

Mike
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Shooting to a professional workflow is not always the same as shooting landscape art.

Hi Nicolas,

We refer to the "greats" in photography, as they are standards of excellence we can look to. That's why Ken so often gives references. I always learn from these accomplished practitioners. Amazon owes Ken! Why should we not use these outstanding artists to try to understand what makes photographs work well?

Bonsoir Rachel,


get your camera o be part of you, practice! Till "things" become obvious to you.
And yes, cropping as an exercise may help you to understand more precise framing for upcoming shots.

Thinking helps, but instinct does also :)

Here, Nicolas, I agree with you entirely on this fundamental advice. Familiarity and 2cd nature reactions with one lens is key to good work and expression. For example, one 50 mm lens can serve 95% of non-sports/bird photography. I used just one lens for the first 20 years of my photography, either a 35mm lens, then I moved up to a 50mm lens. This has been my own foundation.

I exclude totally any work of experts who work in vertical markets. From this very narrow photographic interest, I like the luxury of having enough to crop later on. The 2D image at home has no sounds or smells and when the work is done, cropping has to be part of the possible work. (In vertical markets, a wedding, for example, the pictures generally can go directly to the processing lab as they are always framed for just this distinct purpose. Same with products for a catalog. I am not referring to any of these.)

To get the most out of a landscape it has to be studied, and that investment folk mostly omit. Then the shooting position has to be chosen. That alone decides most of what's included and excluded and its perspective. However, the shape of 35 mm or other film or sensors, can't possibly match all our desirable and individual concepts. I cannot fathom how, for art, the manufacturers shaping, (of the frame), must dominate in every case one's framing. For this reason, cropping must be in the range of options for printing.

Asher
 

Ken Tanaka

pro member
http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10417

Re: "Frame it!", indeed true.

It's sometimes handy guidance to realize that while painting is a medium of inclusion (i.e. the canvas is empty) photography is a medium of exclusion, at least for photography outside of a studio setting. The biggest decisions are what NOT to show. A very important point to be mindful of.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Respecting the art of cropping in the toolbox of the photographer!

Cropping is denying, negative and loss.
Cropping is not a solution to a bad picture, otherwise how would you do if instead of need of a crop you would need to add something? tooooo late!
This is why, I'm against advocating for "shoot large then crop".
One must LEARN to frame correctly when shooting.


Re: "Frame it!", indeed true.

It's sometimes handy guidance to realize that while painting is a medium of inclusion (i.e. the canvas is empty) photography is a medium of exclusion, at least for photography outside of a studio setting. The biggest decisions are what NOT to show. A very important point to be mindful of.
Ken,

Framing to include but exclude is fundamental. I'm reacting to my good friend Nicolas' insistence that the image be framed as it will be used. That, to me works well in the hands of those who produce pictures as part of their business for a vertical market. They make the picture that the client needs and then the predicted workflow follows to take the image to delivery.

As Art Sinsabaugh clearly showed, cropping can be part of the artistic landscape photographer's respected choices when he/she gets back home. For sure, he always had ideas for cropping when he exposed a huge long piece of flat film. That actual crop depended on what he brought home and how it finally resonated with his concept. I don't want to see cropping imagined here as only a way of rescuing a bad picture or even that all cropping has to be planned at the time of the shot. Cropping is a valid and respectable choice as part of our workflow to be judged on a case by case basis to maximize the way the concept is presented with the image captured.

Asher
 
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