Thinking In Black and White
June 30th, 2004 byI got to thinking tonight (I know, bad idea) and I came up with a plan. I’m going to shoot exclusively with black and white film for a while as an exercise. I’m hoping that it will get me back to my photographic roots. I’ve been thinking about how much damn time I spend looking at the on-camera LCD when I’m shooting digitally and how much I miss by doing that. If I can once again act on a little intuition and faith I might rediscover both how to shoot and how to make the process a little more complete.
When I use that damn lcd to review my images in the field I do too much editing right then and there. I recompose and reshoot based on what I saw in the lcd rather than by what my heart / gut / inspiration directs me to shoot. Some, shit most editing should be done back in the studio after you’ve had a chance to sit and stew for a couple of days. There’s a lot to be said for distance, separation anxiety, and simply a night’s sleep.
There’s also a lot to be said for paying closer attention to your subject rather than your image. You see, shooting almost exclusively digitally for the last three years has done a horrible thing to me, it’s made me forget my confidence in my gear. It’s made me forget about making it second nature. While shooting for the Monitor I knew my gear inside and out and was able to pay complete attention to my subject. Never did I waste time fiddling with my F5. Hell no. Today, now I have the same confidence in my knowledge of my gear, but I’m staying too involved with it between every single frame shot.
I’m not going to say that this LCD / image review thing is the source of all evil. But I definitely need to move away from it for a while. I also need to start shooting for light rather than color. Been a long time since I paid attention to light. I’m glad I’m working well with color, but it’s only one part of a good image. I never thought that my creative process was so delicate. Photography has a soul for me, it does things that no other media can do. I’ll go into that in way more detail sometime. For now let’s just say I’m surprised I lost site of it.