Flannol

Work in progress. Editing a few pictures from a shoot a few nights ago, will post the full shebang on my brand new photography website blog over the weekend (when I actually get round to creating it:) 

@ nathanielrosa.co.uk

whoooooo Amazon order finally came through this morning…

• that thing on the right is a polaroid photo album!
• 4x photo printer inks for new photo printer <3
• post it notes
• diet for a small planet book
• School of Rock DVD
• Bob Dylan ‘it’s life and life only’ radio recordings… omg this deserves to be Knighted, it’s a cd of recordings from when he had a [weekly??] slot on a radio show at a time when he was still starting out it’s the reaaaaaal deall

So yeah went to find somewhere to catch the sunset this afternoon (I was watching the sky all day and at about 4 - which i knew was 30 ish mins before the sun would start going down - the thick clouds started disappearing and I was just .. camera … car …. go) and I drove round a roundabout just out of Letchworth and glimpsed this scene when I was driving past… couldn’t get it out of my mind for the next few minutes so I turned back and rushed to get this shot because I knew (rightly) that I would have about 3 minutes before the light would be completely different… I parked up in a ditch and ran across the dual carriage way to an island in the middle and set up shop!

(looks awful until you click it, btw)

Everything important that I’ve come to learn about photography in the last five years in a two minute read.

Ive just been reading a Ken Rockwell article on the most basic fundamentals of photography - on which all other principals should lie. Things which you should learn really before even going from a mobile phone camera to point and shoot. I’ve only got a few paragraphs down but it has charged me enough to write this. There are two points which I think should line the box of any camera you can buy from a reputable manufacture.

“When composing, ignore details.”

and

“As you compose, only look at the boldest, broadest and most basic lines and shapes in your image in the most overall and general sort of way. The only thing that matters are the bold, broad strokes. It’s a photograph, not a painting, so duh, the details will take care of themselves.”

 You might have the most interesting subject in the world before you but if you don’t consider how you are portraying it you might as well just close your eyes and hope for the best. This is, for example, exactly how a tourist would take a photo of something that catches their eye: oh wow that looks nice, SNAP! Compare that picture to one taken by a photographer who has taken a few seconds to apply some vision to the photograph. The tourist could be shooting on a nine thousand dollar magnesium alloy L-series rig and the ‘photographer’ a three hundred dollar point and shoot - but who do you think will have produced a photograph that you would most like to see?

No matter how beautiful a landscape or interesting a fence might seem, If you don’t consider how you are portraying it when shooting, you will always be wanting for more when you look at your final image.

When I look through the lens I subconsciously see most things in it as objects, shapes, colours and lines - almost as if they are just solid frames that make up the matter of the world. Your subject and the elements around it (say, a model posing down an alley with bins and the curb and street markings and a beam of light hitting the back of her hair and windows and a horizon in the distance and an arch above our heads in the background…) form a structure that you might not be able to actually change physically but which you absolutely can change from within your frame.  All of these elements which make up your image - the subject, the lines and the shapes can be completely manipulated by your own movement - the way, from where, and from which angle you point your camera at them. When you realise that you actually have power to rearrange everything that you see in your frame to suit your vision for the photograph and your version of this reality, rather than just thinking that an interesting photograph is the result of the interest level of your subject, you’ll be on the road to creating amazing things.

I learned very early on to see the world through the lens rather than as the live image you see as the photographer, but as if you were looking at the finished picture as the viewer. When creating a photograph you should really see it from the perspective of the intended audience. What do THEY see, holding your print? What things will THEY notice? How will THEY interpret this? What will draw THEIR eye in? from where? and to where? In the finished image, should this line be horizontal? Should that be straight? How can I make this stand out? What will THEY feel when they notice this, or that? Okay, that’s good. Click.

Once you’ve realised this and practiced it enough it will become so integral to the way that you shoot you won’t even notice it’s happening any more. So the next time you’re taking a picture to go on Facebook of your friends outside starbucks, look at what you see live on the screen not as a live image but as the finished picture - what do you notice now? - you will never look at a camera the same again.

wantwantwantwantwantwantwantwantwantwantwantwantwant

Two recent photos :) …with cut up face from bike accident!

It’s an incredibly sad day. The man rocked the world.

May he rest in peace.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

holy shit.

Summer project finally done and shot!

(Source: Flickr / flannol)