Joe's Jottings
Jottings Number 45, by Joe Podolsky:
From: uunet!HP-PaloAlto-om4.om.hp.com!JOE_PODOLSKY
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 95 16:01:36 -0800
Subject: Photography Lessons
Dewitt Jones has been a _National Geographic_ photographer for
20 years and also writes a column for _Outdoor Photographer_
magazine. I enjoy his columns because they are thoughtful as
well as technical, exploring why he takes his pictures as well
as how. So, when I heard he was giving a day long seminar last
Saturday in Santa Clara, I signed up.
What I learned that day far exceeded my expectations, even
though I was in a stuffy ballroom with 500 other people,
surrounded by vendors who peddled cameras, accessories, and
tours at all the breaks. Jones has apparently done some real
soul searching, so we got a technology sandwich on motivational
bread, an hour of inspiration at the beginning and at the end
with six hours of filters and lenses and exposure and equipment
in between. He also does the motivational talks as a standalone
gig, and I bought one of his hour long video tapes ("Clear
Vision," $40 available from Great Speakers!, 1-800-798-1081).
His tone is sometimes a little preachy for my taste, and his
advice, out of context, sounds like platitudes. But he uses
photography as a metaphor for work, illustrating his points with
his own images, and we in the audience were riveted.
He loves his work, he says, because it gives him the opportunity
to make something extraordinary out of the ordinary, to fall in
love with the world. He tells us to have passion about what we
do. He was taught in his early schooling that there was "life"
and there was "art," that they were irrevocably separate. He
feels that we all can do better, that we can make our life our
art. He wants us to believe that there are beautiful
landscapes, populated by wonderful people. If we believe that
they are there, they will be.
Believing is seeing. We first must have our vision, our values
and principles. But, he says, that vision without technique is
blind and mute. We must use our skills, our experience, and our
education to articulate that vision, to turn it into reality.
He wants us to focus ourselves before we focus our cameras, to
enhance what excites us and to get rid of everything else. He
illustrated this point with a wonderful photograph of Yosemite
Falls, with white water, dark sky and purple rock, a glorious
shot that I'd have been proud to call mine, one that would have
won awards at any weekend wine and art show. But, he said, that
what he really valued in that scene was a tree silhouetted at
the bottom against the Falls, so he took out his really long
telephoto lens and filled the frame with just the tree against
the torrent. The entire audience gasped at the power of
picture. What had been a postcard was transformed into personal
statement.
Perhaps his strongest message is one that celebrates diversity.
He said over and over again that there are lots of "right
answers," and that we should never be satisfied with just one.
He showed us dozens of pictures that were perfectly fine, but he
kept trying different angles, different lenses, different
filters until he felt that he really understood and captured
what was important for him in the scene. He kept challenging
himself to focus and to simplify, to listen to what his
subjects, be they people or nature, are saying, to use his
technique to transmit what he hears through his film to others.
He believes that, until we are satisfied, we have to keep
trying, learning from failures. We lose 100% of the shots we
don't take.
Sometimes, Jones says he loses his energy, he becomes bored with
his work, with his life. He feels blocked and frustrated. For
this, he has two prescriptions. The first is humor,
foolishness. Do something silly. Put on a funny outfit, take a
ridiculous picture, loosen up, lighten up ... until the energy
returns.
And his other medicine is perhaps more powerful. He strongly
believes in the redeeming power of random acts of kindness, of
putting money in someone's expired parking meter, of giving a
flower to a stranger on the street, of picking up a sticky wad
of gum from the sidewalk.
Jones told of a doctor who recommended that, for good health,
all his patients practice the "one breath meditation," to
breathe it all in ... and to let it all out, with conscious
awareness.
We have lots of technology. But do we have vision? Do we keep
searching for the many right answers? Do we deal with our
frustrations with humor and with random acts of kindness? Do we
breathe it all in, and let it all out? Do we use our systems to
transform the ordinary into the extraordinary, the mundane into
the exciting?
I guess I breathed in a lot last Saturday. Some of it even had
to do with photography. And this is a small part of letting it
out.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving,
Joe