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 p.2 #1 · BRAINS behind the Camera | |
Thanks for the comments....
By virtue of being behind the camera recording action rather than in front of it in the the action, we photographers tend to see the world from the perspective of a detached observer. That certainly has always been my personal comfort zone.
Working for Monte Zucker knocked me way-y-y-y outside of that comfort zone. I got that job by chance. I had left college after two years with an itch to become a photographer that school didn't scratch for me and in 1972 literally knocked on doors of just about every studio in Washington DC listed in the yellow pages. I worked first briefly for a photographer on Capitol Hill who shot editorial / PJ stuff for trade associations and local companies -- the type of photography I really wanted to do -- but saw an add placed for an apprentice / assistant by Monte Zucker, who at that time worked out his home in the DC suburbs running his wedding business with his wife Sandi. I'd joined PPofA in college to get some insight into the business and knew who he was from his monthly column "Candid Comments" in the PPofA magazine. I got an interview and he critiqued my portfolio of 20 carefully matted 11x14 zone system prints much in the way I critique photos here. I learned so much about effective presentation I went home that night and cut all my prints down to crop them more effectively, knowing that I couldn't replace them. I called him back, asked him to take a look, and wound up getting the job not because I was a great photographer, but because I'd shown by my action I absorbed and applied what he'd taught me in the first interview and he wouldn't be wasting his time teaching me.
Monte was the least technically-oriented photographer at his level I've ever met. More than photographic technique Monte taught me how to deal with people: he was a mega-watt extrovert who genuinely loved interacting with people and sharing the joy of an event like a wedding or bar mitzvah / bat mitzvah of a son or daughter. I learned with Monte's tutelage that if one is technically competent to the point where it was effortless and could focus full attention on the people and human behavior it is possible to deal with and control almost any situation, at least in the context of shooting a wedding. For example I learned that simply appealing to a person's vanity is a key that will unlock the door of cooperation. If you approach a group where half the backs are to the camera and say "Hi, I'm here taking photos for ...... and want to make you look your best, would you mind turning around, buttoning your coats and give me a smile?" people will usually cooperate that the fact you do engage rather than just snapping what is there results in better, more flattering photos. The more you flatter people in photos the more skilled they think you are. Just the simple thing like asking a man to button his coat for the photo, while seeming intrusive to some, is actually appreciated by the person in the photo because it makes them look better. The magic words for getting that level of cooperation are "I want to make you look your best". Learning lessons like that were priceless for a clueless, socially inept introverted 20 year-old.
That's where flattering the person as the primary goal comes from. The flip side, as there always is with cause and effect, is that in some editorial / candid / character study / fashion photos the goal isn't flattering the people. But if one understands how to flatter a person with pose and light, it will also provide the skills necessary to understand how to create the photographic body language and lighting to depict people to evoke any type of reaction in the mind of the viewer. Learning to flatter is just a starting baseline.
The problem I saw when following and teaching from the Monte/Zeltman play-book "rules" based approach, such as saying to use a "2/3 view of the face with short lighting" was that beginners, even if they learn the playbook don't have enough experience to know when to call the right play when confronted with new situation. The short-lit oblique combination is the perfect call for dark clothing on a dark background, but not a good one for a white clothing on a white background. A perfect "2/3" view with a profiled eye only works if the chin wide enough to look balanced on both sides of the mouth also. There is simply too much variation in the shape of faces for a play-book, learn patterns by rote approach to be effective. The technique playbook approach is necessary for learning the basic plays, but achieving goals has more to do with understanding the bigger picture of why the techniques work on a perceptual / emotional level and knowing when to run the right play for the situation one is confronted with. Goal setting is simply a framework for deducing what is the best play in any situation.
The best quarterbacks are the ones how can look at the defense, visualize its dynamics from where the players are lined up, and have the ability to adapt and change the play. If someone shows up in a white shirt, rather than running the dark background, short-lit oblique play you need to realize that white shirt will blitz the face perceptually and change the play to broad lighting on a white background so one of the important perceptual goals, making the front of the face contrast the most with the background and clothing as achieved. But if you don't have that goal of contrasting the FRONT of the face in your conscious mind you will be less likely to arrive at that solution, especially if your mind is focused instead on some other page in the playbook.
My approach goal / strategy / tactics approach to solving photographic problems evolved from spending most of my career managing people and running a large printing operation. Subordinates by nature will tend to sit on their butts waiting for the boss to tell them what to do. They do what is instructed, then sit on their butts waiting for further instructions. If you are the boss a huge amount of time can be spent micro-managing and then checking that people are not just sitting on their butts. That is what makes bureaucracies autocratic and dysfunctional. I discovered a long time ago that people work far more effectively and excel when they have clear goals with definable criteria for success and are then just more or less left alone to do want they do best. If you hire people with the right temperament for the job you expect them to do, give them clear goals, and then stay the heck out of their way unless they need help or guidance, the business prospers and being the boss is far simpler. One day it occurred to me to try that same goal setting approach for teaching photographic technique. Start with a simple goal: flatter the person as much as possible. Define general criteria for measuring the abstract concept of "flattering" then develop general strategies rather than specific "playbook" solutions. It forces the people to stop waiting for a playbook solution to fall in their laps and instead teaches them to build on basic perceptual concepts to figure out what the best technical solution will be with deductive reasoning rather than random trial and error.
Nearly everything I teach starts with two perceptual assumptions supported by testing in the fields of psychology and human perception: 1) If there is a face in the photo, the viewer will first try to make "eye contact" just as when meeting a stranger in person. 2) The visual system as a "hair trigger" and natural attraction to contrast in its many forms: movement, tone, color, relative sharpness, relative size, position in foreground / background, etc. If a photographer starts by realizing and accepting those two simple fundamental concepts underlying how our brains convert a pattern of contrast into the illusion that a photographic image represents a real 3D object, it is much easier to understand why many of the photographic techniques learned by rote from books or by trial and error experimentation actually work on a perceptual level. Also, more importantly in my view, it prevents the photographer from using a technique learned by rote ineffectively, and helps them to understand why things done by trial and error work or not.
Piles asked if I've considered writing a book. Most of the writing necessary for a book is already done and on my web site (click the WWW button) but I continue to find it more interesting and rewarding for me personally to interact on a forum like this because I've found people learn most easily from their own baseline. The stuff I write tends to get deep and conceptual, reflecting the way I think about things and its much easier for a person to see how a photo can be improved conceptually when its their photo taken with their current skill level which is being used as an example.
C&C is easier both for the author and critic when a series of photos with different views of the same face are presented. Then it is possible to use photo #3 as a frame of reference for how photo #1 could have been taken with a more effective angle of lighting. More often than not in photos I critique in-depth I see that a photographer who has all the basic technical skills but just hasn't developed the more important perceptual "bigger picture" of how to make all of them come together at the same time -- facial angle, lighting pattern, clothing, background -- to deliver their message most effectively. I tend to make a lot of cropping suggestions because in many cases just cropping out unnecessary distractions will make the delivery of the intended message more effective.
For the rank beginner without a clue where to start I offer a simple to understand approach as a baseline for comparing everything else they try. Conventions like short lighting or the "rule" of thirds are not commandments etched in stone, simply techniques which have been found to work perceptually over the years by trial and error. The conventions provide the "playbook". Learning to apply them in a strategic problem solving framework like the quarterback calling an audible is the different twist I try to add.
Coming to an understanding of how to translate our sub-conscious emotional reaction to the world around us into images which evoke the same reaction in the mind of the viewer is the magic of photography. The magic of still photography is when those images go beyond simply creating the illusion of reality to make things seem to move as a result of the way the brain tells the eye to move and come to rest in the photo. Understanding human perception and emotional reaction to visual stimulation, and how it differs when seeing something in person vs in a photo is the place where craft meets creativity. An interesting photo starts with an interesting subject, message or idea but getting others to share that vision requires delivering it effectively.
The most successful portrait photographers are those like Monte who do it because they love interacting with people more than they do the technical aspects. Nearly anyone can learn the technical skills -- it is after all not rocket science -- and even make a decent living at doing weddings and portraits, but if sharing the joy of the people in front of the camera isn't what motives you once the technical aspects are mastered it will become as boring as bricklaying. Working with someone at the top like Monte helped me realize in a very short time at age 22 that I had neither the temperament or motivation to really enjoy shooting portraits or weddings for the next 25 years or run my own small business. Its the running the business which is the difficult part. Long hours at low or no real pay for years to develop skills establish a reputation in a market niche before being able to make a decent living. You've got to have a really strong desire to be your own boss to be willing to do that, regardless of what you are selling. Ultimately if you are in a people oriented business but are not an extrovert who enjoys the interpersonal interaction and selling you will ultimately find that while you can make a living, it isn't fun or personally rewarding. That I think is why most photography businesses fail: most photographers by nature are detached observers (i.e. introverts) who find the people part the most difficult. The most successful small studios, especially in the wedding market are husband/wife operations in which the skills of one spouse complements the other and the business becomes part of the family life. That's more difficult to do today in a household relying on two incomes to pay the bills.
I have never been motivated to shoot for hire because I found working in a large business better suited my temperament and was more fun and remunerative. The hours and pension plan was also better. By nature I'm an introverted intuitive problem solver, skills valued in a large organization. I enjoyed planning better ways to do things and moved quickly into management where thanks in part to my experience with Monte understanding people and reading a few MBA textbooks to understand how successful organization work, I had enough insight to put people oriented extroverts in sales and marketing, organized detail oriented types in manager slots, and make sure the types who just wanted to be given clear goals and left alone to do their job from 9-5 to pay the bills (the ones who do most of the actual work in a large organization) got clear goals and were not micro-managed by their supervisors. I managed by providing the tools, setting clear goals, then trying to stay out of the way of people doing what they did best. When people are allowed the space to grow, fail without penalty and learn from the experience they prosper and actually enjoy coming to work. Finding the niche of photography which best suits one's temperament works pretty much the same way.
I hang out here because and in lighting because people are always presenting interesting problems to solve. Over in lighting they ask them from a technical / equipment frame work. Here the problems are more intangible and in the form of me looking at a photo and asking myself if it could be executed more effectively on a perceptual level: the bigger picture.
Edited on Nov 09, 2008 at 07:30 PM · View previous versions
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