The Visual Palette: Defining Your Photographic Style

CHAPTER 1

The Ever-Expanding Journey

Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

—LAO TZU

Growth Is a Lifelong Process

I remember the graduation ceremony I took part in at the end of eighth grade at my school in Brooklyn, New York. By that point, I had spent many of my adolescent years just trying to figure out who I was and how best to fit in. Questions like What do I want to be? didn’t even come close to registering as important yet. I guess I was too young for such adult concerns. I was a freshly minted teenager, and I had just spent a bunch of years establishing friendships, avoiding confrontations, and simply developing my personality, which, at the time, was exceptionally introverted and timid. Still, I felt comfortable with my station at school and among my peers. In the end, the graduation ceremony came and went. One chapter closed, making way for something entirely new.

That graduation resembled a big, glowing Reset button being pressed. I went back to square one, except now I was in a much larger establishment with a much larger body of students, faculty, and staff. I was in high school. What was worse: I was a freshman in high school. Everything I knew, or thought I knew, became voided. There were new rules, social cues, and strata of people that you should, or shouldn’t, associate with. In other words, high school was the same as my previous experience on a few levels—namely, it was a school with students and teachers—but entirely different on just about every other level. So, I pushed on and learned and developed and grew. This was just another chapter in my journey and I came to welcome every trial along the way, even looking forward to the new challenges.

You can imagine the same situation occurring four years later, when I graduated from high school intact and bound for university. Perhaps you’ve been through the same, or similar, experiences. Again, it was the same basic principle as before—a school with students and teachers—and again, it was totally different. I mean, hilariously different. I welcomed it as the next part of my journey, and I took from it as much as I could.

I’m very fond of nature scenes—such as this one—that have abstract human qualities to them. As a child, I would look at this reed and think it was helping me by pointing me in the right direction to go.

Canon EOS 40D Infrared

Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM

1/15 sec. at f/2.8, ISO 100

January 1, 2011

I, Photographer

I am sharing the backstory of my life as a student to illustrate a few points as it relates to you, the photographer. The first, and probably most important, point to make is that photography absolutely is a journey with no set destination. There isn’t a geographic coordinate to plot to, a set distance of miles to travel, or a number of exposures to take. There is no master class you can complete where you’ll receive a certificate stating, You’ve Made It!

Don’t feel any despair over this. The fact that this is a never-ending journey should be something to rejoice! I first picked up a camera to use with meaningful intent in 1996. At the time of this writing—nearly 20 years later—I’m still forging ahead on my path to discover who this person, this photographer, really is. Sure, I have a solid understanding of the correlation between the aperture, ISO, and shutter speed of my camera equipment, but beyond that, I will be a student of this craft for life. To think otherwise is to resign myself to the idea that I am done growing as a photographer. And that, dear reader, is a terrifying thought to ponder.

Now, I know it’s easy for me to fling around statements like, Photography is an ever-expanding journey, so let me add some wood behind that arrow. The best way I can describe the growth of a photographer is that it is purpose-driven. By that, I mean that each of you has a purpose whenever you pick up your camera. You have an intention of orienting your camera in such a way that it will expose whatever or whomever is in front of it. That, at its most basic form, is the purpose of the photographer.

Maybe you want to become stronger at composing your photos more creatively. Maybe you’re really excited to try out that new digital processing technique that emulates old-world alternative processing. Or maybe you’re really eager to build your personal photographic brand to share with the world. Whatever the case, if you’re on this journey to grow as a photographer, whether it’s through technical skills or creative vision, then you are ready to move forward with that purpose-driven growth. The intent of this book is to play a helpful role on that journey.

This captured moment represents the lifecycle of a photo. Well before I went on my first dog sledding trip, I had an idea in my head for this photo. I researched other sledding shots and figured out how I should best set up for it. Finally, when the opportunity was right, I executed the plan I had made and the result was what I had hoped it would be.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Canon EF 70–200mm f/2.8L IS USM

1/400 sec. at f/9, ISO 200

February 4, 2011

I try to approach every shoot with the purpose of capturing the scene in a unique way, one that represents my creative vision. The photo of this tulip farm illustrates this perfectly. Instead of taking a more standard photo with my camera perched above the bulbs, I chose a position close to the ground and used a fisheye lens to add a sweeping sense of distortion. The resulting image reminds me of two rival gangs about to enter a turf war.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Canon EF 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye

1/40 sec. at f/14, ISO 100

April 30, 2011

You’ve Got to See. See?

Now that we’ve broached the topic of why I have chosen to write this book, let’s expound on it. I have a certain type of photographer in mind when I think about the contents of these pages. It’s sort of obligatory for me to lay this out because otherwise, it’d be exceptionally difficult to keep a common thread from chapter to chapter for fear of not addressing all types of photographers. The photographer I envision reading this book aspires to be more of a creative storyteller or narrator than anything else. Someone with hopes of becoming a raconteur of pictures, if you will.

But what does that mean, exactly? How does one tell a story, one that is supposedly worth a thousand words, with a photograph? Well, to start, it’s worth noting that telling your visual story requires deliberate thinking, or more to the point, deliberate looking. When a cheetah is on the hunt for a gazelle, she exerts all of her attention on that one task. That same laser-like focus is something you need to hone and refine so that when that decisive moment is about to take place—not during or after, but just before—you are ready to capture it. It has to be more than just mindlessly putting your camera to your face, pointing it at something, and firing. If you challenge yourself to treat each photograph as if it were the last one you could create before your final roll of film ran out of exposures, I suspect that being more deliberate would set in quickly. But we’ll talk more about that later in the book.

I find that the skilled street photographer exemplifies what it means to be a storyteller better than any other type of photographer. Street photographers are the documenters of life—but not just life’s monumental moments. The true street photographer knows how to weed out the flotsam of everyday meanderings from those precious moments when the subject thinks no one is looking and, consequently, acts naturally in a way that uniquely demonstrates their personality and tells a story. It could be a moment viewed through the coffee shop window, seeing a happy couple walking by holding hands, or it could be the look on a child’s face the moment he realizes the top scoop of his ice cream cone is going to fall to the ground. That ability to find the faint signal amid all the noise is what separates great street photographers from casual shooters.

My goal as a photographer is to bring the viewer into my photos and elicit some sort of emotional response. No two photographers’ stories are alike, and it’s the responsibility of each photographer to figure out the best way to convey their visual narrative.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Zeiss Planar T* 1.4/85 ZE

2.5 sec. at f/11, ISO 100

May 28, 2011

I bring up the street photographer because it is important to have an idea of what I mean when I talk about the importance of seeing to tell a story. Of course, this task does not rest solely on the shoulders of street photographers, either. Whether you’re photographing a birthday party, an old building, or a raging river, it is your duty to suss out what the main elements of your story are and how they interact with the rest of their surroundings. It is an exercise worth practicing over and over, even if you are the only person on the planet who will ever understand what that story is. This is a key element in figuring out your personal and unique photographic vision. How you see and tell a story is what gives you your flavor, and it’s your job to determine what that means. To say it more abruptly: If you don’t care about what you present within your photo, why should anyone else?

It’s Mine. My Precious.

I have a saying that I’d like to think I coined because I can’t recall ever seeing it used before. It’s more of a personal ethos than anything else. It goes like this:

Until it has been photographed by me, it hasn’t been photographed.

Now, while this may sound haughty or conceited, that isn’t my intent. To better explain this statement, let me share some more of my backstory. A few years after I first picked up a camera, I went through a wave of utter disenchantment with photography. I’d browse the Internet, photography forums, and photography magazines only to be inundated with what I told myself were way better photos than anything I could ever take. The sting was especially harsh when I saw beautiful photos taken in and around New York City, my home . . . my turf! Others had already captured all of these places, people, and things beautifully . . . lots of people! And while this sounds like a weak cop-out to me today, it had a profoundly negative impact when I was younger and less confident.

It wasn’t until I got older and gained more confidence with my photography that I realized the nature of this ever-expanding journey. Back then, I looked at the world of photography as if it were a communal jigsaw puzzle, where once someone—anyone—put a piece in play that fit, it was locked in. There would be nothing more I could contribute to that one area of the puzzle. Why bother trying to figure that piece out if someone else already had? I know, it sounds like