Words To Shoot By
Still trying to dig out of the worst headcold/upper respiratory infection that I’ve had in well over 15 years. I’m one of those people that it usually hits me on a Friday and I’m good to go by Monday.
Not this time. OTC drugs and OTS (on the stove) chicken soup just hasn’t knocked it out of me yet. Between my wife and I, Kleenex won’t need a stimulus package.
Anyway….I read a few blog posts this week and just wanted to share them.
First was from my friend, Jeff Lynch, over at Serious Amateur Photography. The title of his post is “Bird Photography – Never Put Your Camera Away”
The gist of his post is that, until you get home from the site or the job, keep your camera out. You never know what you’ll encounter even after you think the shoot is done.
Joe McNally writes about this in his book The Moment It Clicks. He illustrates it with a photo he took of Linus Pauling nearly on the way of driving off of his farm.
This isn’t something revolutionary, but it bears repeating. Just because you think the site has been shot out, or the job it done…notsofast. Keep it locked and loaded and you might get something really good.
The other post I came across is even closer to my heart.
Over at Digital Photography School, Marc Silber put up a really great post about the biggest secret in photography.
What is it?
Ok, I’ll spare you the link jump off of my blog (and if you’ve jumped…come back! Come back!!)
It’s…wait for it….TAKE YOUR CAMERA WITH YOU EVERYWHERE!
Yep, that’s it. You may be like me…you have a 9-5 job (or 7-8, or 8:30 to 6…you get my drift), you have a family at home, you don’t have studio, you don’t have any of the cool people from Model Mayehm swinging by, SI isn’t sending you to spring training and Nat Geo hasn’t called in awhile.
Instead, you’re trying to carve out some time to press the shutter button and rip some digital film, working on some personal projects or trying to figure out what to shoot next.
Heck, what to shoot next may be right out your car window.
In 2007, I did a Photo A Day for 365 Days project. I had my rig with me everwhere I went, even if it was just back and forth to work. The photo above was day #253 of that project. I became the king of Out the Passenger Window photography.
They weren’t all shot from the driver’s seat. Sometimes I actually got out of the car but the point is…if I didn’t have the 20D with me, I wouldn’t have gotten any of these.
I even take a small PnS with me when I cycle in the warm months…who knows what I may come across.
So, this weekend, take your rig with you – everywhere. To Home Depot. To the grocery store. To Sunday Services. To the relatives house for Sunday Dinner. See if you can find something to make a great image of. And feel free to share a link with us so that we can see what you got.
And be happy because you had your camera with you.
© Mark V. Krajnak 2009 | JerseyStyle Photography | All rights Reserved Unless otherwise noted, images captured with a Canon 20D, SanDisk digital film, finished with PS2 and Nik Software.
JerseyStyle Photography 
Mark
I agree that this is the one most important things we can do. I even got a G9 so I had no excuse for not having a decent camera with me all the time(Iphone doesn’t count). Now if I can get over being self conscience about taking it out and shooting. I like the fact that you are the ‘King of Out the Passenger Window photography’, it is a title we should all aspire to.