Mar 1, 2008, 17:31
As I mentioned in a thread in General Talk, I wanted to create a small series of photographs but was suffering from a lack of material. I decided to make it into a "speed project" and see what happened.
My goal was to create a series of photographs taken at the same location. I wasn't expecting to creating a narrative or developing theme, but simply wring as many decent photos as possible out of a decidedly drab location. I chose the underside of an elevated expressway because it's somewhere I've photographed in the past, it's reasonably easy to get to, and it's private. I kept my equipment simple with just my E-3, 35-100 lens, and flash with TTL cable. The goal was to produce 24 prints, and I had decided that I would keep them all at the native aspect ratio, all would be framed horizontally, and spend as little time post-processing as possible. They didn't all need to be art, but I was trying for interesting and varied.
I take photographs the same way I write -- slowly and repetitively. I can easily spend an hour and produce only five or six distinct compositions, even though I'll have taken dozens and dozens of photographs. My "keeper" rate is generally about 6%. So part of the goal was to force myself to get good results quickly and move on. One method that I used was to automatically bracket all of my non-flash photographs, and part of it was simply moving on after I'd tried one or two compositions.
I did miss one or two photos that I wish I had framed differently, but it was the 3EV bracketing that gave me the biggest surprise. As I was shooting in shadows under a bright overcast sky, there was no hope of recording the entire tonal range of the scene. Reviewing the photos, I found that I usually preferred the overexposed images, both because they avoided the hardest shadows, and I enjoyed the 'snapshot' quality of skylined details being lost. And sometimes the effect was quite pleasing.
After a couple of editing passes, I had 50 possible candidate photos, which I narrowed down to a final 24 the next morning. They were printed as 3.5"x4.6" prints on 4x6 paper, giving nice wide boarders, and are now happily sitting in their book. This speed project was unlike any way that I've shot before; just knowing what the final output would be made a huge difference to how I photographed the series. The full series, in the portfolio sequence, is on-line here:
Expressway (speed project)
My goal was to create a series of photographs taken at the same location. I wasn't expecting to creating a narrative or developing theme, but simply wring as many decent photos as possible out of a decidedly drab location. I chose the underside of an elevated expressway because it's somewhere I've photographed in the past, it's reasonably easy to get to, and it's private. I kept my equipment simple with just my E-3, 35-100 lens, and flash with TTL cable. The goal was to produce 24 prints, and I had decided that I would keep them all at the native aspect ratio, all would be framed horizontally, and spend as little time post-processing as possible. They didn't all need to be art, but I was trying for interesting and varied.
I take photographs the same way I write -- slowly and repetitively. I can easily spend an hour and produce only five or six distinct compositions, even though I'll have taken dozens and dozens of photographs. My "keeper" rate is generally about 6%. So part of the goal was to force myself to get good results quickly and move on. One method that I used was to automatically bracket all of my non-flash photographs, and part of it was simply moving on after I'd tried one or two compositions.
I did miss one or two photos that I wish I had framed differently, but it was the 3EV bracketing that gave me the biggest surprise. As I was shooting in shadows under a bright overcast sky, there was no hope of recording the entire tonal range of the scene. Reviewing the photos, I found that I usually preferred the overexposed images, both because they avoided the hardest shadows, and I enjoyed the 'snapshot' quality of skylined details being lost. And sometimes the effect was quite pleasing.
After a couple of editing passes, I had 50 possible candidate photos, which I narrowed down to a final 24 the next morning. They were printed as 3.5"x4.6" prints on 4x6 paper, giving nice wide boarders, and are now happily sitting in their book. This speed project was unlike any way that I've shot before; just knowing what the final output would be made a huge difference to how I photographed the series. The full series, in the portfolio sequence, is on-line here:
Expressway (speed project)
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