Jump to content

can you tell the future?


mattalofs

Recommended Posts

What I'm thinking about lately is how one see's a truly

photographic moment right before it happens, and has the

camera ready not by virtue of luck, but by virtue of how well we

understand our fellow human beings.

 

With people I know well, I can often tell when they are going to

laugh/smaile/do something incrediblyl stupid, and I can be ready

to take a shot right then. So my question is, how do we transfer

this to people that we don't know so well?

 

Without being creepy, how does one hunt a photograph? How

does one reach a level of understanding of their subject that

allows you to see a couple of seconds into the future? The

question I suppose assumes that most human behavior is

predictable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree with Grant - being ready is the key. And I just wrote on the previous thread

 

[there is a bit of an aspect of "hunting" - seeing a potential scene unfold some seconds or infrequently minutes beforehand, and getting ready to capture it something that may only be there a split second. And not even knowing exactly what it will be.]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You need to be sensitive to human interaction. A lot of it is predictable. You can sense when people will linger and when they're going to be out of there. How they might react to you. What they'll do next. It's not prediction the future as predicting the present.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well I guess that brings up another related question; apart from

basic technical preconditions (camera focused, set for proper,

exposure), what is there to being ready. How much of being

ready is psychological. If Grant is right, and I'm not saying he

isn't, how much of photography is being open to the moment and

how much is preparation, and to bring it back to the original

question, how much of preparation is a thorough understanding

of our fellow human beings. I'm not looking for some sort of

formula, but I'm curious about how our social skills impact our

photographic skills, and if there are ways to improve our social

skills that would make us better photographers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Human behavior is quite predictable. You can tell at least what people are likely to do, even if you can't be certain, and that's enough to be ready. All it takes is a good understanding of human behavior and close observation.

 

Most of us are human and already have a pretty good understanding of human behavior. It's the close observation that usually ends up being the problem for me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

its a combination of a lot of things. Predictable......well, yeah, in the same way that I can predict that tomorrow will come. Will I see it?......who knows...will you? wil it be raining? will it be sunshine?

 

so, it is predictable that a person on the street will react to a giving stimulus....How they will react is not so easy. Thats the part of the equation that you have to be open to. Thats the part that in an instance you have to find other things to work with that.

 

you have to live the moment and be ready to press the button. The "telling the future" is maybe 1/2 second in the future, and it is only in as much as SOMETHING will happen.........not WHAT will happen. Or even if that something is even remotely interesting.........or even if you can see enough of the surrounding stuff and background to also catch that doing something.......hopefully relating to the subject...coi (center of interest)

 

All that....and composition, exposure, blur or lack of....all have to work together. Not that hard...until you realize fully that ALL of that is happenning in less than a second.........and you have to piece it all together in that amount of time.

 

So, ill say it right now........you can not "think" thru that process. You just have to live it. Hate to use this example...but it so true........its like riding a bicycle. Probably one of the single most dificult things a young child can try to learn how to do. And yet, once having learned it..........it never becomes a problem again....50 years later, you can still hop on a bike and go, even if you haven't ridden one in 10 years.

 

But, the practice you had to go thru to be able to do that when you were first learning. And when you did learn.....was'nt it just kind of all of a sudden..........it all just worked?! When mom or dad let go of the back of the bike one day, and you didnt realize it until they were 100 feet behind you..................you got it!

 

Thats the way street photography is. Trying to think your way thru it dont work. Oh a few preparatory things can be learned......a little knowledge of body language helps too. But it is inordinant amounts of practice that really pay off. hundreds and hundreds of exposures. week end after week end of shooting. And then one day, you fall into the zone.........you even know youre there when it happens.........You know you found the rythmn. And it is a rythmn, and the beat is life itself, and the rythmn is you stepping thru it all, with that shutter sound being the accents.

 

a little flowery explanation, but..........its kinda where it is for me

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Anticipate.. something.... but the most interesting things are usually unpredictable. If you can fully predict them there's really no point to it because you already know it. Street photography is an exploration. A large part of the point of it is to discover and reveal something you didn't already know. You prepare, you seek, but as an old lyric says, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans". It's a sense, like a dog sniffing, that you need. Even then it doesn't always work. Special situations are relatively rare, that's why the more you're out there and open, the more can happen.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here are some practical ideas with illustrations from my experience:<br><br><a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/1789644&size=lg" target="new">This first picture</a> is of some children playing during a street fair. They were running in a circle and emergening each time from a short passage. I parked myself about 12 feet away and shot each time as one of them emerged. I shot from the hip so as to not draw their attention to me, which might have interrupted their game. So, this was a case where predicting action was pretty easy and I think that is often the case with children's play activities.<br><br><a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/1789561&size=lg" target="new">This second picture</a> was taken at the same street fair. The important elements in the technique here were hip shooting, walking slowly to allow careful observation, and looking far enough ahead to pick out interesting subjects and begin preparing the composition in my head while waiting for the action to peak.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whats with the childish backlash towards AZ? Need a nap?

 

 

<P> Since I've picked up photography theres been lots of times where I'll think "Oh, wheres my camera this is going to be good". I know your question is probably geared towards the people who've been doing this 20 or 30 years; but I did want to comment that I think when you're always waiting for a great picture ( maybe unconciously at times) your perceptions seem to pick up a bit. Body language and facial expressions are more telling. "Oh, he's going to give that person a hug" "Oh, she's going to slap him" And you reach for your camera. I think it must get easier to ignore this when you've done done it for a long time; but I bet you can never shut it off completley.

 

<P> So, ultimatley like I said I think it's an increased awareness; a heightened sense of perception; knowing whats going on around you, in case it would prove film worthy, where previously you wouldn't have even cared.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...