September 4, 2007

• Turning an idea into reality in under two minutes

  Business coach Jim Rohn likes to tell this story about the first
  home he built for his family: Before he started construction, he would
  bring his friends to the vacant lot… and take them on a tour through
  the house. Before the house was even constructed? But how is that possible? He
  used to say, waving his arm over an empty space, “This is the three-car
  garage,” and his friends would go, “Yes, it will hold three cars.” He
  could make it real, make it alive. The idea was so strong that it was
  almost tangible. He would say, “This is the fireplace, and this is the
  kitchen with this view window.” And they would look out the window.

  

  Turning ideas into reality. It’s such a powerful concept. Pull
  that concept into art and the term becomes “artistic vision,” being
  able to take ideas kicking around in the imagination, form them into something solid in the mind’s eye, and finally turn them into
  reality. As a wedding portrait photographer, I often have to do this
  under strong time constraints, with many solid ideas pumped out within
  that time frame. (Photojournalists, on the other hand, simply have to respond and react to
  what is already happening.) But when nothing is happening, when all I
  have is the bridal party, a location, and a 4pm deadline when we have
  to be back at the reception site, the pressure is on! I often don’t
  have the luxury of ten minutes to fiddle around with different poses
  and angles and compositions in order to bag a single keeper. There is
  maybe two minutes to set up, pose, frame, and shoot, and then it’s off
  to a different spot, or a different idea.

  

  For this set of photos, I went around the place looking at
  the various rooms, trying to force my imagination to run on turbo. I
  knew I wouldn’t have much time to actually get my pictures, so I needed
  to have everything already set up in my head–the lighting, the
  exposure, the tilt of her head, the expression of the moment, the
  camera lens, even the post-processing. In a sense, the final image had to be real in my head
  before I even clicked the shutter.
  

  

  It was a rush trying to grab so many keepers within such a
  short period of time. (There are also a handful more I will have to
  post another time). Right after we were finished, I was a little
  uncertain because I only had time for about half a dozen frames of each
  idea–you photographers know that’s hardly anything!–before we ran off
  to try something else. What if I didn’t quite get everything right?
  What if she was blinking and I didn’t catch it? What if there was a
  distracting detail in the frame that I missed? What if….  But oh, it
  was great fun.

  Hope you guys enjoyed this set. =)

  

  

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  • 3:35 pm
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