A couple of weeks ago when I gave the Blog a Makeover, I made a commitment to myself, that I would rediscover my passion for photography…
(This commitment is here, Underneath the Big Photo, if you haven’t seen it)
Of course I never really stopped photographing people, places and events, but it has become a more automated process. Preoccupation with a whole heap of other stuff going on in my life distracted me from the really creative techniques that I have used in the past.
The kind of photography I want to reconnect with, is the deeper, more thoughtful process, that takes a great deal of imagination, and involves lots of visualisation before I even touch a camera.
Commercial assignments used to really excite me. A detailed Client brief would kickstart the process of visualising a finished image in remarkable detail. I would then turn those mental images into rough sketches, to share with the client, then once on location, working with an Art Director or similar, I would reproduce in film, or in more recent times, an image on a Computer screen that matched my imagined photo. I remember working with German Engineering firm Bosch to produce a series of large scale posters of some fairly heavy duty industrial equipment. The brief was simple, “Make Our Products look like Art.” We were both thrilled with the results, that went on to be printed and shared with Bosch partners worldwide.
Despite the fact that I am clinging on to some very old, but very special, manual focus lenses, I have made the switch to modern camera systems. These Digital systems lend themselves towards a very high volume approach to landing a great image. The Cameras are fast, flexible, and with a pocket full of large capacity memory cards, you can, if you wish, happily shoot thousands of images machine gun style pausing only briefly to insert a fresh memory device.
My desire to switch back to a more methodical approach, is going to be helped along by a Behemoth of a Camera, that needs good old fashioned 120 Roll Film to capture the image. The size of the negative is so enormous, it will only fit 8 shots per roll. There is one other thing I really love about this camera. It has to be said, that it’s sheer bulk makes my hands look a little more dainty than they really are.
For me this is another real step away from the very real trauma of the last couple of years, and into a space where once again I have the mental capacity to take an image from my imagination and put it onto Film.
All I need now is some inspiration………
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