{"id":2668,"date":"2014-07-06T15:00:10","date_gmt":"2014-07-06T20:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/?p=2668"},"modified":"2014-07-28T09:42:13","modified_gmt":"2014-07-28T14:42:13","slug":"changing-your-way-of-seeing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/?p=2668","title":{"rendered":"Changing Your Way of Seeing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> \"\"\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

My books and my classes give me a reason to keep doing this blog. If you\u2019re in Indiana I hope you\u2019ll consider taking my Portfolio Workshop<\/a>. You can see a little more information about this workshop if you check out this blog post<\/a> . I\u2019ve listed my BetterPhoto classes at the end of this post. Thanks so much for your attention.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Frame<\/a><\/p>\n

I see as a photographer, constantly breaking the world into still images. I think that most people who spend a big chunk of life doing photography see a little differently from people who aren\u2019t involved in static art forms. I\u2019ll look at something and think: \u201cI\u2019d shoot that, maybe a little warmer and with more contrast\u201d or maybe: \u201cThat was a really great instant\u201d and: \u201cLook at that design.\u201d I think this is part of being a good photographer. I once heard a guy say that he always adjusted a TV to look like Kodachrome, since that was the way he saw the world. Of course this illustrates one of the problems with this way of seeing: you start to see everything the same way. I\u2019ve been known to walk by an interesting subject while thinking that\u2019s not the kind of shot I do. I often make my shots warmer, even my black and white shots, but I can\u2019t remember the last time I made a shot cooler.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Frame<\/a><\/p>\n

So I\u2019m always looking for ways to break out of my way of seeing. I know that many people want to have a style, but not me. I\u2019m a photographer, not a painter, so I can be prolific and do work that\u2019s new. I want to push myself to see in different ways. One of the ways I do this is to work with different tools: cameras, lenses and software. I just got a Horizon Perfekt, which is really helping me to see differently. This camera shoots a 120\u00ba image, horizontally anyway. It\u2019s really different from other wide-angle images because the lens actually moves during the shot.\"Frame<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I shot with a Koni-Omega camera last week. It\u2019s a medium format film camera. This is a manual camera with range finder. Shooting it reminded me of the acronym FAST: Focus, Aperture, Shutter and Think. I think that my digital camera has allowed me to get a little sloppy with technique. Of course shooting with a new camera is not the only way to open yourself to new ways of seeing, but it can be fun as well as enlightening.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Frame<\/a><\/p>\n

I got an 11X14 camera recently, but I haven\u2019t shot with it yet. I still have to build a lens board and order some film, but it should be a quite an experience. Whenever you work with a very large camera the difficulties increase and so does the expense. But if 11X14 is anything like 8X10 getting a good result will be really fun. Sometimes just getting a good exposure can make you feel great. There\u2019s another practice tool I want to work with. I have an old Spiratone 400 mm f6.3 lens. I\u2019ve really only used it a couple of times because I\u2019m more interested in wide-angle lenses. But in an effort to expand my vision I\u2019m going to put in on the digital camera and start shooting. Who knows how that will affect my seeing? By the way I\u2019ve included a couple of panoramas from the Horizon camera and one more from the Koni-Omega. Also I recently updated my website so you can get an idea of how I\u2019m seeing now. Please check it out at www.siskinphoto.com<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course there are other ways of expanding your seeing, like taking a BetterPhoto course. Here are the three I teach, perhaps you\u2019d like to take another one or share them with a friend.
\nAn Introduction to Photographic Lighting
\n<\/a>Portrait Lighting on Location and in the Studio
\n<\/a>Getting Started in Commercial Photography
\n<\/a><\/span><\/span>One other note about BetterPhoto: I’ve been in the habit of sending out a private note to all my former students at BetterPhoto (Almost a thousand people!) each month. There’s some sort of hang up in the e-mail system for thst so, for a while anyway, I won’t be sending that note. I hope no one is too disappointed.
\nThanks,\u00a0 John <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I see as a photographer, constantly breaking the world into still images. I think that most people who spend a big chunk of life doing photography see a little differently from people who aren\u2019t involved in static art forms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4,18,6,14,16,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2668"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2668"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2696,"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2668\/revisions\/2696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}