MAY 9, 2020

Unusual photographs for unusual times…

Part of my practice through this time will be to share with you - through a series of posts - photographs that are a bit…unusual. Ones that came to me unexpectedly, as it were. I will call these posts Meeting the Unexpected.

LIT WATERS

I was photographing along the waters of Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong. It was the end of a long day and I had already been photographing cityscapes from many vantages all around the island. The lack of sleep, jet-lag, and sore feet from walking 10+ miles a day were all leading to a bit of a grumpy mood. I still needed to walk a few miles to get to the escalators and make my way back to my apartment in mid-levels. But first, I knew I wanted to end the night on a high note and to wake up feeling good and ready to go the following day.

It was time to play and get funky with it!

Sometimes the best thing a photographer can do is to bring an element of play into the work and experiment way outside the box of “normal”. This is a common practice for me whenever I become stumped, creatively blocked in some way, or just need to bust out of a funk.

I find that good questions lead to good answers - and lack of direction is often due to a lack of questioning. I slowed down and settled the mind, focused my attention on the present moment and asked myself, “What is most intriguing about this environment right now? Where does my attention naturally want to go?” By asking these simple questions, I immediately found my attention was strongly drawn to the city lights dancing on the surface of the black waters.

With a spirit of play, I kept the tripod folded up and instead opted to handhold photograph the lit waters using 4 second long exposures. I found that I could pan and sway and strategically move the camera during the 4 second exposures to render more compelling results. Without hardly moving my feet and after only 30 minutes of shooting, I found my mood had completely changed and I was now feeling quite sparked and fueled for the walk back to the apartment. I could retire for the night feeling good.

As I have mentioned before in Meeting the Unexpected - these were not shot with a viewer in mind or a place in my portfolios set aside for them. These were destined to never be seen, if not for these posts and the current inspiration to share them. The photographic process is not about going out into the world to capture something for the viewer. If we pursue photographs with this mindset, we will fail to make anything personal and expressive and likely end up with attractive eye-candy, at best. Instead, photographers must use the process to better know themselves and to better understand their place in this world. Sometimes, the best thing to do is to not take things too serious, relax, and play!

VIEW THE OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES: