In Reply to: Re: I have a "special channel.." posted by Miguel on November 04, 2004 at 23:37:32:
Get me started, Miguel. How do I go about making some of my living writing?
Photography is what I studied in college for two years. I took that course cause I wanted to learn to paint the magnificently beautiful clouds that thunder up over the lake and grain fields here in the summer. I figured that if I had a photo of them, I could learn to paint from it. I did really well in class after a bit of rebuke from one of the teachers. He had asked me a question and I didn't know the answer. So he asked me another and I didn't know that either. He said, "Good night man! What are you here for?" I went on to start studying and won the end of the year bursary, first in class accademically, and won a bunch of awards photographically.
I was good with a fill in flash, which turned out to be a blessing when writing prayer letters in the Fam. I knew that if the backlit faces of my subjects weren't filled in with light, they'd print out muddy grey on a photocopy. I also knew that direct flash and/or direct sun would produce washed out, harsh white faces on a photo copy. The trick was to backlight the subject with the sun, and then fill in the face and balance the backlighting with the flash. Many were the times that people would ask what kind of camera I had, but it wasn't the camera. It was what I was doing with the light that made all the difference. Of course, there are other ways to get good results when photographing faces like: shoot on cloudy, diffused light types of days, diffuse the light yourself by shooting next to a white wall and fill in the shadow side of the face with a highly reflective card, or sheet, or whatever (if you want to play the artist and go to all that trouble - ha. If indoors, shoot next to a window and fill in with a card, boucne the flash off the ceiling, or hike your subject up into the north, here, where the bounced light off the snow will do the filling in, or, if you can't do that, use the light bouncing off the sand while standing on the beach waiting for the message I've sent down that little channel that I have.
The kids and I just bought a digital camera for Fran. Like the garage I had hauled in the other day, I haven't used it yet. I'm just too busy at present. But Fran and I are headed south in a week or so for a vacation, so I think I'll take some of that time to learn it.
Will be back in a bit.....