rlketcham.com
I drive past this place at the very head of Discovery Bay everytime I go to Port Townsend. It hasn’t been open for years, but used to be a great place to explore for fairly odd treasures. It always seemed to catch my eye but I could never quite visualize how I would photograph it. Last week I finally took my own advice and went to take a closer look. Sun was all wrong, it was also 18 degrees out so I drove the 6 miles home and started to stew on it. Finally looked up the exact spot on Google Earth and tried to figure out when the light would be better. Went back made a few images of this and some other old buildings that are next to it. I will now be going back there a lot at different times of the day til I get the image I see in my head. I may even have to drag the lights out for this.
Point is I see the image I want a lot of the time before I try to make it. I have looked at that spot for years with a vague feeling about what I wanted to say and it finally is bubbling up so bad I have to get it out. Previsualize and have something to say in mind first is a help to me, and a lot of things get into the notebook for rethink until I just have to get them out. I keep a note book of things I see and ideas that pop into my head for images and then revise them until I just have to see how they will look in the viewfinder. The notebook is never very far from me and is continually updated and added to. I can end up laying awake in the night for hours seeing images I want to make until I decide to just get the idea down on paper so it will keep til daylight.
Just wondering if others wake up in the night or morning with an image they have to make that day or have images in their head that just won’t go away until it is on film?
I guess I’m not much of a walk around and take pictures kind of guy, I do walk around and take ideas for pictures though. Yes the occasional image comes out of the walking around but I still end up thinking about it and going back a lot to make something I saw in my head. That ‘decisive moment’ for me is more often one I put together than observe.
Of course it helps if the weather cooperates when I get this way.
Guess you can call me a walk-around guy, seems to be a way I function a lot. That does not mean I don’t have any images roaming around in my head, I do. I also like to let them rise up from within, like yeast in dough. I have experienced places that catch my eye for images, especially if they are something I pass by on a regular basis, One thing about my work and all the travel is the opportunities I have to return to some places for another attempt at getting the images I want. I’ve not woken up at night with visions but I do come up with ideas for images and then create them.
I like both images and will look forward to seeing more images of what the building have to say to you?
What I like about Ray is that he doesn’t just invite us over to view his photos, he instructs us to put on our thinking caps and actually THINK!! Tough cooking this RLK.
I wiggle and waggle all sorts of ways. See things, write things down (not to often though). Having a camera with me helps a lot. I have noticed things at noon, then gone back in the evening or morning for the better light. Blogs like this inspire me to try different things. But yeah, previsualization is there to some degree for me too. Then it’s a matter of trying to execute.
First thing first. Wonderful images. The light reflections in the second are spectacular, like a painting in a way. Love it.
Then, to the visualisation matter. I do walk around with images in my head. I have been wearing some ideas for images for years. I shoot on the location sometimes, but that’s merely practising while waiting for the image to appear in my head. It’s like a darkroom, in that matter. In may ways, when I think about it…
But I seldom experience that images comes to me, for instance while falling asleep or for that sake, in the middle of the night, when coming back from deep sleep. No, these things evolve slowly in me.
These images just knocked me out . Beautiful D700? Second, I am decidedly a walk-around guy. I plan trips to specific places, but when I get there, I just wander. I don’t know whether that’s good or bad, however.