I live in Ghent, one of Belgium's more touristy cities. From medieval castles to contemporary design, there's a lot to see and photograph in this city and therefore, it attracts lots of tourists, often with big, bulky and expensive cameras.
“A wise man doesn’t give the right answers, he poses the right questions.”
Occasionally, when I'm having the odd drink on one of the beautiful terraces along the river that intersects the city, I'm baffled at how some people photograph these old buildings and beautiful monuments. Often, they'll get out of the bus and walk up straight to the front of the monument - the front side being dictated by the shortest line between the bus doors and the actual monument - and squeeze the trigger. They don't kneel to get a more dramatic perspective, nor do they stroll a little further to the bridge because a bird's eye view might tell the story better. They don't walk around to see if the light is better from the other side nor do they wait until there's more or less people in the frame. They don't set up a tripod to let a slow shutter speed make the other tourists disappear. No. They just point a $2.000 camera with a $1.500 lens at the 'subject' and push the button.
They should probably read 'Making the Image', David duChemin's new Craft & Vision eBook.
Now before you think it's easy to be hard on others, I can be just as hard on myself...
Take this situation for example... It's May 18th. I'm on a Long Exposure photography weekend in New York and I've just spent 45 minutes on a train and 30 minutes schlepping my gear around to photograph New York from the Jersey side. I just had to get the iconic shot. That's the picture below. It was all that I could think of.
Fujifilm X-T1 | XF16-55mm F2.8 R LM WR | 16 mm | 340,0 sec at f - 8,0 | ISO 400
It's an OK image - blurring the water helps to focus on the city - but if Rod (the super cool Formatt Hitech Marketing Manager) hadn't pointed me to this less stereoptypical, but lighting-wise much better view right behind me, I'd probably still be staring at the Manhattan skyline.
Fujifilm X-T1 | XF16-55mm F2.8 R LM WR | 16 mm | 240,0 sec at f - 8,0 | ISO 200
I should definitely read 'Making the Image'.
Because, low and behold, what's there at page 60? Exactly the question I should have asked myself on May 18th but I didn't. And yet, I had all the time in the world because I was doing an almost six minute exposure!
I'm an experienced photographer (at least I like to think I am). I know my f-stops from my ISOs and my filter threads from my Wattseconds. But, like many other photographers, I often forget the essentials. I'll be sucked in by the technicality of things that I forget to ask the basic questions.
And those basic questions is what 'Making the Image' is all about: the ones you should ask yourself in the field when you're making a photograph that pretends to be more than a snapshot. The book poses 35 of them in two broad categories: 'Question the Scene' and 'Question the Process'. The questions themselves are deceptively simple: 'Shapes or details?' , 'Can I move to change the lines?' or, indeed, 'What's behind me?' Yet, they're probably as important as your camera manual is - actually more important because as we all know, most camera manuals suck big time anyway.
True to the Craft & Vision tradition, you get a lot of value for your money, as this eBook really is a bundle containing:
The little companion eBook that you can put on your phone is as simple as it is effective: just flip through a couple of random questions for each photo you're about to make and your images will improve. Pretty soon, you'll be asking these questions automatically, in your head!
- The actual eBook, 158 pages exploring each of the 35 questions in greater detail, illustrated by photos that help make the point;
- A smaller companion eBook to store on your phone, which just contains the questions, boldly formatted so you can see them clearly and you can flick through them on your phone quickly. My recommendation: read the book once, so you get the full meaning of the questions and then, before a shoot, randomly pick a couple of questions from the list and you'll walk home with a stronger image;
- A 45 minute companion video that also explores these concepts in more detail.
'Making the Image' is one of those eBooks that should be bundled with every new camera. It doesn't tell you how to press the shutter - plenty of books do that already. Instead, it gives you the questions you should ask yourself before you press the shutter. It's not about stopping down your lens, but stopping down yourself and thinking before you shoot.
The book doesn't give the answers nor does it have to: it's the scene in front of you that will give you those.
The 'Making the Image' bundle is available here and costs $25 + tax (only $20 during launch week), which is less than the price of a memory card, and it will make sure that that memory card will have better pictures on it. Fewer maybe, but definitely better.
But hey, you don't have to take my word for it, here's someone who's much more eloquent than I am: David duChemin himself! Listen to what he has to say about 'Making the Image':
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