I uploaded the gallery from the midnight factory shift photo story. As I mentioned a few days ago, I really wanted to treat it like a film shoot. I left the photos unseen for several days, trying to break my LCD habit and to start thinking more when actually taking the photos.
Also, when processing them, I honored my initial decision to make them black and white, as if I had chosen a roll of film. Meaning, I made one black and white conversion and applied it to all of them.
This is only reflective of 20 minutes of shooting, mostly waiting around for the rush right after midnight on only one night, so the story is quite undeveloped. Still, it was a good exercise for my storytelling. I want to seek out the stories around me and tell some of them in photos.
And one last comment. I am not too fond of my framing in a couple of these shots. I realize I really need to think more about framing and how it compliments the story. What I include and exclude can radically change the story. I have gotten into a quicky framing mentality, and that is fine, but there needs to be more thought in the process to capture more of the story.
Enjoy Graveyard Shift.
I don’t understand the point and making it a “film shoot”. Everything has moved to digital and film is too expensive. On a film shoot you just have to hope the picture came out right, with digital you actually get to see what you did and if you messed up there is a larger possibility that you could catch the shot again. Just seems terribly inefficient. Help me understand.
Oops. I must not have written that clearly. What I mean is this. I used my digital camera, but pretended it was film and I approached the shoot as if it were film. So, I wanted to “pick my film”, which means, I would chose beforehand to process them to black and white and I would stick to one pre-determined film speed…just like buying a roll of film. Then, just to build a little tension, I did not look at them for a few days, even though they were sitting in my camera/laptop, as if I had to wait to see the results.
Yes, a wonderful benefit to digital is the ability to change and adjust while shooting. We “chimp” the LCD and adjust. That is good and bad. It also makes us sloppy. The more sloppy we get, the more chances we will miss the great shots. Film forced us to think, which increased our chances of nailing the “decisive moments”.
No sorry I was just using your wording, I didn’t think you were using real film since you said you didn’t look at your LCD. I just don’t understand what benefit it has to not look at the LCD. I don’t have much extra time so if I’m shooting I’m actually wanting to get something good and not just hope it came out ok.
I really believe that there are benefits to the old way of processing photography. Zoning is one of my favorites. But as a whole I don’t see the benefits of thinking film. Wouldn’t it be more beneficial to learn to use the camera you have? Maybe it’s just because it’s coming from someone who doesn’t shoot much.
I see where you are coming from. It sounds like, I own this sweet new Mercedes, but I drive my 70s clunker. If we have a great tool, why not use it?
Digital cameras have given us many very helpful aids to our photography. Some of those aids can make us lazy though, and when that laziness is in areas core to the discipline of photography, we need to be careful. I love typing, but now, writing is slow and literally painful. That could be a problem.
I think it all boils down to catching that moment. If the moment happens, and my reflexes were too slow to nail it, there is no time to check the LCD and see if there were any problems, change settings, and re-shoot. I still use my LCD, but I do not want to be dependent on it to take properly exposed photos.