The following quote came up in a conversation with a friend, John Benzik, yesterday; “In an almost classical sense, U2′s guitarist has turned limitations to his advantage, using simple techniques and abundant imagination to produce one of the freshest styles in years.” This is an excerpt from Guitar Player Magazine, 1985 interview with Edge, guitarist for U2.
This quote made me think a great deal about how we see limitations, how we let them affect our photography work, our career work and our life work. One could invoke several long-standing cliches that capture the same sentiment: “take lemons and turn them into lemonade” or “play the hand you’re dealt,” etc. It also got me thinking about a topic often discussed in art and I’ve written about here before; finding your voice. The quote really brought a lot together for me.
My voice for black and white landscape photography is, for the most part, shaped by limitations. What are those limitations? The most significant is that I love shooting over water and Lake Superior, but I don’t live near the lake so I can’t take advantage of ideal conditions. I go to Lake Superior when I can and shoot the hand that Mother Nature deals to me. If I want to shoot, then I often find myself seeing the landscape differently, pushing my technical creativity to capture a mood of the landscape in the specific conditions. My compositions often get distilled into very simple messages and ideas in an effort to manage what I see as endless possibilities for competing/busy subject matter. Does this result in a fresh look at the Lake Superior landscape? I believe so. This voice routinely shows up in other landscape work as well.
You should train yourself to work with what’s given to you, not to shy away from it to wait for better circumstances. Its this willingness to push yourself in moments that are uncomfortable or less than ideal, to just play with the subject at hand, that helps to shape your voice and style. This is true of today’s image from Lake Superior.
I’m not fully satisfied with the overall composition of this image, but I’ll revisit it in different conditions soon and see if I can get a result I like even more.
These limitations are a sturdy force for positive growth and creation as a fine art photographer, musician or in any aspect of our lives. What limitations do you have in your photography? Have you figured out how to leverage them to your advantage?
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4 Comments
Alec,
I am not sure whether I agree with the overall premises, that B/W photography imposes limits on the photographer and if it does, it certainly is a good think and not a bad one.
I think, it actually challenges the photographer more. Imagination has to be much bigger and more abstract. These days, we judge quality, utility and overall goodness of a product or even service by the amount of features a product/service has. The truth of the matter is that the majority of users of pretty much any product barely use more than 10% (I am making this up, of course) of what the product has in features.
A few examples, how many people can drive their sports car to the limits the car was actually designed for? A little closer to home, how many people think that they use more than 50% of all the features that Photoshop offers? The iPod classic comes with 2 games, how many people have ever played them or do so on a regular basis?
There is, I think, a common misconception, that quantity equals quality, when these are really two completely different criteria. Having 16.7 million color does no make for a great picture, having an artistic vision and imagination of what an image could be, does however.
It’s like the kids with the $200 sneakers but is unable to do a simple lay-up dribble the ball.
B/W photography challenges us to make the effort to understand the fundamentals and practice them constantly, because masking lack of technical proficiency and imaginative vision is much harder in b/w, than it is in color.
Markus, exit to the left from the soap box !-)
Markus,
There is no one I’d rather see on a soapbox! Thanks for the comments, but unfortunately you’ve stated my premise incorrectly and I’ll take responsibility for correcting this.
“I am not sure whether I agree with the overall premises, that B/W photography imposes limits on the photographer and if it does, it certainly is a good think and not a bad one.”
My premise is NOT B&W = Limitations
It is Limitations can = Fresh view/voice/new perspectives
Please read the post slowly, again. I did not list B&W as a limitation, but rather listed limitations that inform my black and white photography. Perhaps this changes where you stand relative to your soapbox!
I think you’ll see you’re close to making my argument several times in your examples, not disagreeing with it.
Cheers,
Alec
Hi Alec,
Interesting post and one that I can certainly relate to. The truth is, virtually all of us (speaking of landscape photographers specifically) deal with limitations of one sort or another on a daily basis. Largely it becomes a question of how we handle them and incorporate said limitations into our creative process. This said, photographers have a really bad habit of focusing on technical limitations (depth of field, dynamic range, resolution, etc). As a result, it oftentimes seems to me that the “meat” of landscape photography (the image!) gets rather muddled in translation and we end up seeing attempt after attempt at the same photograph.
Like you, virtually all photographers have time restraints, professional or amateur. You’re not alone there, trust me. Yet somewhere in the midst of all of the necessary technical rubbish, time issues and realities of the “real world”, image making has to take place. Largely it becomes a challenge of vision and commitment to that vision. After all, our images are not defined so much by our limitations as by what we do within the construct of those limitations.
On one final note, your comment, “You should train yourself to work with what’s given to you, not to shy away from it to wait for better circumstances”, stuck a chord with me. On one hand I fully agree, but on the other hand I think the statement needs a bit more clarification. In my opinion, it’s not so much that one should never wait for “better circumstances”, there’s times where one clearly should. Rather, I would argue that it becomes a process of making intelligent image making decisions based on the given conditions. There’s almost always images to be made, but it’s not always time to make a specific envisioned image, if that makes sense. It pays to be picky…really picky.
Best regards.
Hi Joel,
Thank you for your comments. Very much appreciated and spot on. THANK YOU.
Cheers,
Alec