Brainstorm 0.11
Whoa, are we counting version numbers too fast? Don’t worry I’ll have a brainstorm 0.02 and probably a 0.03. But In today’s post I am developing some of the ideas from Brainstorm 0.01. And please comment if you have any ideas you would like to throw into the mix.
Man made objects in the landscape
In this theme the idea is art via juxtoposition. For example taking a common household item such as a kitchen chair and put it somewhere into a nice landscape photo. Try to photograph the setup such that it is a pleasing picture of both of the two elements, whether the other was present or not. So for example light and shoot the chair as if you are doing a product shot, but at the same time make sure the landscape is not a background, but actually a nice landscape photo in itself. Try to combine items that have no reason to be joined.
Perhaps the scene is more complex, with more than a single object. A small scene, like a patio table from a bistro, including place settings etc. set in between the trees of an oak forest. A coat rack, hung with a trench coat and a hat sitting in the Brampton Badlands.
Think about the cover of Pink Floyd’s, “A Collection of Great Dance Songs”
Informal Street Portraits, Formal Street portraits, Farmer’s market attendees
So there were a few portrait ideas in Brainstorm 0.01. I have always wanted to be able to do portrait photography, and took a nice couse at the AGO on the topic. But I have trouble approaching people, and having confidence to do these photos. However having an excuse to approach people can really help with confidence, and provide an opening for the conversation.
The three items of this section are all similar in concept in that I am photographing strangers in an outdoor context. I would have their permission, and they would be posing.
The differences between the three portrait items is how the people are approached/attracted to be photographed, and how the background is composed.
For informal street photography, I am walking around, and introducing myself to people, and then proceeding to photograph them then and there. The backgrounds for these photos would be what was there at that moment. Preferable I would be shooting against buildings, and not having the backgrounds full of streets full of cars. Thus a context of a location is in the photo, and in my opinion different buildings as backgrounds would be more interesting than endless cars.
For formal street photography, I am staying in one place at a time, and introducing myself to people who walk up. I would then ask them to pose in front of a backdrop and would shoot the portrait. Of course with a backdrop setup I would hope to have people walk up to find out what was going on. If I shot with Polaroid Type 55p/n, I could even give them the positives. Another option for immediate feedback would be to have a portable photo printer along such as an Epson PictureMate, or even a Polaroid ZINC printer.
For farmer’s market attendees, I am at staying at one place for a half day and operating from a booth/tent. The idea does not have to be a farmers market, but the intention is to be in that type of setting. Similar to the formal street photography idea, the differences are that the number of people available in one day is much greater, as many people are coming to a farmer’s market on a typical morning. Another difference is that the location is reserved, instead of worrying about police or security guards asking why I have a backdrop, tripod, laptop, and printer set up in some random location. This idea has the risk of being too sucessful and potentially running out of resources (batteries, paper, film…) before the market ends.
Examination of the details of an object captured both at gross and fine scales (architecture and/or landscape)
For this item I have an idea of both a theme and a process. A part of the process is the book layout which attempts to relate the images together. Each location photographed results in a section in the book. The opening of the section is the big image a grand scenic shot, potentuially captured with a large format camera. Follwing this big image the following pages in the section are detail shots of things you could see in the big image. The details could include a macro-photography picture of a flower petal on a single flower in a garden seen in one corner of the big shot. The details could include the texture of peeling paint on an old door of a house in the photo.
Each section could end with some representation to help the reader find where the details pictures appear in the big picture.
A variation to the idea would be to shoot the detail images using different formats of camera and process.
Since we are trying to make an entire photo book in a single month this idea lets us expand upon the few good landscape shots we can get it a month, and instead each landscape becomes 10 or more shots.
So the underlying theme is to shoot either landscape or architecture while choosing scenes that have elements in them that could them be further explored with the camera.
Highway 69 (road to Sudbury), Highway 144 (road to Timmins)
This idea like the one before it comes from the question, “How do we get enough photos for a book in such a short time?” The solution is to travel a great distance taking many many pictures of places and things along the way. This can be repeated a few times during the month, and differences in weather, time of day, foliage etc can add to the generated set of photos.
Then the theme can kick in and bring the photos together. We draw from our large pool of captured images to develop a narative, and the road itself carries the story along.
We are shooting both the road, and where it takes us.
