Widdershins:

(sometimes withershins, widershins or widderschynnes) means to take a course opposite that of the sun, going counterclock-wise, lefthandwise, or to circle an object, by always keeping it on the left. It also means "in a direction opposite to the usual," which is how I choose to take it in using it as the title of this blog. We're all in the same world finding our own way.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

A photo is worth 1000 words, apparently photography is worth 620

If you've met me in person, you've no doubt seen me with my camera, and while I'm in no way a photographer, I do take a lot of pictures. For the last year, it seems like my life has been a never-ending series of snapshots, still frames from the movie of my life concentrated around the scenes where I'm surrounded by people.

It was during a conversation a few nights ago that Sarah mentioned that going through the many photo albums of pictures I've uploaded to Facebook wasn't like going through so many other people's pictures where everyone is lined up and smiling, that more often than not, my albums tell a story. It was a small comment, but it's made me think about the nature of my photography or rather my digital perspective.

I hesitate to call what I do photography. To me, photography is formal. It's planned and executed with the express purpose of ending up with a photograph of something or someone. There's thought behind it: the angle, the lighting, the subject. If photography were a large, glossy, oil painting, what I do with Earl Jr. (that's my trusty little Fuji Finepix J10) is more like stick figures in the sand. It's capturing part of the moment, part of the experience in instant gratification.

I learned early in life that to ignore the camera. My childhood was punctuated with the flashing bulbs of my grandmother every time we visited. There's the stereotype of the Asian tourist with the camera around their neck, well I'm here to tell you it's not just the tourists.

As I was going into the eighth grade, my mother pushed me to join journalism, pushed me for college applications and transcripts even though it wouldn't actually matter for another two years, where I was taught how to use a camera and how to take pictures for the yearbook. And one of the first things we were taught was to try to aim for natural. When you point a camera at someone, more often than not, their IQ will drop a hundred points as their eyes light up and they strike a pose. It looks as goofy as it sounds. So take candid pictures, don't let them know you're taking a picture until after the flash has faded.

I mean think about it, in most professional photography, they bend and position you to put you in the most natural looking poses possible and then spiff it up with perfect lighting, backgrounds and props. But the goal is to make it look natural, like you were always in that position. So to capture those same moments, to capture those same kinds of vulnerabilities candidly is a lot harder. You don't have the same kind of control of timing and position and lighting.

Perhaps a better analogy for what I do with a camera would be to compare it to amateur butterfly collecting. You run around with this image net and swing and swing at these fleeting fluttering images, missing most of the time, but with enough time and persistence , you'll get exactly what you're looking for and you can save it and frame it however you please. The key is to keep swinging.

And if you take enough of these candid miscarriages the way I do, collect them in one place and put them in chronological order, they do tell a story. It might be a little fuzzy on the details from time to time and sometimes people will be missing or incomplete, but it's natural, and the story part rises organically from that fact.

Any and all action tells much more of a story than the feigned smiles of a group shot.

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