Keep walking

I'm on a short break, due lack of time and enthusiasm to materialize my ideas.

I have two projects and some images in mind, I will be back as soon as my muse will come around.

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Intre timp, vă fac o recomandare calduroasă:

Dragan Radu - Foto tutorial

Articolele sunt excelente, mult peste textele consacrate având ca subiect profunzimea de câmp, expunerea şi cum să faci portrete bune.

Take your time

After one year, I have made some minor updates to the website. Added some pictures and quick galleries, as some people don't have the time to browse through the story, although I would really appreciate to take your time and read the texts so you can follow my thoughts and maybe understand a bit of my journey.

Vladimir C. - a ray of vision

Please leave comments regarding website in guestbook, especially for technical errors, but mostly for feelings.

Take your time

Fascinated

Basically, this is not a post with pictures. I just feel the need to leave a few words about me and photography.

I'm becoming more and more fascinated about this journey. I have a strange and nice feeling every time I'm developing a film and everything smells like it was developed. I know the visible image will appear on my negative and it's forming as I stand near the tank. I'm trying to imagine what happens there, in the dark, and even if I know theoretically the process, I can't stop being fascinated by the fact that an invisible image, formed from salty silver takes life.

Every time I look into the viewfinder it's like I step into a whole different world. I lose track of time and reason and if you'd ask me after that what was I thinking about when I was looking through it I would not be able to give a clear and rational answer.

As I press the shutter, I know that in a fraction of a second every bit of my "shutter trip" is physically forming an holistic image and even if it will not show clearly in my picture, I know I have it.

Millions of tiny particles are joined in an immaterial entity; one controls the particles and gives them felling and soul. And the essence, lies in how the light makes it.

Super-me

Say cheese.

Or not.

Darkroom

I love the sound made by the developer while I agitate the tank.

I love the way my workbench is clean and tidy, white and waiting for the substances to cool off.

I love the smell of developer. The way my hands smell and the way my freshly rolled cigar has a light chemical scent while I smoke it satisfied by the job I've done.

Rolling the film onto the developing spire will leave so many memories: some nice and some ugly.

I know that I'm actually modifying matter and playing with chemistry for the sole purpose of creating an image. A tiny world that combines and changes in order to represent an unique moment in time - seen, lived and taken by and with me.

Next morning I just can't wait to see my film. I know it's dried and the pictures are expecting me. Everything smells like chemistry, the tank, cylinders, syringes, thermometer are drying waiting for another roll.

Most used clichés.

For me, photography is, above all, a space. A space where I try to build on my feelings, my thoughts or my ideas, using light as the main material, a space where I try to transform the bits of reality I see everyday into other structures, or just add to the ones already there. (1)

For others, photography is just a way of relaxing and remembering places they’ve been to, things they saw, but trying to improve their skill. (2)

And some try to improve and reach new levels. They try to discover photography along with themselves. (3)

There is also a vast majority for which photography is just a tool used to keep simple snapshots and memories. They never strive to improve and there is nothing wrong with it. (4)

As a photographer who gives some advice to beginners, considering my small experience I can publish the following list of dos/dons. All of the bellow are from my point of view (1) to people in categories (2) or (3) (I'm also in 3).

· A cat/dog is just a cat/ dog and no matter how much you like it, your photo will resemble millions other. A photo with a cat/dog doesn’t express “animal love” or “sadness” or “fluffy-puffy-world” no matter how much you believe this. Wake up and use your imagination, or go fishing. If you insist adding one more banality to this world, keep it on your hard drive and don't talk about photography. Maybe later.

· Don’t just snapshot a flower, there are millions. Put that flower in a context. Wait for an exceptional light, try an unusual angle, use something around you; give your picture some action. When I say “action” I’m not talking about a bee, as there are millions of bees eating flowers around the internet. Make your picture say “wow” not just “another flower”. Imagination, again, or fishing.

· Do not just photograph a sunset or sunrise. Use the same rules as above, give something special to it. You have great light, don’t waste it with just a simple 1/3 horizon line.

· Do not use HDR excessively. HDR shouldn’t be noticeable, as that tends to be kitsch. HDR should be use like sharpness from my point of view, if you really want to do it. If you want dynamic range, go film.

· Avoid easy subjects. Don’t photograph a church and name your picture “faith”. Same with pigeons.

· Avoid easy motifs. Don’t say you shoot macro because you want to show the world the wonderful tiny little world living in the grass. I’ve heard that a million times, is like everybody tries to find the holly grail of grass-hoppers. If you start with that idea, you’ll photograph any bug and end in banalities too.

· I like nature too. I like dogs, flowers and bugs. But I love photography.

· Don’t get too excited when taking a photo. You’ll miss.

· Do not photograph flags, statues or other people drawings without using an imagistic context for them.

· Don’t shoot landscapes from the car or at 12'oclock, unless you know what you're doing. That is lack of respect for the ones who wake up at 4 in the morning for a landscape and you won’t probably get nothing good.

· Do not say Photoshop is bad or be proud you never touch your photographs after the shutter clicks. You might be considered an idiot.

· Compose. If it worked so many years, it will work now too. When you will grow up, you’ll learn how and when to break it, but first learn it and make it be part of you. Composition gives equilibrium and most of it is based on human physiology or nature order. You're not smarter than them.

· Search Magnum and count how many cat and flowers pictures are there. Search on 1x.com and see why the pictures with cats/flowers/dogs posted there are way better than yours. If that doesn’t work, go fishing or keep your pictures on your hard-drive.

Basic tips (google if you don't know what they are):

- idea and message; innovation;
- compositional equilibrium; balance; harmony;
- compositional rules (that will become guidelines)
- chromatic equilibrium;
- tension;
- perspective;
- simplicity;
- negative space;
- light;

Please, do not s...t on photography.