The Arc of a News Photographer – Pondering a Split Second
What causes a person to stop and take a picture . The simplest explaination you will ever hear .
It starts with the discovery of a persons ability to feel simultaneous visual harmony with all three main parts of the brain .Click. Not something you can see on an MRI , it is a sense of well being.
This for most people starts somewhere in the teen years when self awareness is replaced with the awareness of movement in the surrounding world . Seeing meaning of things in motion , transient illumination . Like seeing the spaces between the seconds markers on a clock . Dividing and choosing . We just recognize they are there and the second hand is moving past them , always moving , never returning .
It seems to be an innate realization that when the three parts of the brian find harmony in this movement it sends the message to capture it . The “Click” moment. The moment of commitment. In news photography it is this sense on steriods.
We make commitments with our photography . Indecision causes the moment to evaporate and disappear or mature to a greater sum as it moves to the next tick of the clock. This is the core of why two photographers standing in the same place never take the same picture.
This creates an honesty that is the core of news photographs .These are records , evidence , actual visual dialogue that goes past anything a reporter can write , yet it has a subjective / objective , artistic , journalistic reality . It is a non literal truth unto itself . This makes great photos timeless because the emphasis on the elements within the photo change and shift importance from the subject to the background and foreground as time goes by.
The time element is objective the selection of the moment is subjective . It is Reality Art in a hurry .
There comes the development of skill with the medium that includes practice , and personal vision .
There is drive to find more , see more , experience more , a championship athletes mentality . To lead not fallow , to see rules as guidelines and push limits . These are selfish instincts that push photographers from the level of amateur to professional , to hop the fence , jump a cue and join a very small group.
Someone has to like what the photographer does and there has to be a space created . The picture by itself is useless , it needs small words and a big audience. That space is a component of skill and luck meeting opportunity . Spaces are created during times of great change .Times of demographic change coupled with technological advancement occur every thirty years when one generation takes over completely from another. This time has arrived.
The photographer gets drafted like an athlete , lots of potential and enthusiasm . But like the sports draft , that one skill that gets noticed has to be expanded .
Sports is a gateway to news . The skills needed to shoot elite sports pictures are the same ones needed to find and photograph breaking news . The ability to “take” the picture . The “shooter “ instinct is to “take”.This is shooting “free” , embracing the chaos of movement and meaning.
The second hand is sweeping and the photographer is working in micro seconds of the time before “real time” . Anticipating , relying on physical cues , background noise , or that silent exhale before the storm, translating sound and movement the precedes a decisive moment. A wide receivers fingers begin to open , his eyes light up as the ball approaches.This is the shooters reflex , a non thinking , “tell” to movement. The essence of the motion turns toward the photographer and touches , then reveals itself. The gift is to be able to trust the “tell”. A photographer just knows a photograph is present and it has to found , as the second hand sweeps . There are environmental conditions to a great photo . It smells like rain or high octane fuel .Different , intriguing.
We take pictures in the clutter , noise , and movement of fast moving , unpredictable situations . We take personal risk ,and we take physiological risks . We force our selves to push the button when everything logical in our being says “just watch” or run , or just not see the conflict in the picture. It is a matter of trust.
Our job relies on this instinct to be attached to a photographers sense of order , the geometry of the frame, to compose and arrange ,to organize . To step forward , bend the knees , angle the camera . Searching for harmony as the brain urgently translates. Create and find equivalents through personal style and vision . The photographer must also find order , choose the lens , the time , create proper exposure and it all has to align with the the photographers sense of order based on natural tendencies and ethos of life experience . This is preparation , planning for anything .The photographer decides what is relevant and it is subjective and a fleeting opportunity . Every person is different , each has a sense of what is important and that makes photograph different . These are the facets of truth ,edges of a cut diamond .The sense of the clock ticking coupled with an openness to chance makes the news photographer different.
These senses can be applied to any subject , and the subject allows us to be great photographers if we are open to what it is revealing . Just shoot the picture, stupid.
Topic: Pondering a Split Second (Read 1328 times)