My Third Eye Really Is Blind

I used to do a lot of photography. 35mm and 4x5 were my media of choice. Then came kids. And I hate to say it, but the cameras really took a back-burner. Sure, I learned to use a point & shoot, and learned to do snapshots. In the process I learned that doing hard-core portraiture on a rapidly moving, often gooey target really wasn't all that fulfilling. So the cameras sat idle, my photographic synapses sat idle, and time passed.

About two years ago my wife and I sold all our 35mm camera bodies and film point & shoots, and used the money to buy a digital SLR body. Since we already had Canon EOS lenses, we went for a Canon D20 digital body. Fantastic camera. I love it. I just wish I got to use it more. Granted, I'm using it far more than I did the 35mm gear in the Post-Child era, but it's still nowhere near what it used to be when we were going out on the weekends simply to shoot.

I went through some pictures I've taken with the D20, and while technically the keepers really are keepers (sharp, no motion blur, good exposure levels, etc.) artistically they're a wash. If I look at some of my earlier work I can take in a shot and think, "Isolation", "Growth", "Perseverence" (and toss in every other catchword you've seen on a motivational poster.) Looking through my recent stuff I'm seeing "plant with rocks", "beach", "forest".

What it boils down to is this: I wouldn't hang any of it on my wall. We do have some of our own photography hanging on the walls at home. We've also got some Ansel Adams, Redeka, and Brandenburg, just to keep stuff in perspective. But I'm still happy to hang the shots of ours that we did. I'll never have Ansel Adams's artistry, but I can sure try.

I think it's still a problem of time. By way of example, I love doing 4x5 photography. You have one film holder with two sheets of film in it. The image on the ground-glass is upside-down and backward. Composition isn't so much placing objects in the frame, it's placing shapes and colors on a canvas. And I could easily spend an hour or more composing a single shot. Since I typically shoot B&W when I'm doing 4x5 (only one of my lenses is corrected in more than one color), I'll then spend another hour dinking around with filter choice. Then I'll decide the light's not right and make notes so I can come back to that spot some other day when the light is better. It's a glacially slow process that in the long-run can be very very rewarding. But to an innocent bystander? It's the Hell of Watching Paint Dry.

Needless to say, in this, the Era of Children, I don't often get the chance to spend hours on end staring at a ground glass with a towel over my head. I also don't often have the chance to work that way with the Canon gear, either. Photo sessions are a lot more rushed, and rather than being able to take the time to work with the camera until I really get what I want, I'm having to make do with what I can get. It shows.

My photographic eye is blind. I've lost track of what really makes a good shot. But I'm determined to get it back. I know I only developed it the first time by really working hard, shooting truckloads of film, and studying what I like in other photographers' work. So it'll be a long, long process. But it's worth it to me.

Tom