Finding My Light

Published December 1, 2019

This year is for me. A year to explore, to learn, to practice my craft, to experiment and to refine my voice. I expect there will be ups and downs, moments of lost inspiration, creative fatigue or other general hurdles but mostly I hope for breakthroughs both personal and professional. (My post titled The Big Change provides more background.)

This week I’ve been thinking about my voice. I’ve been researching via various photography books, blogs & videos which all reinforce that you need a defining voice to tell potential clients what you’re about, your point of view on how you see the world, your aesthetic approach and ultimately inform what you want people to feel when they view your images. So I’ve been asking myself all those questions. I don’t have an answer yet, that’s what this next year will help me define. But I do know a few things about my process that have been and likely will stay constant. 1) My eye is drawn to subjects that showcase Textures & Patterns, Quality of Light, and Juxtaposition. 2) I know I want to shoot editorial and fine art. 3) I know I am not a gadget geek who can list the specs for every camera and lens available but I do know my personal camera gear well. 4) I know I do not like heavy-handed post-production. I try to capture the image I want in camera with any post-production used to do minor adjustments like shifting the level of shadows/highlights, making lens corrections and occasionally color correction to bring it closer to what I saw and what I felt while shooting. For my fine art, I may take more liberties but you will never see work from me that has the sky replaced with one from a different image, for example. 5) I prefer to shoot in natural light with minimal supplemental lighting. Let’s be real, I don’t want to drag a ton of lighting gear around on my travels and the occasional use of light painting or a reflector to highlight an area can be done with small, simple tools. 6) I am not into portraiture although I do like to include anonymous humans as context for a place.

Single image capture using long exposure to blur the traffic. Luckily these young women stood still long enough so they stayed in focus. Image cropped to eliminate distracting elements.

I am a wandering soul, hence the name of this blog and my photography website (Vandrar Photography). Travel naturally lends itself to sharing images of your experiences but I want to create more than your average vacation photos. I want to share the mood a place felt like when I was there, the quality of light, textures and patterns found in details large and small. I want to showcase locations that might not be mainstream but are a piece of what contributes to the soul of that region. For example, I am currently based in Spain and I am surrounded by miles and miles of olive groves. That in and of itself isn’t a big tourist draw but it does represent a major source of income for the people who live here. And those groves are beautiful to me because they create wonderful textures and patterns.

Olive groves at sunset. I purposely exposed for the sky which resulted in a very dark foreground. In post-production I lightened the shadows so you could see the trees, the changes of earth tones & textures. I used a gradient filter on the sky to bring a bit more dimension to the clouds. I warmed up the overall image to better reflect what I saw/felt vs. how the editing software adjusted my image.

I love, love, love textures and patterns, even my home is a mashup of colors, textures and patterns! You can find them everywhere you look, from the simple symmetry of a building to flower petals to sand ripples to olive trees. In photography you can capture these exactly as they are or you can use your camera to create them. For example, by choosing a shutter speed that blurs motion, or moving the camera to create blur, or using a long lens to narrow in on detail that highlights patterns, or using aperture to create a soft texture surrounding your image by narrowing the plane of what is in focus. My eye is always drawn to patterns and so they often feature in my work.

The Real Alcazar in Seville is a Moorish architectural masterpiece. In this composition, I layered all the textures and patterns to showcase the wealth of design. By keeping the colors simple and using the window as a frame, it focuses the eye on the design elements.

Soft light and choice of focal point create both mood and texture in this flower image.

Using light in photography to tell your story probably sounds trite and simplistic. It can be a bit subjective and lacking specifics of what exactly it is about light that represents a photographer’s voice or style. For me, light is the thing that has the greatest impact on the mood of an image depending on how it’s applied. Is it warm light or cool light? Is the hero subject highlighted while the rest of the image is darker? How does the atmospheric conditions affect light in that place? Is weather impacting the light? Is the subject brightly lit from the front, the side or from behind? How does the choice of where I shift my position relative to the light help depict the mood I want to share? Mostly, I prefer a dramatic light of some sort, whether that be contrast, interesting color tones or atmospheric conditions.

Unedited iPhone image of a bowl of oranges on my kitchen table while the morning light was streaming in the doorway.

I stumbled across these two young tourists while I was exploring the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. I was drawn to the way the light hid one girl's face and highlighted the other. I don't think this image would be as interesting if they were both lit equally.

You'll notice the obvious pattern in the tiles but there is also a repeating pattern of X's in the chairs mimicking the tile design.

Juxtaposition is something I’ve been experimenting with the past few years. In this body of work I am using one subject to highlight the quality of another subject in the frame. I do this using reflections, I do this by layering subjects, and I do this through perspective and/or lens compression. Still working on this but I think it will feature prominently in my fine art work. The desired effect via juxtaposition is to engage the viewer by presenting a slightly confusing image which in its comparison of subjects tells the story of that moment or place.

Here juxtaposition provides context for this couple and provokes questions. What are they thinking? Do they agree/disagree with the protestors? Taken during the Women's March, Seattle WA on January 21, 2017.

The Temperate House at Kew Gardens, London had reopened after undergoing a massive renovation in 2018. It is the largest Victorian era glass house in the world. Lots of images were being taken of the external building but I wanted to show a more intimate view while capturing the building's design and purpose. So I used a reflection of the entry to provide that context as the viewer is looking into the greenhouse.

That is where I'm at - refining an aesthetic but still chasing the light. I will end this week’s post with a couple quotes by famed photographer, Jay Maisel. He sums up what I hope to achieve as I continue on this path.

“Each picture you take has power as long as it brings experience to the person who’s looking at it.” – Jay Maisel

“I don’t see light as something that falls, but as a positive force.” – Jay Maisel