washington monuments

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Continuing my thoughts on being a photographer and writer

From the feedback that I got yesterday about being a photographer and writer I can see that I’m not the only one who feels like it’s difficult to express themselves verbally. After all, photographs are a visual representation of a 1000 words right? What more do we need to say?

I’ve started to read the book, Henri Cartier-Bresson Interviews and Conversations 1951-1998. From its title you may guess that Mr Cartier-Bresson did not consider himself a writer. In fact he’s published several books, most of which he did not write the words in and I found that to be very interesting. I’m not done with this book, but when I am, I’ll for sure write a book review like I do with many other books that I read.

But Henri is such a influential photographer that I would think many people would love to hear his exact thoughts about photography, art and his life in general. Maybe he was like me and did not know how to do it. But as I’ve taken the commitment to be more thoughtful and concise with my writing, the more I’ve learned from it as well. I’ve learned that there is more to the story than just a pretty photograph. There is so much preparation that is involved (whether you realize it or not), timeliness and even whether or not you executed your planned intention. The ability to verbalize this and to make sure to clearly send the right message makes you really think about the words you use and how to use them. I could re-write the same sentence like 10 times and it still not come out right.

Regardless, in the past two years I’ve have come to realize how important words are. I still would not consider myself the best writer in the world but I definietly try my best. Reading/listening to books has really helped me come up with my own writing style and learned just how free I can be in this new form of communication.

As seen in my recently published book, Snap DC. LOL

This image was taken about 20 minutes before the previous image. I figured that if I’m writing about the same thing, having similar images would be ok. But can we please get rid of that Lincoln Memorial scaffolding? 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

My camera settings were F16 at 1 sec and ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm ultra zoom lens on a tripod.

PS Happy Halloween!

 

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Some of you may not know but I’ve been writing this blog since March 2010. It was then that I commited to posting a new image every monday-friday and I have not broke that commitment once. To be fair, sometimes the blog posts will go up a little bit later than others but they are always there!

However when I made that commitment, I never said anything about writing. I have never considered myself to be a person who can easily express their feelings or view point. I feel like I know what I mean in my head but when it comes to verbalizing it, it can be difficult. You know what I mean?

So if you read my blog in the early days, you would have seen my image and then one or two sentences max. I remember it was such a hassle and torture to even do that. But it was in January of 2017 where I commited to be more than just a photographer. I wanted to be more thoughtful and practice the art of writing. Thanks to my friend, Mel for the encouragement!  So I stepped up my game and have been consistently taking pictures and writing about them more thoughtfully for almost 2 years. I will say it was a struggle at first but the more I do it, the easier it gets. I even find myself looking forward to writing sometimes. I think it’s the sense of accomplishment that I feel after writing something I’m proud of. Don’t get me wrong though, some days are easier than others. For example, I wrote a book talk/speech for a photo club I presented at last week. It took me about 1 hour to write a speech that I loved so much. The icing on the cake was that people came up to me to tell me how inspired they were by it. I was on cloud 9 for the rest of the week!

I have a lot more to say on this topic so to be continued for tomorrow…. LOL

My camera settings for this image is F5 at 1/80th sec at ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm ultra zoom on my gitzo tripod.

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Clear your calendars for July 18th. Come join me, Geoff Livingston and Focus on the Story for an evening with the Washington Monuments. Geoff and I actually met at the second photo walk I hosted for the Focus on the Story International Photo Festival earlier this summer and I was super excited when he asked me to help him host this event. It will be a great evening talking about long exposure, composition techniques as well as street photography tips at night.  But I think the most interesting part is the fact that there will be three different instructors with three completely different take on things. No matter what, I’m sure you’ll go home with a slightly different perceptive at photographing night images.

And in case you want to get to know us a little better, heres a little ten minute video of Geoff and I talking about the Monuments at Night workshop, Snap DC, etc.  Seats are limited so sign up today! Click here for the link.  Hope to see you there! It will definietly be a good time and don’t forget your tripod!

So as an example of the type of images you could capture at this event, here’s an image I took at the end of 2016. I remember I was walking back to my car when I captured it. I was out shooting sunset by the reflecting pool but still had my camera out. Thank goodness I also had my tripod as well or else I would not have been able to capture these cool car trails driving by on Independence Ave. I think it brings so much life to the image. I also love that light that’s shining above the Jefferson Memorial. Something that would be hard to see without the long exposure.

My camera settings for this image is F5.0 at 2.5 seconds and ISO 250 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm