How can you make portraits, landscapes or sports images that will move people deeply? Wait until the ‘inner YES’ tells you to hit the shutter. In the comments from my recent post on DPS called 5 ways to stop being a luck photographer {and start taking pictures on purpose}, there was a fabulous comment from a reader named Trip about waiting for the ‘inner YES’ before capturing a shot. He said:
This is something I learned this from my wife. When we met, I was the more technically experienced photographer. She asked me to teach her more about the technical side of shooting, and I happily did. But when we’d get back from shooting something together, I often felt a more positive emotional reaction to her images than to mine. Hers may have been less technically predictable than mine, but they GRABBED me in ways mine didn’t. Often, standing side by side, we’d shoot the same subject, and her shots had more feeling. They touched me more. Why?
I kept wondering what she knew that I didn’t know. I learned that I wasn’t always taking the time to wait until the moment when I felt real excitement about my subject. She did. If she doesn’t feel the rush, she doesn’t shoot.
I looked back over a few zillion of my shots and started thinking about what I was thinking and feeling when I took the very best shots. And I learned. Truly great images not only have to be technically on target, they require that the bloke or lass holding the camera feel excited about what they see when they look through the gear. Your subject moves, changes expression, blows in the wind, has variable light flickering over them…wait until that moment when you feel a thrill in your heart … a sudden rush. This is your aesthetic sense saying NOW!!! Its a part of you that knows when all the design elements of the image are just right to reach the human heart…THEN fire.
Wow. What more can I add to that? He said it all. The inner yes. Don’t shoot if you don’t feel the rush. This can apply to any genre of photography. For landscapes, wait until the light gives you a rush. Wait until the wind blows the trees and tells you !YES! For portraits, wait until the moment that little boy or girl looks deep into your lens and engages with your inner yes.
I only do a few sessions a month and this affords me time to really dedicate myself to the process necessary for me to provide unique portraits of each and every child I photograph. Here are six things I do before, during and after shooting that aid me in allowing my inner yes to guide the sessions:
- Before a session, I get to the location early. I look at the areas where I feel led to shoot based on the light, the poses I had envisioned. And I center myself.
- Anyone who knows me well will tell you that when I work – when I get into that zone – I turn inside out. I sink within myself and am often even incapable of carrying out anything that resembles a conversation. I find it so helpful to have an assistant who knows me well. Toyha is chatty, bright, brilliant. She knows me. She knows what I’m thinking. She’s authentic and real with kids. They trust her, they can tell that she’s not faking it. So while I’m centered, waiting to hear my inner yes, she gets the kids moving in the right direction, helps then with the poses we discussed before the session and knows just what to do to make it work when I am sometimes incapable of putting two words together.
- When I’m setting up a shot, I often get the child in place and then I look through the viewfinder while walking around him/her. I crouch down, get up high, walk around the perimeter. I just wait until something tells me ‘yes’. And then from that position, I talk to him/her, get some giggles going. Sometimes I just say, “it’s ok, don’t smile just look at me.” And then I wait for the awkward moment or expression to pass and wait until they are just looking. When we’re outside and no one else is there, I just sit and wait. We hear the birds, soak in the silence. And then, the instant my insides jump, I hit the shutter. It sounds like a long time, but it’s often not longer than 10 seconds.
- I don’t miss the moment because I make the moment. I don’t just go nuts shooting – I’m as methodical as I can be while working with children and this order facilitates a peace that gives me space to just feel it.
- When I’m sorting the images in Lightroom, from a one hour session there can be up to 150 shots. Out of those, I will end up with about 30 keepers for a paid session. For a session I’ve done just for me, I can whittle those down to 10, 5 or even just 2. I sit with one finger on the X, one on the right-arrow key. I arrow through the shots and unless something jumps inside me and tells me yes, I just hit X. X. X. When a shot makes me stop for a second, I keep it. I then delete the rejected shots and again, I go through the shots I just kept and I sort them the same way until I’ve gotten the shots down to the best of the best.
- And then, I start the process of editing. I start in Lightroom since I’m already there. I start by hovering over my favorite presets to see if anything jumps out at me and, again, makes me feel my inner yes. This is really important because whatever I choose here will guide the direction of the finished images. If I find something that makes me jump, I’ll go to other images and try that setting on it because I really feel it’s important to maintain consistency while editing a session.
Of course, there’s more to my workflow but this isn’t about that. In every step from preparation through shooting through editing, I don’t settle on anything until it makes my inner yes jump and thrills me.
In my life, I’ve never done anything unless I feel a passion for it. This can be good and bad, especially when mixed with business because when I have a session that doesn’t rock me, I can have a huge emotional low that, at times, has even made me want to quit. It can be hard to keep the momentum of thrill going when you shoot for a living, but in between sessions I do for a living, I plan sessions that I do just for me. Heck, even the sessions I do for money are for me. But to keep the momentum of forward motion, I plan sessions that I can handle every detail of just for the love of the game.
And it is a love for me. I truly love photography because it loved me first and continues to love me just when I need it the most.
