The Foundation Series: What's Your Story?

Note:  This originally ran on toyphotographers.com on February 12 2018.  It is the first post of a monthly series about lessons I've learned along my journey as an artist.  It is reposted here for posterity.

I love a photograph that tells a good story, and I try to create images that do just that.  When I set out to make a new image, the first question I ask myself is “what story do I want to tell?”. What do I want the viewer to experience when they cast their gaze upon my image. To put it more bluntly: “What is your point, Dave?”

The idea of a story in a photograph is, to be honest, something I struggle with a lot. When I think story, I think the “Star Wars” saga, or “Lord Of The Rings”, or even “Green Eggs And Ham”.  It’s quite obvious that it’s not possible to put a whole literary story or feature length movie into a single photograph. Heck even something short like “Green Eggs And Ham” would be hard to fit into a single photograph, and that is a story comprised of only 50 different words.  So clearly we need to narrow things down a bit when we talk about story.

My definition of a story in a photograph is “a word, phrase, or sentence that describes the intent of the photograph.”.  This can be as short as an emotion, like “melancholy”, or  “two ninjas fighting.”, or “Luke Skywalker faces down a menacing AT-AT Walker approaching in a snowy storm”. 

As you can see, the story can be as simple or complex as required  However once you have that you can use that story to help define how you want to create your shot.  Let me give a couple of examples from my back catalog of images.

A Convenient Example

The story for this shot is “Walking across a bleak dystopian wasteland”:

Walking across a bleak dystopian wasteland.

I found this location at Nelson Ghost Town in Nevada with this cool broken down plane.  When I saw the location, I came up with the story in my head, then started framing the shot.  The decisions I made were the following:  Walking implies distance, so I put the figure in the lower right corner so he had room to move in the frame. 

Wasteland brings to mind hardship and decay, so I placed the figure between the rocks to give a sense of struggle against the elements.  I also blew some dust across the scene to give a sense of energy, danger and loneliness as well.  The plane is at top of frame so the is walking towards a decaying artifact.

Finally my story didn’t really care who was walking in the dystopian wasteland, so I shot him from behind.  This both anonymizes the figure (i.e. we don’t really care who he is), and also gives the sense that he is walking in solitude (we can’t see his face, so we don’t develop an emotional connection to him), which adds to the dangerous solitude one associates with a wasteland.

Contrast the above to this next shot. The story for this shot is “Boba Fett charging menacingly into action”

Another Convenient Example

Boba Fett charging menacingly into action.

This shot is all about Boba Fett.  He is a well known figure in the Star Wars universe, known for shooting first and asking questions later.  So I placed him center frame, facing the camera, so we are forced to pay close attention to him.  To further the sense of immediacy and danger, I positioned him so he is aiming his gun straight at the camera. Not only that but he is running towards you at the same time, getting closer for a better shot.  He’s not threatening just anyone… he’s threatening you. Pay attention! You are about to have a bad day.

My story didn’t include a setting, so I made it a generic background, with some light to bring the character out from the background, further indicating he’s coming your way.  Since Boba is a rough and tumble man of action, I added some textures to him to give that sense that he’s seen a lot of action, and is capable of making good on his threat he is making.

Vastly different stories, vastly different end results, but in both cases the decisions made in each image serves the story.  If I had shot Boba from behind, the idea of him being an immediate and personal threat would be lost. If I had put the Stormtrooper front and center facing the viewer, the impact of a lonely figure walking across a wasteland would be lessened.

The story is important.

The Foundation Series: A Journey Begins

Note:  This originally ran on toyphotographers.com on January 8, 2018.  It is the first post of a monthly series about lessons I've learned along my journey as an artist.  It is reposted here for posterity.

And so it begins…

Over the past few years I have been on a personal journey to learn photography, and to discover who I am as an artist. Along the way I have gained a lot of insights into the art and craft of toy photography.

I was asked by Shelly to create a series of posts that share some of the things I have learned with the readers of this blog.  The idea is that you, the intelligent good looking readers of this blog, may also be inspired in your own journeys of discovery.

So, approximately once per month, I will be doing just that.  Creating posts that cover many of the concepts of photography I have learned along my journey.  I will focus on  tools, techniques, and concepts that really create a compelling photograph.  I’ll also cover things like finding inspiration and examples of compelling images. Many of which come from outside the photographic world.

But first I wanted to go over one of the experiences that gave me the most insight into how to be comfortable in my own skin as an artist.  That place is a quirky online educational program known as The Arcanum.

What is The Arcanum?

The Arcanum is a unique program designed to follow the model of old school craftsman apprenticeships. Students, called apprentices,  study under the guidance of an experienced photographer called a master. In a modern twist to the concept, each student follows a program, called a sphere, of 10 levels, and each apprentice slowly works their way up all to levels until they complete the sphere.  

A cohort is a group of apprentices, students, who are all working on the same set of skills (or sphere), under the same master. Students join cohorts at different times, so each person in the cohort may be on different levels within the sphere, but in general they are all on the same journey together.

So if you put all these pieces together, progressing thru The Arcanum is simply completing tasks to level up thru spheres, spending your time within each sphere with others at the same level, and the same master.  

This cohort system is the secret sauce that makes The Arcanum so effective. Cohorts are a close-knit community of like minded artists who share their artistic journeys.  That shared experience accelerates and enhances the learning process for everyone involved.  You become a member of a set of folks who are all working together to learn from each other, supporting each other, critiquing each other, and celebrating successes together. That is a very powerful and empowering learning environment.

How does a Cohort work?

From a technical perspective a cohort is really just a bunch of members of a private Google Plus community. All communication is done in that community.  From there it is a simple matter of each member progressing thru the levels.

Some of the levels are pretty simple.  For example a common one is to shoot 10 images, and have them commented on by other students in the cohort.  A follow up level is to take 3-5 of the best images and get a critique from the master over a video Hangout.

Other levels require one to examining what makes them tick as artists.   The details of these assignments I will spend the next year covering in a lot more depth than I have room for in this post.  Suffice to say cohorts are designed to be safe spaces where one can feel free to make mistakes without being judged. 

So over the next year I hope my series of posts will create a virtual cohort among the readers of this blog, that will take us on a journey of discovery  to uncover some of the mysteries of creating photographs and other digital art.

At the end of it I hope you will be able to take those concepts and work them into your own art.  That they will help you create something beautiful using your own artistic voice.

Sound good?  If so, stay tuned.  This year is going to be a fun ride.  See you next month!

A Sense of Play

(not my photo - attribution unknown.
let me know if it is yours)

I was recently listening to a recent episode of the new-ish Toy Photography Podcast episodes that centered on the idea of play.

That episode got me thinking about the sense of play, and how it is important as an adult - especially an artistic adult.  I am wondering if it is easier these days to maintain that sense of play. Here is my reasoning.

For most of human history ones peers were simply the kids that lived in your town.  You really only had those kids to look to for social acceptance, and so you were pressured by the desire to please that specific group to gain acceptance. Kids playing is considered normal, and almost inevitable.  So as a youngling a sense of play is easy to come by.  Play is just something you do with your mates. However those mates are just the people who happened to be born at roughly the same time you were - - you didn't really get to choose who they were.

As kids grow up their focus shifts from wanting to be accepted by their mates to wanting to be accepted by others - in my case, those pesky yet interesting creatures known as girls.  Since most people lose the sense of play as they make that shift into dating, and eventually marriage, for those of us that had a strong sense of play, and really didn't want to lose it, it was easier sometimes to drop it instead of becoming that one weird person.  The pressures of social norms and being accepted are powerful forces in a teenage psyche.

In my own case, when I was a kid I played with the kids in my neighbourhood like most kids who grew up in suburban Canada in the 1970s.  As I grew older, especially when I started that crucible of social anxiety known as high school I  felt a strong pressure to not play any longer. None of my friends did. Mind you I still did, behind close doors.  I spent many evenings and weekends building complex models out of Lego - right up until college - it was just my dirty little secret. Don't tell!

In my 20s and early 30s I didn't play much at all, tho I wanted to.  I collected some minifigs (Lord Of The Rings and Star Wars mostly), but never did anything with them aside from display them (insert quirky story about filling the curio cabinet we received as a wedding present with my action figures instead of the glassware we also got as wedding presents here).

Only in my late 30s and now early 40s I stopped caring about the social norms.  I had few people I needed to impress, and the ones I did (my wife and kids) encouraged (Or at least didn't judge me) when I picked up some LEGO and started playing again thru the lens of photography.  I had a reason to start playing again  even tho it still felt like something I really should share outside of my most inner of social circles.

When I started sharing my LEGO work online I came across communities of like minded folk, many adults, who also shared the sense of play, and created the same sort of art I did.  Now I don't feel the need to hide my LEGO habits from anyone, because I've found my social network that will accept me despite, neigh because of, my predilections to play with LEGO as a 43 year old.  My sense of play, as a result, was released and unfettered.

Now when I think of my kids growing up, as their social peers begin to lose their collective sense of play as part of becoming teenagers, they will at the same time be old enough to start finding new peer groups online.  Hopefully those kids (my own included) will be able to find their own social groups online that help them keep and foster the sense of play - the ones I found in my 40s - while still in their teens.  As a result they may never lose it, and be forced to re-discover it, like I did.

If I am right, the future is going to likely be a more playful, and therefore creative place than what I have had.  If I am right,  that is going to be a future to look forward too.

The Guns N' Roses Appreciation Society

I listen to music a lot. I always have. Over the years I have listened to a fairly wide range of musical styles, but I tend to gravitate towards hard rock. There is just something about a hard rhythm, pounding drums, and an angry dirty sounding guitar that gets my blood pumping.

Like most people who get to middle age, I am finding the current crop of music to be sub-par, so I have been looking back at the age when music was good to get my musical fixes.  Everyone has their own definition of when music was good, but it can typically be defined as "when you were in high school", which for me was the late 80s and early 90s.

You may recognize it as the golden age of the big hair bands.  Aerosmith, Metallica, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Van Halen, they all had a place in the soundtrack of my life, but none were quite so favoured as Guns N' Roses.  At the time I couldn't say exactly why.  It could have been the lead singers unique aggressive growly voice, their bad boy, "don't give a crap" attitude, or the fact that the fuzzy haired fellow in the top hat could play his guitar like nobody's business.

All I knew is that they didn't sound like anything else I've heard before or since.  And it affected me like no music has before or since.  I was hooked.  I'd listen to their Use Your Illusion albums, I & II, on constant repeat for weeks at a time.

One of the great things about long car rides by yourself is that it gives you time to think.  A few weeks ago I went on such a drive. As a lark I put on the Use Your Illusion II album, and, as is required to appreciate a good hard rock album, I cranked the stereo up to 11, put my foot down, and soaked in the music while eating up the miles.

While I motored along I remembered how much I loved this album as a teen, and, armed with the additional perspective of having an additional 20-odd years of life experience under my belt, I finally started to understand why.

I believe that music should affect you in some way.  Good music should move you.  Great music should take you on a journey.  That is exactly what G'n'R did.  They took me an epic journey, and they do it like nobody else.

Many of their songs cover deep emotional topics in a no-holds-barred sort of way.  This isn't new, but where most bands hide their deep thoughts behind cryptic lyrics and basic hard rock guitar rifts,  G'n'R wears their emotions on their sleeve - lyrically and, most importantly, musically.

As an example, The Without You trilogy (Don't Cry, November Rain, and Estranged), is the painful story of a man dealing with the suicide of his girlfriend.  Estranged especially, in my opinion their greatest work, shrugs off the 'verse chorus verse solo chorus' recipe and heads off on a 9 minute roller coaster of grief, loss, anger, angst, gut twisting pain, confusion, and finally acceptance, presented in a series of lyrical thoughts followed by amazing guitar solos.  It is almost symphonic in presentation (as much as a rock band can be).  It is highly introspective, and raw with emotion.

It is tightly woven together: lyrics, guitar, drums, bass, piano.  Every note and drum beat purposely positioned in the song to take you on a journey, as if in lock step.  It is both beautiful and brutal.

It is a journey I've never personally been on, nor wish to personally experience, but I feel it in my gut every time I hear the song.  It is intense.  It is addictive.  It is genius itself, and in my experience, utterly unique.

I can't get enough of it. Luckily the G'n'R' catalog has plenty of these sorts of songs to fill the void.

Of course it doesn't hurt that the band had musical talent coming out of their ears. Axl Rose is widely considered one of the best vocalists in rock, and Slash's dominance of the guitar, and his unique sound, earns him a place on most lists of rock gods.  The rest of the band are not exactly musical slouches either.

 There are few lists of top rock songs that don't include at least one G'n'R epic, often several.

Its clear that the band had its issues.  They were famous for it, and it eventually tore the band apart prematurely. However those issues came out in their music in a very honest and palpable way.  They generated pure unfettered, brutally honest rock n'roll,  and let it all come out on the albums.

Its this raw talent mixed with the authenticity of their music that really speaks to me, and grabbed me as that high school kid.  Talent and honesty are things I value now in almost anything I tend to appreciate in life, and with influences like G'n'R, its no wonder.

So this is why I consider the Use Your Illusions II album specifically, and Guns N' Roses in general, as some of the best musical experiences in the world.  At least from where I sit.

Your opinions will likely vary, and I suspect by quite a bit. Music is, after all, a very personal thing. All I know is that when I finally shrug off this mortal coil, and St. Peter opens wide those pearly gates, the song I  really hope the choir of angels will be singing is "Paradise City."

Oh, won't you please take me home.