Beyond Boring
February 8th, 2010 Rob Sheppard
I am not sure of all of the deep psychological reasons but there is no question that I get bored by certain types of photos, even my own. But I think I am not alone. The public will often get bored of seeing the same old types of nature photos, even if the photos are pretty shots. Such images then become just a part of the ever present visual “noise” that assaults us every day, stuff that we start getting immune to. That’s not a good place for our photographs.
I have to tell a story. Years ago, I worked for a production group that did photography and video production. We were owned by a large company. A friend in the group and I did PR portraits for the company. I enjoyed doing it as it kept me in contact with lots of interesting people in the company. However, I tended to get bored by the same sort of photos. Now honestly, PR photos should have a standard look and should not change. But I got bored and would change the light. Not enough to really affect the portraits, but enough that the images were not consistent. But that was me.
I am still that way. I get restless when I am in a location that I have photographed before or I have seen photographs from that area before. That, unfortunately because of my work at Outdoor Photographer over the years, means just about everywhere!
But that is not such a bad thing. It forces me to look for images that go beyond the typical photos of the area, to find images that are special to me and take me new places with the location. In today’s world of constant bombardment of visuals, that really allows my photos to be a bit different, to stand out. That also means that I tend to avoid the standard “beauty” shots of locations, which is not always good, because sometimes I would like them. Still, I prefer to find new ways of looking at a location. It is more satisfying to me.
You might not be as extreme as I am in this area, but I would suggest that sometimes it is worth sitting down at a location and just looking before you start taking pictures. I often do that. Find out what is really there visually and how you relate to it, not simply how you can capture another pretty picture of the location that will be forgotten quickly.
The two photos seen here are from the Eastern Sierras of California (where I have a workshop scheduled this June with the GAPW). The first is in the Alabama Hills looking toward Mt. Whitney. The second is in the Ancient Bristlecone Forest by Big Pine.
