Less haste, more speed, quality over quantity…you’ve heard them all before and for the most part they are true. When I get an idea in my head, a large part of me still wants to rush, get it done, even after many years of knowing better often making mistakes or producing subpar work. There are no substitutes for taking the time and effort in a piece of work or a project, very often a large part of the process and time is in thinking and planning, going back over your work, sometimes, time after time.
You could well be working to tight deadlines, still, rushing ahead without proper thought is probably not going to yield your best work.
For those of who grew up shooting film and others who have adopted or tried film photography in the digital era, will know that the whole experience is a slower process. I only shoot digital now, but shooting on my beloved X-T1, which gave up autofocusing a couple of years ago, with many of my old manual focus lenses – is a slower process. However, the experience is great and quite rewarding and I have tried to convince some of my friends that they should try it. I took the X-T1 out with me this morning partnered with an old Nikon 35mm 2.5 E series lens. It’s a good combination.
When I’m out shooting with my Fuji’s, be it with modern autofocus lenses or older manual focus lenses, the camera bodies are always set to manual, I don’t use the command dials except for fine adjustment of the shutter speed. The process is slower especially when I’m manually focusing – a point to remember here is that my subjects are not fast moving, usually stationary and hence I can take my time.
There are digital setups that are used in studio and outdoors that require time to setup and time whilst shooting and those of you that have tried it know already…I don’t need to say any more!
When I’m editing my images, I try to do this when I have ample time, without distractions, so I can concentrate and immerse myself into the process. I don’t have any elaborate system for post, my main tool is Camera Raw for most of my edit. I’ll sharpen in Photoshop, using a layer mask, fine tune with colour and tone and I also use Nik Silver FX not just when I’m editing for B&W, but also as a layer that I can use in any colour images I’m editing. Just like when I used film and did my own printing – I’ll use Photoshops Dodge and Burn tools in my images. I take my time, it’s not about speed, I want to achieve the right look and feel for my images.
The only two other tools I use, and not all the time, whilst editing are my Loupedeck Plus and a Wacom Intuos Tablet. Again, these are used, not for speed but to help me with managing a look and feel I’m after – the Loupedeck has a great tactile quality to it that moving sliders in software cannot compete with. Knobs and dials…a bit retro and it feels great. I’ll use my Wacom for more fiddly work, it’s more precise than a mouse, it takes getting used to and needs a good deal of practice – and definitely takes more time.
In my last post, “Why did the elephant cross the road?”, I wrote about social media…and here is another area that plays a part in speed. By its nature, social media is a platform that requires some degree of speed. If you have read that post, you’ll already know that I’m not a fan. Almost all my images these days are posted to my websites and in pretty much every case, the galleries and the images there have been thought about for some time. Should a book ever be forth coming – I would love to create a book, if for nothing else, than for my children to remember my images by. I dare say that will require even more thought, planning and consideration – a lot more time!
When I’m writing these post, I try to take time - and it’s hard! Especially some weeks when so many things are happening, life is flying by and I’m conscious that I’m not devoting enough time and thought!
What then do you think and feel? Have you given consideration to time? Do you feel that slowing your process(es) down will help you improve your photography and the resulting images? Have you given your ideas time to develop?
All the images in this post are shot with my Fuji X-T1, the last three with the Nikon 35mm f2.5