By Adamu Ajunam
This article is written to help amateurs, including those who photograph with their phones, hobby photographers and professionals may pick up something that may assist them take memorable pictures. To become good in any thing you do, you must practice, practice and phone photography makes it even easier to practice because it is always handy. You see the result instantly at the back of your screen and if you do not like it, delete it and take another one. This is unlike back then when film was vogue, you had to take your film to a lab and waited for some days to get the result and you were careful not to waste the film.
My journey into photography as a career, started when I was about ten years old. I had a Kodak Instamatic camera, which I bought for myself. It was a point and shoot camera and it was exciting to load the cartridge film and take the pictures of my siblings whenever I could afford to buy the film. What mattered most to me then, was seeing the images I photographed appear on paper. I was not bothered if was well composed or some part of the picture was chopped off and other accuracies. At my age then, a camera was yet another toy, I did not even consider reading the manual.
This attitude towards the camera, continued like this, for some time, until one day, Mr. Bode, the photographer who processed my films called me and had a dialogue with me on photography. He observed my passion and considered helping me to hone my skills, taught me the correct things to do and foster my interest. He exposed me to many things including, available light photography, how to use the view finder and compose my picture, as well as avoid camera shake. Most importantly, he registered on my mind that the camera is a tool for documenting occasions for posterity and not a toy.
However, in 2006 when I was working on my book, “Eko, the Navel of the Giant”, my interest in photography sparked as never before and I deceided to become a professional photographer. I was already working with Julius Berger as an Engineer but I wanted to train as a photographer as well. I enrolled for a Diploma course at the London School of Photography. In order to deepen my knowledge in the profession I also completed a Diploma course with New York School of Photography and New York Film Academy.
During this period, I started looking at works of twentieth century American photographers and others, like Richard Avedon, Irvin Penn, Ansel Adams, Steve McCurry, Annie Leibovitz, Frank Roberts, and Monte Zucker including contemporary photographers like Jordan Smith, and Clay Blackmore, whose Master Classes I have attended. All of these searches were to find out which direction most fitted my sensibilities.
The first time I saw Cartier Bresson’s image of 1932, the photograph of a man jumping into a water puddle, I was struck with awe. The reflection of the man is clear on the water surface as he jumps and I said, what a moment, a moment I could relate with playing in puddles whenever it rained, as a child. Images of such magical moments which I see every day on our streets started to flood my mind and I decided this was going to be my genre in photography. This photograph drove home all I have been taught or read about seeing.
In the period I studied the works of great photographers, I tried to mimic them, that is the lighting and composition but it was difficult to transfer the essence of their work into any new situations with each variation I met. It is with great pleasure therefore, I document my experience, to share what I have learnt in photography about seeing. It is an attempt to share on a human level, devoid of scientific jargon all that your optician will tell you about sight and vision.
First and foremost, vision does not equate to seeing in photography. Photography is a Greek word, which means drawing with light and to make a good image you need to know your tool, that is your camera, understand what light is and be able to compose. We will not discuss your gear here because there are a dozen cameras out there, which I am not conversant with but will dwell on light and composing, with special regards to seeing. Light is of great significance in photography, not only are there different qualities of light, soft or hard light and can be used to create different impressions.
If you understand light and can compose, you will be able to make good photographs. This is the basic point of this article, how does understand equate to seeing? In conversational English, sometimes when someone understands an issue, they may say, “I see”, meaning I get the light. My submission in this paper, goes beyond semantic, so what is this seeing?
The human body is a very complicated piece of creation, sophisticated circuitry and organs all of which function together in ways we do not completely understand to make the human being. Light falls on the retina, travels through the eye goes through all the nerves it must go, to get to the memory to register an image. Your memory threshold helps you to relate or attach a meaning to the images you see. As a photographer therefore, who is making the image, to relate with the viewers, there is need to break down the image into the simplest form, in order to be able to convey the message
Perception happens through the five senses and we instantly give meaning to the image that may have attracted us. Within our minds eye we frame the picture eliminate all distractions that do not help to give meaning to the picture. In order to perceive, we must be receptive, that is have an open mind, because the images exist in time, space and in the stillness of life.
Being conscious is a key condition to seeing, by paying attention to what is around us all the time we allow our perception to grow. This kind of awareness is not the same as mental alertness but when you cease to do and allow yourself to be. This awareness is the same as aliveness and it is not a state you can be twenty-four hours a day. You know your mind is always playing games, being at a thousand locations at the same time but when you become still, you stop the wheel from spinning, then you see live as it really is. Although this could be difficult in the beginning, but it could become you if you practice this conditioning regularly.
Seeing, means bringing life or energy into your picture in addition to the highlight and shadow which good lighting situation offers. On your sheet of printed image, light easily gives you the possibility to introduce highlight and shadow, the onus is therefore on you the photographer, how to introduce the element of life or energy. You must become part of the image been crafted for this element to be transferred from you. You do not apply your intellect on such occasions, that is by trying to recall, how would Penn, Bresson or whoever have tripped the shutter when the occasion calls. You are not going to recycle any information you may have gathered but take the picture the way it is, without any distortion.
Since human emotions are aroused more easily through sight, one is tempted to increase the elements of your composition, which are better left out. People do that because they think it will enhance the composition and enable them tell a better story in the shot. For example, if you see a butterfly on a flower, it is unnecessary to add the whole twig because the story is about the butterfly and the flower.
When you begin to shoot it the way it is or when your passion and yourself begin to align, that is when you begin to see. Practice begins to allow you to have the frequent inner dialogue when situations arise. It is like working in the darkroom, you know where all your tools are even when the room is pitch dark. You cannot turn on the light in the middle of printing an image to search for anything, you are still and aware. This attitude is what you need all the time.
In the two pictures attached in this article, I tried to keep the interest to the subject at hand, in both cases. In the picture titled “Balance”, it was shot with f/5,6 and a shutter speed of 1/800”. It was a street shot and I chose these setting to allow me to blur the people around my main subject, which of course is the man with the tray. You recognize how the tray suspended at an angle brings energy into the picture. In the second picture, “Against The Odds”, the observer is being guided to look from the main event, which is the man struggling to get his cart across the railway line, then along the rail line and because you cannot discern the other characters, your eyes are forced to come back to the man.
Sometimes, it is challenging to make pictures of kids because they like to play pranks before the camera. Their parents do not make it easier either because they become forceful and issue threats, thinking the child will yield instantly. However, when you remember that there is a road to seeing and the little one has abundant of what you wish to add in the picture (life and energy), you calm the parent and let the child be. You only have to play along with the child and take your moment when it comes.
Other times some adult just walk into the studio and say, “I want to take a picture”, which does not give you the opportunity for any facial study or mannerism of the client. Yes, you don’t argue because you know you will make a technically good photograph because you know where to put the light and how to pose them. The client is satisfied and happy with what they get but know, as the photographer, you know that the photograph does not have the whiff you wished.
Let me close this dialogue with this analogy. So many significant events go unrecorded on earth each day because there was no active agent, a photographer to record it. You are the photographer, amateur or professional, who walks into a story, an event, which is a single event and physical in nature but passive as well. If you do not record it, the story goes untold but if you, the active agent, gives it life by recording it from a state of awareness, then you have preserved history, in the stillness of time for humanity to behold.
–Engr. Ajunam, Gallery Owner and photographer, writes fromSurulere, Lagos.
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