Download PDF The Unforgettable Photograph 228 Ideas, Tips, and Secrets By George Lange

Sinopsis

The chapters are organized around basic concepts, ways to capture moments and feelings that are true to your experience, and ways to develop a relationship between you and your subjects in which both sides can

play and explore. Th ese are, really, pictures that anyone could take: less about technical skill than persistence and feeling and attention to light and space. It doesn’t matter whether you start at the end of the book, the middle, or the beginning; dip in and out; or plow right through. There are hundreds of ideas, as well as pointers on composition and lighting, plus a chapter that dives a little deeper into simple technical issues. Some photos reinforce one simple idea worth trying and feature almost no explanatory text. Others are grouped to suggest an approach or exercise that may lead to a great shot. Many include a back story that helps to explain where a shot came from creatively.

Taken together, the pictures illustrate my belief in emotional directness and the need to get close to the subject. Th e only other “must” is the never-ending need to fi nd new angles, new light, new ways to break through to a true experience. Although my approach is not, at its core, technical, it may seem emotionally risky. You’re called to use the camera in situations where you might have lacked the nerve before; to move past predictable poses to something more relaxed, intimate, and inspired with your subjects; and above all, to become that photographer who is always on the move, always taking pictures in daily life, sometimes disappearing into the background, sometimes directing, always engaged. As already noted, most of my shots are from daily life, although I have included some professional and studio work, and even a few celebrity shots that illustrate an important idea. Most shots are personal, though, or taken for personal reasons

around the edges of a professional shoot.

Pictures, as Chapter 1 asserts, are not as much about the “subject” as they are about your experience inside a moment. Finding your own breakthroughs will come from picking up your camera and diving in, perhaps inspired by a photo that you see here and use as a jumpingoff point for your own creative play. Along the way, there is no shame in directly copying an idea, an angle, or a trick as a way to fi nd your own approach.

I shoot with a point-and-shoot camera quite often, and with my iPhone daily, but most of the photos here were taken with my pro SLR. That’s because I almost always have it around and it’s second nature for me to use it. But the ideas and the feelings in my pictures can, with a few exceptions, be captured with a good phone camera or a point-and-shoot. Th e best pictures come from true experiences creatively documented, not from the machine.

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