Lessons from Rozov: look and see. Part 1

If the banality of worldly wisdom is the norm of behavior, then for the creative process it is the finish line, beyond which there is death. Recognizability of the image, its banality is an important component of the image’s success. But the non-triviality of the photographic solution is even more important.

For example, everyone knows that smoking is bad for you. It’s trivial. But for its realization to make a person give up an addiction, the bell has to toll. When fate knocks a sapiens on the intelligent head and rings out loudly, up to a pain in the eardrums, that’s when recognition of banality becomes a motive for action.

Do not think that I decided to philosophize. I’m actually writing about photography, not smoking. Everyone is wondering how to learn to see a good picture? Because everyone knows how to look.

Once upon a time I used to sketch composition diagrams in my little notebook for future reportage shots. Never mind that these diagrams rarely became real photographs. But when life threw something similar at me some time later, I reacted instantly, without wasting time thinking about it, just pressed the shutter, not realizing that I had used a billet.

Photo 1. Shadows from the tables in our hotel restaurant. I shot them at four in the afternoon. As I pressed the shutter, I already knew what I would have to do with this quite banal file for the viewers to see what I saw.

The Olympus E-M5 camera

Zuiko 75-300/4.5-6.7 lens

Aperture f/5.9

Shutter speed 1/1600 sec

Sensitivity 200 ISO

The 172mm focal length of the film standard.

Photo 2. Knights Dogs.

Lake Peipsi, the raven stone, the Battle of the Ice… and the music of Sergei Prokofiev came to mind as I pulled the shutter. On my way to the beach, I purred: “Get up, people of America!”.

Then I checked to see if that’s how my picture was perceived. Did I hit the target?? I put the untitled picture on the Net, but people immediately wrote to me about the knights.

Recognizability of the image, its banality is an important part of the photo’s success. But the non-triviality of the photographic solution is even more important. In this case I had to rotate the picture by 90 degrees, crop a little to the left to remove the shadow from the fence, and bleach the file by darkening the table tops. Then raise the contrast in the middle. The tiles were brightened and the shadows of the chairs darkened.

Banalities are banal because they are obvious and cannot be wrong. But being careful with expressions, I should mention that in most cases.

Drawing schemes teaches you to think in series, in stories, not in one frame.

There’s another method of practicing the ability to see: taking pictures without a camera. Just with my eyes. Imagine that your eyes are a camera lens and your eyelids are curtains. In the days when film was expensive, gear was heavy, and carrying it around was considered suicidal for the spine, you had to shoot with your eyes. I was so caught up in the process that I had nightmares about the unreleased shots.

Sometimes I’ve fallen into a pensive state of mind, deciding how to overcome the technical obstacles that might have prevented the realization of some idea I’ve spied from life. That is how experience, the photographer’s invaluable wealth, is accumulated. You can never have much of it, and that is why you should never stop learning the craft. If I noticed that I like everything in my photos and I don’t want to change anything, it would be a bell of destiny, a signal that I am able to shoot only banalities…

Read more at fotosky the online version of Consumer magazine.Photo & Technique