Photo Assignments
One of the things I feel is important as an artist, is to find ways you can experiment in different ways, without necessarily having the objective of producing a finished work. Something to play with, that has no ultimate goal other than playing or experimenting with something.
There are multiple options out there to encourage this, some of which I have experimented with, but have had trouble with most. Most are set-up as themed based groups or contests, where you share photos that fit under the theme and even enter ranking contests and the like.
One of the main issues I have with this type of format is theme. The themes can be very variable, sometimes inaccessible, and many times not directly related to the work I'm interested in. I know the object is to experiment, and I may perhaps at some point experiment with themes, but for a weekly, bi-weekly or even monthly exercise, it doesn't work for me. Another variable to consider is some of these pages, groups or apps, have contest-like mechanics, where I find myself paying attention to ranking, likes, etc. and these other variables take away from the experimentation and implicitly set other types of expectations. Personally I don't feel its a safe place to experiment freely.
Which brings me to Photo Assignments by Ted Forbes through his Art of Photography vlog/podcast. I have been following Ted's show for a year now, where he does equipment reviews, interviews other photographers, goes and meets print masters, etc. and what he calls photo-assignments.
The things that drew me into participating on these, granted I have just decided to opt in and participate, is that through the time I have followed him:
1. These assignments aren't theme based for the most part. They are more geared to creative approaches to photography regardless of theme. This is a huge plus, as any given assignment can potentially have great bearing on your current work.
2. These assignments aren't structured to have likes or in any way imply some sort of contest. He does showcase some of the photos that jumped at him the most, but it isn't the focus of the activity. So it lends itself for more "pure" experimentation.
Which leads me to my actual input for this assignment: Photo Assignments #15, which I'm subtitling "The Holga Experiment".
The idea of the assignment comes from how the Holga, a medium format toy film camera, imposed a series of restrictions on how you took photos with it, that seem very obtuse at first, but produces a very specific type of image due to its limitations, and also challenges the photographer to rely more on himself for the image. Over the years it was developed a sort of cult-following.
Amongst the limitations it has is that you can't focus through the viewfinder of the camera, instead it has I think 3 focus zones you can choose from depending on how "far" your subject is, you choose one of them, it has a fixed aperture, shutter speed and focal length. This means that you can't adjust your exposure to the lighting conditions, if the subject is moving or not, etc.
So basically you get a camera that gives you very minimal control over how the camera is shooting a scene, which in turn places more emphasis on "how" the photographer is shooting the scene.
The other limitations it has, being a film camera, is that you don't get to preview your images on the spot.
So with this in mind, I went on my usual Saturday morning walkabout, but since I start before dawn, I made up my mind to "switch" to the "Holga" settings on my dslr when I felt the light was good enough for that type of photography. The settings I used were: f/8, 1/60 SS, ISO 400, I turned off my LCD display preview, used the distance on the side of my 50mm lens to focus instead of focusing visually through the viewfinder, and tried to frame as much as I could without the viewfinder:
I must admit I eventually settled on first shooting as faithfully as possible to these restrictions, and then doing a shot using my viewfinder to frame and focus, but leaving everything else as is.
In general I liked the exercise, as it made me more aware of my crutches while taking photos and I when I got to finally look at my photos back home, I got a better understanding of what f/8 (and the other settings) look like under different circumstances in a more direct way. When something is done correctly, its difficult to appreciate the weight that each individual setting has on the image, but when allow yourself to make mistakes with these settings, you get a more direct impact on how these settings affect your images.
I think I will keep this exercise in mind as an option when I feel things are flat, routine like and need to mix it up and might even invest in a Holga to keep at hand as the Holga also offers some added variables that are difficult to reproduce on a dslr, like the light leaks and vignetting its famous for.
Andres Gonzalez
