|
Strange syncronicity here. Yesterday, while shooting a series of promotional shots for some dance sequences (for my daughters grant app.), I had randomly begun shooting anything around me.
The dance was being videotaped so as I waited for the videocamera shots to be set up, I would take the camera, and treat it as though an exploratory microscope scanning water and ground surfaces, and just randominly shoot sequential shots. The camera was at arms length from me, so I had no idea what was being framed. Part of the process I had hoped to incorporate was a sense of movement while scaning.
This is one image that came from this exploratory shoot. I had no preconceived idea of why I shot what I shot or what it's outcome would imply, only that the overall textural and colors elements around me attracted me.
This was one such shot that came from scanning the water surface. I had purposely pre-altered the white balance and overexposed the lighting in the camera, with the intent that the final image not be just a reproduction.
And through such explorations it always inevidably redefines my ideas and ways of seeing things. It demands that I push myself even further. push my own limitations and need to fall back on what works and what doesn't. It's demands of me to go outside the box.
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
 |
MY LIFE AS A HAINT [deleted] says:
YES! thank you so much, john! this is exactly what this exercise is all about. everyone, have a look! you now have an example of how to take a picture of nothing, that is, without intention! wonderful! please try it for yourself!
Originally posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
MY LIFE AS A HAINT edited this topic 81 months ago.
|
|
I did 90 pictures of what is around me, as I do not like complectly abstract ones, and the shadow of a flower was for me as much "nothing" as I could do and then I tried to reach the shadow and perhaps it is only in my mind but still, that is the one I like the more today.
Reaching for something only me think is really there, was a litemotive probably of my life
the set with those not choosen but done very fast
www.flickr.com/photos/joyoflife/sets/1064086/
Originally posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
Julie70 edited this topic 81 months ago.
|
|
MY LIFE AS A HAINT [deleted] says:
julie70, this is wonderful! thank you for trying out this exercise. it is designed to stretch your imagination, to help you consider different ways of innovatively photographing the world around you. what if i told you that 60% of my work is produced using this basic approach?
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
Thankfully I didn't discard a half a gig of shots from a drive in the countryside recently... I revisited them with new wide open eyes. I dropped a few in my stream but picked this.
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
Interesting challenge, Haint. Most of what I produced I found dull, but a few (out of about 60) grabbed my own attention (they're here: www.flickr.com/photos/lu_/tags/indeterminacy/). My favourite among those is this:
Actually, favourite may be the wrong word - it's the one that draws me back. I'm more intrigued by the potential in a couple of others; they "feel" more like my own work.
One of the things I've been learning over the last several weeks - since moving firmly into digital-land - and that this exercise reinforces is that I often can't see the value in or potential of a shot until I've stepped away from it (in this case a short stepping away, but often much longer). Another is that not everything reaches its potential straight from the camera, in one shot. There's value in thinking out and carefully composing a shot in advance, but there's also value in treating initial shooting as a gathering of material toward photographs.
Originally posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
Lú_ edited this topic 81 months ago.
|
|
MY LIFE AS A HAINT [deleted] says:
trau dan, WITH NEW WIDE OPEN EYES! yes, that is what this is all about! excellent!
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
MY LIFE AS A HAINT [deleted] says:
Lu, you make a great point about different methods of shooting. it is all about potential. trying different approaches which are all valid to achieve different results. frequently you do need to step back and detach to get a more objective view as if you were looking at another artist's work rather than your own. when i use the indeterminate approach, as in all of my time exposures taken from a moving car, the editing process becomes key. maybe you will get one interesting photo, maybe you will get a whole group. it is a roll of the dice. for example, here is a recent shot taken with a moving camera in a moving car. i could never have precomposed it.
in complete contrast, here is a photo meticulously precomposed in the camera and then photoshopped. would you think that dishes and suds in a kitchen sink could make a nice planetscape? look at the original size to see the detail and texture of all those tiny bubbles.
and by special request the untweaked original direct from my CANON20D:
Originally posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
MY LIFE AS A HAINT edited this topic 81 months ago.
|
|
spidrwegian_no_more [deleted] says:
I enjoyed the processof taking random shots. I took over a hundred shots. Some were taken during my lunchtime walk, the rest after the pub this evening. The daytime shots are less interesting I think, because they are out of focus, and on a grey day this doesn't work so well. I also avoided taking pictures randomly in crowds in case anyone thought I was being sneaky. The night shots always throw up patterns of light that fire the imagination. I've put six of them into a set called "random play" (although flickr seems a bit random tonight it seems so you may have difficulty viewing it) but this is the one I like best:
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
MY LIFE AS A HAINT [deleted] says:
flickrwegian, i have a preference for night shots, too. this is interesting as it is and also as the starting point for further exploration such as a different crop or manipulation in photoshop. i frequently invert the colors to see where my imagination will lead. for example:
Originally posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
MY LIFE AS A HAINT edited this topic 81 months ago.
|
|
As I'm a bit ill right now, I'm good for nothing except sitting in front of screens today. So I pointed my camera at the TV screen and took 65 shots. Quite a few of them are interesting but this one struck me the most because it looks like the guy is coming through the screen like Freddie Krueger ...
If photographing the TV is cheating, I'll try more nothing shots tomorrow.
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
MY LIFE AS A HAINT [deleted] says:
wyrd, tv shots are definitely not cheating. i do it all the time when i can't sleep. i have a preference for BW films from the 30s and silent movies. here are some examples, all of them tweaked in photoshop.
and the above shot tweaked even further.
check out the TVgraphy group: www.flickr.com/groups/tvgraphy/
Originally posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
MY LIFE AS A HAINT edited this topic 81 months ago.
|
|
since we were going for the cage reference I did mine in real time, going back to the boring corner every half hour. so i had a lot of the same that sort of crescendos to this moment of sunlight through glass block and then fades away again.
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
MY LIFE AS A HAINT [deleted] says:
bfelice, aha! conceptual nothing! cage would love it! eveyone, as Lu suggests in her comment, try viewing the original size. is that boring corner really so boring after all?
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
|
@ Haint - thanks for posting your pictures. Very interesting indeed. This exercise has been liberating for me - I don't usually take this sort of photograph at all and it's produced blurry, weird images that I like. It's given me a whole lot to think about, that's for sure. I've posted a few more of my favourite shots for this exercise in a special set in my photostream. Thanks for this class - it's a great one for me.
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
Timö [deleted] says:
Haint, I have to say you are truly inspirational, thanks for these ideas.
I put a handful of CDs on the floor in a poorly lit area of the room. I put the camera down near the CDs but pointing toward the window too so that I could get the chromatic effect. Shot phreakin loads of pictures with the autofocus and flash off and saved the best of them to Flickr. I had a lot of camera shake because I wasn't using the viewfinder and I didn't think it looked good, even on an abstract basis, so I softened them up but I still think the outcome was good.
Full Set
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
Timö [deleted] says:
Flickr's playing up and it won't let me edit that link. Here's the link for the set
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
Hello Haint, now and then I participate to your class. I will try to answer to the other pevious questions as much as possible.
Referring Cage, 4min.33sec., i was about posting only a frame, but i post something more like chance operation;
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
MY LIFE AS A HAINT [deleted] says:
does this look at all familiar?
with bfelice's permission i did a treatment of the random boring corner (see above). the photoshop process: crop, rotate, flip, grayscale, sharpen, unmask sharpen, contrast, darken, sharpen. then i gave it the title DAWN OVER ROUGH SEAS (FRESCO). what is your reaction to seeing this?
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
The Day I got my new Camera. I couldnt stop shooting everything. Some of the random shots actually came out quite well.
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
Well Haint, as you know, I take a lot of random "nothing" photos and either post as is, or manipulate for stronger effect. Throughout the afternoon and evening I took about 200 random shots. I posted several that grabbed me--no manipulation, yet....whereas most of the time I am in a moving car doing moving lights, this time I expanded my routine and took the camera inside and did walk by (moving) shots of various items with my camera on various speeds and settings....this is the one that I decided to post to the stream....as it is a break away from my "normal" nothingness.
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
Snowblindfrog [deleted] says:
I took 68 photos of nothing, this one caught my fancy. The deep amber coloration comes from a whiskey bottle that I grabbed and held in front of the camera lens somewhere near the 61st photo. I think the whiskey moved to the right hand side in this shot, that's why there's some break of light in there. I love how it turned out. Basically I was just waving the camera around like a mad man with no rhyme or reason and caught glimpse of the whiskey bottle and wondered what the world might look like through it.
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
I shot 167 random pictures today. I was in my car most of the day, so I pointed the camera out the window at arm's length and shot away. This one might be of something inside my car. I played around with the camera's settings and was shooting with a close up setting for a while.
I pulled 10 of my favorites out of the 167 and whittled away until I picked this one. Not sure why, it just grabbed me the most. I have posted 5 other top contenders as a set.
Great exercise. I might try it again when I hit a creative dry spot...
See the rest here
Originally posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
tomusan edited this topic 81 months ago.
|
|
Cool exercise. I didn’t go anywhere, just stood up from my computer, set my camera to continuous shooting, and waved it around my home office and the deck outside. From 261 images, culled down to 21, then 7 that I actually like…a lot. These are posted to my photostream. I had an unexpected emotional response to some of them. My random waving around turned out not to be random but unconsciously focused on some elements around me that have salience and evoke affect. I saw the one I post here as an embodiment of some anxiety I always feel in this place… about undone work and unmet expectations. Weird. So now I get to name her and know she’s there.
Originally posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
*CA* edited this topic 81 months ago.
|
|
|
Haint: that's nice title. i think it's not nothing, but an abstract picture (i think it similar to abstract expressionism). and it has coherence (or concept... clear central idea) of texture(touch of processing) and color(greyscale).
I have a question. What do you mean when you say 'nothing'?
If it means 'indicate nothing, describe nothing', maybe abstract picture is the answer.
If it means 'say nothing, without contents'- perhaps this is in Cage's term -, abstract doesn't mean 'nothing'. Perhaps minimalistic or conceptual ways are feasible -thus, very boring picture, just a frame (a work needs to be articulated from the world.), just text 'this is (not) a picture', and so on...
Please don't be bothered with my question, though. In this thread your intention is 'try many things without judgement', and that's great.
Just you mentioned Cage, I asked.
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
I just did this--sat in my chair at my computer and waved my camera around, taking pictures of things, here are my two favorites, which I heavily post-processed in my RAW converter:
There's another here too.
An interesting experiment, for sure.
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
Hi Haint,
Thanks for sharing you knowledge! I look forward to this learning experience!
So, I snapped around 200 pictures and hear are the two that caught my eye.
I like the texture and swirling motion captured in this. I was spining in circles and flailing my arms when I took it. To me it has an almost celestial feel. It happens to be a tie-dyed pillow case over a light.
and
This picture was also taken while spinning and flailing. I like the feather like texture and soft colors. The green is from a bamboo plant setting on a speaker.
and
I'm also attaching a third example where I (or someone using my camera) captures several frames off of a TV. I personally, find this picture a bit harsh on the eyes and unbalanced, but I kept it because of the TV frames.
I think that this exercise helps break the mold of what people typically think is the right way to take a picture.
I think this exercise can also produce very pleasant and appealing textures and starting points for Photoshop (or GIMP) projects. It also to me had a "100 monkeys and 100 typewriters" sensability to it. In a large number of random chances, you probably will find something cool.
Nate
P.S. Any particular size you would like these posted in?
P.S.S. Reposted as small.
Originally posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
nate[at]chillpix.com edited this topic 81 months ago.
|
|
MY LIFE AS A HAINT [deleted] says:
nate, the sizes you posted are fine, but in general i would prefer the small size simply for ease of viewing and discussing. we can all click on the picture and view the different sizes avaiable. sometimes viewing the largest size is most advantageous for examining texture and detail.
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
For this pic I stood in my room and whirled around. Took 50 pictures. This is the one that kept my attention. I had the room lit from 4 angles with different values of very warm light. In this one, the contrasts, shapes and color of the light took on a substantialness that I really like. It was quite a surprise.
Originally posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
Alice's Furrows edited this topic 81 months ago.
|
|
This has been a most interesting exercise, that I need to practice... I walked around the street with my camera down by my side snapping away semi randomly, because I choose whether to point it in front or behind me. This one was taken as I went into the bank and I chose it because I like the softness and movement in this. The rest are people and pavement shots at strange angles, I put a couple of others in a set here
I learnt that almost any photo has a chance of "being" if we treat it the right way and listen to what it is saying.
Originally posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
EssjayNZ edited this topic 81 months ago.
|
|
i'm not brown nosing the teacher but i would like to commend Haint on the amount of work he's putting into this & also the enthusiasm he's drawing out of his students*
;))
just had a newspaper & my camera & got some interesting stuff*
i like these cuz o the Mondrian look o the crossword puzzle*
i even put up 2 that are almost nothing*
woohoooooooo
Cybele Malinkowski said this was cool*
;))
here's one of the more nothing ones*
some interesting striations across it*
here's the set*
www.flickr.com/photos/billywarhol/sets/1070700/
Closer to nothing*
Joy Division
Closer to God*
NIN
Nine Inch Nails*******************
Originally posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
BillyWarhol edited this topic 81 months ago.
|
|
|
Perhaps, this one is more in the "taste" of this class for "creativity"
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
Here's mine:
EDIT:
Oops, I've just realised that I haven't said anything about this. Like Flickrwegian, I've found that the shots I took at night are far better than the day time ones. I took a few shots outside at night, and inside at an acoustic open mike night. The latter was really good, as there were lots of candles about, and resulting in a number pictures with repeating light streaks, including this one above, in which the lights streaks had somehow went into these incredible curls.
There's also another one which is almost as good.
Originally posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
alephnaught edited this topic 81 months ago.
|
|
zombizi prime [deleted] says:
(The old zombizi family motto: if in doubt, be glib.
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
Through a Glass Darkly
After looking at all my "random" shots I liked
this one the best. I hope I don't influence
anyones viewing of the image by giving my
own interpretation.
As photographers we use lenses as extensions
of our eyes to depict what our mind tells us, "take this!"?
This was a chance fumbled shutter release
while around a mirror. What better way to decpict
"Through a glass darkly?" What better way than
having ones eye see through a lens into a mirror that
is relfecting the lens and by extension the eye, and
thence the mind.
Originally posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
gholmes edited this topic 81 months ago.
|
|
This is an interesting exercise. It's something I do as a matter of course during a photo shoot, but it was fun to "shoot nothing" on purpose. My first example is actually what happened when I thought I was done with the shot. From inside my camera bag, comes a surprise:
Another example - this is water in a fountain, shot with a little shake:
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
|
Those are awesome ancawonka..
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
|
Thanks Tirau. I like yours too. Gotta love those random shots!
Wyrd, I find that photo of the TV very spooky. I'll have to try shooting the TV, perhaps with some of the reflections from the room in it. HMMM.
Snowblindfrog, it's remarkable how similar in feel your whiskey photo is to your "manipulated" image - those feathered streaks are very nice.
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
|
I really like that fountain shot, ancawonka!
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
|
I like both your shots, ancawonka. The goldy greens in the first one are gorgeous, as are the mottled blues in the fountain shot with patterns in their midst.
It's so interesting to see what people came up with in this exercise!
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
nada:
while walking yesterday.
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
Nothing wears green
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
MY LIFE AS A HAINT [deleted] says:
fotogail, that's a visionary blue nothing!
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
MY LIFE AS A HAINT [deleted] says:
ninoka, it wears green well!
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
Here's mine. I like the layers of light through the leaves, very three dimensional.
Originally posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
janinewhite edited this topic 81 months ago.
|
|
Hm, how unintentional do you want this to be? This is no shot I made by accident. It is the result of some wild experimentation, swinging and turining the camera near some neon signs.
I selected this picture because it contains a newly formed, self-contained shape/structure, and because it came closest to being a "picture" in my subjective criteria (as opposed to being an image in its technical sense).
For me, this assignment again raises the question of what creativity is. My personal answer to this is that creativity is - above all - selection and discrimination. We are being bombarded by masses of images every day, and our mind is constantly filtering them, discarding what's irrelevant.
The thing I learnt in this exercise is that one facet of being creative is to loosen the criteria of our mind's real-time filtering engine - to let in pictures, impressions that one would normally weed out as not being pertinent or useful, because they might seem incoherent at first glance. However, some of these images are an interesting starting ground for dreams and associations.
Originally posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
tschnitzlein (a group admin) edited this topic 81 months ago.
|
|
|
@tschintzlein, that's great! I agree that one of the aspects of creativity is selection, and the ability to look at 100 things, sort of alike, and see what is best in them.
The other part of creativity, though, is being curious enough to ask "what will happen if I do this?". I think your photo shows that you are ready to point your camera at someting random and see what will happen.
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
i was bored in the doctors office waiting for a friend and just started randomly shooting pictures, this one caught my eye because of the relationship of the two subjects and their body language. I don't know thier relationship but they appear to be related
Originally posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
barbee edited this topic 81 months ago.
|
|
Here's mine of a hole in a bridge.
Originally posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
Auntie K edited this topic 81 months ago.
|
|
I am again late to the party - apologies. But here are my "thoughts".
The first picture has "nothing" as the subject.
The second is a picture of "nothing special".
And the third is a lot of emptiness with nothing really prominent.
I do like the first one, though!
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
|
man, that warhol, what a brown noser ;) lol
haint rocks! great energy!
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
Took this with my lens cap on. Then booted the signal in camera raw. I quite like the effect.
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
I had a hard time NOT playing around with pictures - I had to hold myself back from hitting the "I feel lucky" on Picasa. As a result, this is a lot more subtle than I usually post, I think. I picked it because it had (I think) the most form and shades of color - was thus most interesting to the eye.
Maybe I won't be so fast on the button....I took over a hundred pictures for this - but most of them ended up edited...
Originally posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
Susan NYC edited this topic 81 months ago.
|
|
I didn't have a lot of time this week to take pictures, hence my lack of participation. Though I have enjoyed looking at everyone elses and reading everyone's thoughts on these projects. It was hard to "clear" the mind and just shoot. I kept thinking of angles and light but finally last night driving in the rain to the Yankee Game I just started shooting out the car window (no I wasn't driving, I was the passenger). Ended up with this one which though I could manipulate in photoshop I didn't. It reminds me of being a kid and watching the rain through the window and singing "Rain, Rain go Away...".
This was a close second (also taken from the car):
www.flickr.com/photos/reflections1000/50471773/in/set-109...
Now on to those self-portraits. I dread self-portraits...
Originally posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
reflections1000 edited this topic 81 months ago.
|
|
the best one out of 30 pictures made while jumpin and twistin through the park... :)
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
I did not find this easy:
Rice, blurred.
Originally posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
Monster. edited this topic 81 months ago.
|
|
Is this nothing or something ?
Originally posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
Jerome MagicWorld edited this topic 81 months ago.
|
|
merry go round (that is me running after my daughter, no knowing that I took a pic :P
Posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
|
|
at the last minute i took one (actually a whole bunch but i like this best) ...
it's a stack of cds on a 'stick'
Originally posted 81 months ago.
(permalink)
trAvelpig edited this topic 81 months ago.
|
Would you like to comment?
Sign up for a free account, or sign in (if you're already a member).
|
!masterclass! - (archived) /
Discuss
Feed – Subscribe to !masterclass! - (archived) discussion threads