Today’s Ruminations for by Joe Farace
For years people have accused me of lollygagging with my photography, even after I tried to explain to them that I’m just dilly dallying.—I think I said that at some point.
“Lollygagging:” to spend time doing things that are not useful or serious : to fool around and waste time.
“dilly dallying:” waste time through aimless wandering or indecision.
When Mary and I owned our studio, we shot weddings. If several weeks had transpired between either of us shooting a wedding, it showed up in how well we performed the next time wedding bells rang. Initially we would be rusty but gradually the rust would fade during the shoot. But the longer the time between weddings the rustier we got and while ultimately the muscle and mind memory that was needed to shoot these events came back, it still felt awkward in the interim—to us anyway. I’m sure the clients couldn’t tell. Yes, we knew how to do it but it didn’t come back right away. I thik the same thing can be true no matter what kind of photography you do…
You Have to work at it.
…take glamour photography, for example. A former Shutterbug writer once complained to the editor about my photography claiming that I was “channeling the ghost of Peter Gowland.” Late in his life I got to know Peter Gowland and considered him to be a friend. I also considered this complaint about my work to be a compliment, although I don’t think the writer meant it that way.
Featured today is an unabashed homage to Peter Gowland just because… This image was made during my third shoot with Erin Valakari. Even when working with two LED light panels, I tend to shoot at higher-than-normal ISO settings. That’s because I prefer to be able to have hand holdable shutter speeds to produce the least amount of camera or subject movement along with a modest enough aperture to maintain some semblance of depth-of-field. All the while trying to produce acceptable low noise levels. The reality of working under these kind of situations is that this is not always possible. In this case, the camera used was a Panasonic Lumix GH4 with Lumix G Vario 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6 lens (at 45mm) with an exposure of 1/13 sec at f/5.6 and ISO 1000 and an exposure compensation of Plus two-thirds stops.
The Best way to shake of the rust?
Keep making photographs. Every day if possible. I’ve been shooting some cars and having infrared photography shoots with my pal Barry Staver. I haven’t worked in my home studio since June that was may most recent shoot with Pam Simpson. On July 1, I had a shoot scheduled with a model who I had worked with before but she canceled at 9:45PM, the night before. I’m sure anyone who’s worked with Internet models has had this experience; I’ve experienced it more times than I can count. Health Update: In the meantime, I’m struggling to rebound from my recent surgery and as I soon began physical therapy, part of my mental and photographic therapy will be to shoot some macro photography. I’ll let you know how that goes.
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