Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“My cameras [are] note takers for my mind, so I may place evidence before others…telling them why I am seldom bored.”— W. Eugene Smith
When I’m in a rut, I shoot monochrome to help myself dig out of it. It may be as simple as loading a roll of film in my camera as I did with this featured image that was shot with Fujifilm Neopan 400 Professional using a Contact 167MT and Yashica 50mm f/2 lens (exposure unrecorded) or if I’m shooting one of my DSLRs or mirrorless cameras…
One of the things I like to do to get out of a rut is to shoot some photographs in direct monochrome mode. It doesn’t have to be all of the images that I shoot during that day or in a portrait session; just a few to see what happens.
If you think that’s a bad idea because you worry about what happens if you change your mind and want that original at some later date to be in color? Most DSLRs or mirrorless cameras offer a RAW+JPEG option that lets you capture a monochrome (JPEG) and color (RAW) file at the same time. Some dual-slot camera, even let you simultaneously save each file type to a different card. My old but dependable Canon EOS 1D Mark II N let me, for example, shoot RAW on the CompactFlash card and JPEG files onto the SD card.
If you prefer to capture in color and convert to monochrome later in the digital darkroom that’s not a bad idea either. And when it comes to portraiture that’s my go-to method because all of my favorite retouching tools such as Imagenomic’s’ Portraiture work better with color images.
Another idea you might want to try to prevent your photography from becoming stagnant is to make a new photograph each day. It’s actually a lot harder to do than it sounds but give it a try, even if you miss a day or two. I recently tried this during May, National Photo Month and did actually show me two things: First, that my life was even more boring than I had ever imagined and then second the good news was that I have moved out of Phase I in my film photography development and now seem really stuck in Phase II. If you missed my post on The Three Phases of a Photographer’s Creative Life, click the link and read it when you have time.
PS: Just a reminder: My Podcast #5 is now available on my YouTube channel, Joe Farace’s Videos. Also my video Why Film, Why Now is available featuring a look at a my reasons and philosophy about why I like to shoot film.