Hi, I'm Doug McKinlay and you're watching
AdoramaTV. Now for the past few episodes
I've been banging on about photographic
exercises. Why you might ask? Well I think
they're a valid way to keep your skills
honed and they're interesting too.
Even after all these years is working as
a pro I still do them for me, they keep
the edge sharp, and you can find some new
things to shoot. Now one of the problems
of being a pro, is you often forget what
you started working as a photographer for
in the first place. Sometimes the business
just gets in the way.
So for today, we're going to look at a
different set of exercises to help
people think outside the box a little.
We're going to call this exercise
'Artificial Restrictions'. Now this could
be anything you choose it to be, as long
as the application limits you in terms
of technique, time of day, equipment and
location. It's a little bit like fighting
with one arm tied behind your back.
You get more proficient with the other
arm the more you practice. As I said the
limitations can be anything, as long as
they have a photographic purpose. It
could be shooting everything in black
and white. Over or under exposing using
one lens. Shooting only in manual,
shooting while seated, or standing on a
bench or a wall. Shooting things only
above you et cetera... you get the picture!
For our purposes today though, I'm going
to pick three limitations. In a previous
video we did one where we use just a 50
mm f/1.4 lens.
Well sticking with that theme today, our
first limitation is using a 24 mm
f/1.4 lens. Now I absolutely
love this lens, and I use it all the time.
It's great for travel, great for reportage,
it's great for landscape, for
cityscape. Now the great thing about
the 24mm lens is it forces
a photographer to think about the
wide-angle. Things like distortion, how I
can use it to my advantage, or get rid of
it. It's a really great lens to practice
with. So our second limitation is time of
day shooting between 10:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.
Now at the moment it's 10:00
a.m. and we're in the northern
hemisphere in the summer. So what does
that tell me?
It tells me the Sun is gonna rise quite
quickly. High in the sky and create some
hard contrasty light. Very difficult to
work with.
Not impossible. So I'm not thinking of
people pictures so much, because it'd be
very difficult to get nice face head-on
shots of people, portrait shots without
any kind of artificial light, because
you're going to pick up some shadows under
the eyes under the nose and under the
chin. For architecture it's
actually quite good, because we're going to
use this shadow to our advantage, and
think in black and white. Now the reason
why this exercise is quite good, is
because you don't always have a choice
when you're in a place for the great
light, you might turn it to a place, a
city, wherever, and in the middle of the
day and you have no choice but to work
with the light you've got. Now for me as a
professional. I can't walk away from a
place without the images, so I need to
work with the light I've got. So it's a
very good exercise to learn to work with
hard light. So for the third and final
installment of our artificial
restrictions video. We're going to be seated.
This is a great limitation, but it's a
fantastic limitation, I do it practically
on every job I've ever done.
I'll find a park bench, or city bench and
just sit and wait for the shots to come
in. I often can blend in with the people
around me, they'll soon forget you're
there and you become practically
invisible.
Now you've, it's incumbent on the
photographer on a good perch where ever
you are going to try this. We can get those
great passing pictures. Don't worry about
the equipment you're going to use. I often
use a longer lens, so I can get some
great portrait pictures. It's a great
exercise as I said earlier. The
limitations are not limited, the point is
is to pick things will make you think
about the whole process from conception
to print. Now these exercises I
think are fantastic tools and everyone
should do them from time to time.
Thanks for taking the time to watch.
I'm Doug McKinlay for AdoramaTV.
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