A fellow photographer was talking recently about previsualizing, that is, seeing the photo before you take out the camera, rather than shooting a great deal and looking for the good ones.
I'm all about previsualizing...maybe it should just be called "visualizing," since previsualizing is inherently redundant... Using a 4X5 camera requires it, if nothing more than for the fact that each image costs me around $7.
And so, I scout locations, repeatedly over years. Some are many hours' drive away. I watch the weather forecasts and the satellite loops.
I study the way the sky changes before, during and after a storm, and at different seasons, which is easier to do here south of Santa Fe where I can see over 100 miles to the west.
I look for composition, light, and all the things that help me to translate the power of what I see to a rectilinear image. I try to anticipate what the light and sky are going to do. Itry to find a viewpoint that will combine all the elements to make an image. I know of no better way to immerse one’s self in the discipline of seeing things rightly.
But I have learned that there are always surprises. So, while I am focused on the image I think I am going to make, I also keep looking for what is already there, which I hadn’t anticipated. The result is that sometimes the image comes as an epiphany, other times it's more a matter of studying a scene for a while, moving around in it, and getting an insight into how it works.
My friend, Dean Howell, has given me what is so far the best definition of art and craft that I know:
"With craft," he says, “You start out knowing what you want to create and you pretty much end up with what you set out to do. With Art, you start out with an idea, but you somehow end up with an outcome that you couldn't have anticipated, but is far better than anything you could have visualized.”
Ansel Adams is considered one of the masters of photography that is visualized, but even he could never have anticipated "Moonrise".
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