On Deciding . . . Better 3.0

I looked at this image from Umbria this morning and wondered why I was working on it. I’ve been photographing the suburban environment I live in with a developing visual vocabulary. In Umbria, the suburban environment is very different and the resulting images reflect it.

It’s process. Spend time in a new environment and gain new visual impressions. For me it’s the essence of travel- getting out of one’s usual routines and ways of seeing. Then on returning, the daily reality doesn’t look the same.

Umbria is truly a beautiful place with extraordinary visual sights nearly everywhere. I’m not a travel photographer or a chronicler of Italian landscape. But I’m happy to share what I saw and hope that it helps to inform my more usual work.

These were stains on a wall I walked by every morning in Spello. They were constantly changing based on the light. Spello, like Assisi, is built of pink colored stone. All of the stucco and mortar are also tinted to complement the colors. It makes for one of the warmest environments you can image.

I had some anxiety about my image safety during my vacation. Just before I left, the hard drive on my Macbook Pro was scrambled and I rebuilt it from a Time Machine backup the evening before leaving. I then couldn’t find the external hard drive / card reader that I bought a few years ago.

I just downloaded images from cards onto the laptop during the trip, reviewing and then erasing the cards. A single copy of all of those images until yesterday when they were copied over to external drives, consolidated into the big Aperture library, and put into vaults.

It’s been a great 10 days in Italy. No real internet access for the entire trip. Tonight we’re in a hotel at the airport, prepared for an early flight out and back to the US.

Umbria light was much better for photography than that of Liguria two years ago. About 1500 captures, with a few winners already. This was quickly processed just in Aperture using the Nik filters.

I needed a photo of myself for a professional event. I used window light from the right and an off camera SB-800 shooting into an umbrella off to the left. My daughter actually did the focus and capture, I cropped.

I like the style as a portrait actually. It’s not that far from my usual images, just much more naturalistic given that it’s a face, not a field or walkway

Finally, I’ve picked up the Nikon again. It was cold. It was rainy. It was raw. But I’m going to be traveling to Europe next month and it will be my biggest opportunity for interesting image harvesting in a long time.

Its interesting how rapidly I can get back to where I left off. At least there was some light yesterday when I captured this image. With my current toolbox I can work around a lack of interesting illumination, its much better if I have something to work with to start.

I’m reading Geoff Colvin’s “Talent is Overrated” right now. It’s a great discussion of getting good at doing things by deliberate practice. Of course for me at 51, it comes too late. My kids should be reading it.

Whatever I’ve learned over the last two years is deeply ingrained at this point. According to the literature, if I work at this pace for another 15 years, I’ll be an expert. I’m developing vocabulary and technique slowly so that I don’t have to think so much about how to achieve a result, I can think more about whether the result was achieved.

Photography is like playing the piano in that its trivial to make an image or a sound with these instruments. Painting or playing cello has a longer learning period for producing anything.

I’ve started dabbling in making music over the last few months. It’s a scary feeling to be so adrift as complete novice. I don’t really intend to get very good, but its worthwhile exploring. I have a set of skills built over the years that helps in mastering completely new tasks that help, but the variety of choices that present themselves at every turn is truly bewildering.