By Wayne Cosshall
Do most of your images start with pre-visualization? Or experimentation? Do you only work only one way or the other? Or do you swing both ways, photographically speaking?
Pre-visualization is big in the arts. In your mind, you see beforehand what you want to show, capture or create and then you set out to do so. Pre-visualization can occur in a momentary flash of inspiration or slowly develop over a long period of time. (The image on the right was created through previsualization.)
Experimentation is a sophisticated term for play. Photographically, it means simply doing for the sake of doing, and then seeing what the results are later. Play can be deeply focused, totally absorbing your attention for awhile. Or, play can be sporadic and interrupted. Whatever form experimentation takes, it’s still play.
Pre-visualization is a result-oriented approach. You envision the end result and then set out to make your vision real.
Experimentation is process oriented. You are absorbed in the process and care little for the end result because the result is essentially a byproduct of the process. (The image shown below was created through experimentation.)
Some of us work exclusively one way, some of us the other. Still others of us mix and match our methods depending on the situation.
Despite what some photographers might tell you, there is no right or wrong way. It depends partly on your personality and how you think. Some personality types are best suited to only one way of working and thinking. Others will be able to choose or change how they work depending on their moods or circumstances.
Personally, I think it is good if you can work both ways. So if you have a strong tendency to only pre-visualize or only to experiment, try to develop the other way too. The value comes from the fact that the two different ways of working are not really that far apart. Pre-visualization can be regarded as experimentation ‘in the head.’ When you experiment (play), you try different things, examine the results, and choose what worked best for you. In pre-visualization all this still happens, but it happens in your mind before you go near the camera, computer or darkroom.
Here are some tips to get you started:
Experimentation: Let go of any expectations about future results. Allow yourself to become totally absorbed in the moment. Shoot with different settings, lenses, and angles just for the sake of the trying it, not for what you hope to get. This in-the-moment thinking can be difficult because results-oriented thinking has become so ingrained in us as business people. So, expect to keep pulling yourself back from considering future results and quieting that internal evaluative voice.
Pre-visualization: Develop the final image in your head before you even pick up your camera. This process may be so quick that you are not conscious of all the stages that occur. But there are still stages. It usually starts with a brainstorming period during which you generate a number of ideas. During the evaluative stage that follows you consider the results of brainstorming stage, editing and eliminating some ideas. A development process of fine-tuning can follow the idea-evaluation stage. In the end, you have a pretty clear picture in your mind of the image your want to create. The issue then becomes a matter of using your photography and image-editing skills to translate the image in your head into an image or print.
Give both methods of working a go and you will find that there is a time and place for both in your photography. Both can be extremely productive and creative and either can be the key to getting yourself to that next level of creative output.
Posted
02-04-2009 3:47 PM
by
Eileen Fritsch