Photography | The Elements of Style
© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Portrait of My Son | Black and White
Some people might find it difficult to accept a portrait picture in a square format. When we talk about portrait, we imagine a picture of a person in a vertical format not a square format like what I like to do, like what I’m sharing it here. It’s not really my style because square format have been used long time ago made popular by Hasselblad camera with their classic 6×6 cm square film format. I don’t know why, but I simply love this type of square format. I rarely shoot film these days but I like the look of film effect.
I like to experiment with my photography, mostly about editing because I cannot do so much during picture taking process. I know that I can be more creative with my composition, be creative to make full use of natural light or available light, be selective with my focusing and so on and so forth but sometimes doesn’t give me enough satisfaction. Sometimes I like to spend my time in front of a computer making art out from my picture, just like AnselAdams where he spent quite a lot of his time in the darkroom making a beautiful prints. During those times, printing or the process of printing a picture under the enlarger is an art in itself, we need to know which part that needs to be darken a bit, which part need to be lighten, we use dodge and burn tools to make our print look great.
I believe that there are many great photographers during Ansel Adams times but what separate him from the rest is his skills in the darkroom. His prints is work of art. I know that some of my photojournalist friend will never accept any type of so called Photoshop editing picture because to them a photograph should be original, just the way it was captured by a camera, it should represent a real life, a true colors and never ever manipulated it, in some way or another, let alone playing with color tones or adding any texture to it. When it comes to photojournalism, I have to agree but photography is not about photojournalism only, there are my type of things that are related to photography, there are many genre of photography, we can choose any type that best suit our interest.
I have no time to argue with them because I know what I do and I know where not to cross the line, I mean I know that when I do my work for photojournalism purpose, I will never over edit my picture, in fact I rarely edit my official assignment work, I do my editing in the camera by deleting the unusable picture right in the camera itself, so when I get back to the office, all I have to do is to download all the picture to my computer and send all the pictures to my editor or my respective department where they will decide what to do with the picture. My work is finished here.
Here I’m not saying that it’s the Photoshop editing that make a photograph great but I simply say that, it’s the editing that sometimes make a photograph unique, different from the rest just like wedding photographers, nowadays most people love to shoot candid style, photojournalist style, but I like the work of Jeff Ascough, I like his grainy gritty black and white style, even without editing his Photograph is still look great, still captured a great decisive moment but his editing style really make his picture unique on it’s own, easily distinguished from the rest.
When it comes to my personal picture, especially my family picture, I like to experiment, maybe because it was my hobby playing with Photoshop because I just don’t have any other hobby unrelated to photography. I don’t do any commercial portrait photography, I don’t shoot for anybody other than for my department so when it comes to my personal picture, I really don’t have to worry whether people will like it or not. I will do whatever that will pleased my very own eyes.
Lately I like to add grain to my black and white photograph. Back then when my son was one year old, I don’t like to add grain to any of my black and white picture, I prefer it to be noise free or grain free but after awhile, I get bored, I feels that a clean black and white picture does not have enough character, does not speaks my feeling, does not represent what I try to present even though I know that I’ve nobody to present my work but myself. Just to let you know I never set a Mono or Black and White Mode right in the camera. I shoot in colors and only change into black and white in Photoshop.
When I think about it again, it is not really about style, it is not really about me wanted to be different or unique but most importantly to me is that how or which is the best way to present the picture so it speaks or able to make a connection with the me, touch my heart because I’m not trying to touch other people heart with my personal family picture. I’ve no business to make my photograph interesting to other people eyes but to myself but somehow if my picture touch someone feeling, evoke emotion, then I guess it is a great things.
