Struggling with your photography?
For your work to be truly great, it must transcend the act which begets it! Great photos are about more than what can be seen. They are about the emotions which the image evokes. These in turn, can only be generated through the proper application of spirituality, honour, integrity and discipline.
To find wisdom we must seek beyond the obvious. While the web is full of the websites, pictures and techniques of lesser teachers, none come close to the TRUE MASTERS below.
(Conversely, if you're a pretty hot photographer, I wouldn't want to meet you in a dark alley.)
So, read and learn, little pebble!
Jackie Chan
Jackie's fighting style primarily involves:
1. wriggling into (and out of) places people are not meant to be, and
2. using all objects within reach.
Equally, your shots will benefit from getting your camera into the most ideal location. You should have no qualms about snapping at the Statue of David’s naughty bits from that cordoned off balcony in the Uffizi, or hanging off the chandelier, if that provides the best angle for your shot. And your camera can be stabilised by a conveniently present amoire, or helicopter, then it should be used.
Bruce Lee
Bruce is famous for the speed of his deadly limbs. Apparently, (and this connection empirically proves there is a scientific basis for the connection between Kung Fu and photography!), it is said that film cameras were unable to capture his moves on film at 24 fps.
As in the art of decapitating people with your bare hands, speed also matters when photographing them. The speed of your camera in starting up is important so you don't miss the shot. The speed of your camera's shot to shot rate is vital when shooting fast movement. And shooting handheld at the highest possible shutter speed while still exposing correctly is the reason people worry about things like fast lenses and high ISO settings.
Bruce is also proof that the faster your camera is, the noisier it will be.
Mr Miyagi
Miyagi-san gave to the world the ultimate Kung Fu haiku, sublime powerful wisdom, and so clean too:
"Wax on, wax off".
For those unfamiliar with this, (and your life, until now, has been a failure) it is about deriving mastery through the repeated practice of basic moves. Thus was Daniel, by waxing Mr Miyagi's car, able to learn to parry otherwise deadly and unstoppable karate blows.
In our art, the road to true mastery is therefore lined with a hundred boring shots of a tub of car wax. What does shooting at a large aperture do? Keep shooting a tub of Car Wax at f2 while changing other settings/the light/the environment/the way you hold your camera and eventually, you'll know quite a lot about shooting at f2. Do the same at f8, and before you know it, you'll have mastered that photographic equivalent of the Crane Kick.
Kwai Chang Caine
Caine's fearsome battlecry was: "I do not wish to fight". He would say this, while being chained to a burning haycart in a disused mine shaft by local Klansmen. (You knew then to get the chips later, for some full contact Kung Fu action was surely next). One of the Klansmen would hurt a dog/child/widow/granny/native American befriended previously, and in a burst of fury, he would defeat all 25 of them with his bare hands. Yes, despite being able to take anyone on, Caine is remembered for spending the best part of every episode actively trying not to fight.
In photography, knowing when not to take a picture is just as important. Sometimes, the shot just ain't going to happen, and you should pack the camera away. That impressive shopfront display may look great in real life, but without a polariser, you're just going to capture reflected traffic. Just go shopping instead! The delicately lit intimate birthday scene cannot be shot au natural without the proper equipment, so just enjoy the cake! You're not going to get a decent pic of junior's home run from the stands, or of Springsteen from the discounted stall seats. Just enjoy the game or the show. And try as you might, unbelievable though it might seem, sometimes, you just don't feel like taking pictures. Forcing yourself to is never going to result in anything memorable. Relax.and enjoy whatever moment is at hand instead, content to know, like Caine, that you could cream it if you really wanted..
Bolo
Few can match the mighty Bolo for apparent strength, power, ferocity and mastery of his craft. Of course, just about every hero he fights ultimately surpasses him when it comes to actual strength, power, ferocity and mastery of his craft. This is strange. Bolo, after all, has all the required components: magnificent pecs, a bad-ass face, smooth moves, and above all, a cool martial arts name. He should be up there with the greatest warriors of all time! Sadly, his record is outstanding for only one thing: the consistency of his defeats.
Bolo then, teaches that when it comes to cameras, even if a model appears to have everything, the sum of the parts must add up to something more, or you'll have a perpetual loser. The truth is that in today's competitive market, camera manufacturers are driven as much by marketing - thus creating a tick the box approach to features - rather then by the sadly apparently less important desire to produce great picture taking instruments. This is evident from features such as the megapixel wars, unusable high ISO settings, digital(!) shake reduction; mega zooms without shake reduction, and cheap no-name cameras from Ebay, all of which will give you a big Bolo when you're trying for that irreplaceable shot of a lifetime.
Steven Seagal
At the peak of his career, Seagal was notable for a deadly but limited economy of movement when fighting. Hardly moving at all, his battles were akin to those of a thin sumo warrior rapidly slapping his opponents into submission (in his later films or course, his battles were akin to a fat sumo warrior slapping his opponents into submission).
The effectiveness of his gentle, minimalist approach to severing limbs and killing people cannot be doubted, and it is just as true in photography, that less is often more. Having only one camera means you don’t worry about which camera to use: you just get on with it and take pictures. Having limited features on it means you can concentrate on things which matter so much more: composition, light, meaning. Having a single idea is often the key to a powerful picture. And don’t forget the power of the plain background.
Chuck Norris
Sometimes wisdom is best dispensed by the source.
WARNING! The DEADLY SECRETS you have learned here mean that your photography will never be the same again! You are now ready to journey to true mastery, and before long, you'll be at least as good at picture taking as this guy is at killing:
Walk the path well, imponderable one.
Comments? Email me at larry@gadgetmiser.com
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