Butterfly net
If you think about it, photography is almost like catching butterflies, making camera much like a butterfly net.
Setting the framework
In order to capture good photos, i.e. the kind of photographs you personally want, it is critical to understand what you’re trying to accomplish (to catch) in the first place. My analogy for a dream photograph is the butterfly.
In my case the ‘butterfly’ is usually a timeless black and white photo of a naturally occurring candid moment, with people preferably somehow involved. The criteria always depends on the current objective of course, but usually something like that is what I’m drawn to, so let me use this description as a simplified example.
Figuring out where to find the butterflies
Now that I roughly know what I’m looking for, I need to know where to look for them. I’m interested in humanistic themes and I want people somehow involved so a good place to start is somewhere where there is life — people doing whatever they do. Some kind of lively public place perhaps. Maybe a market square, an event, or something similar, where people are interacting with each other and doing interesting things.
Having plenty of people around is a good start, but that is just one ingredient. I’m looking for moments to capture, so maybe train station, for example, would be another fruitful location. I can imagine someone waving goodbye or perhaps reuniting with someone after being apart for a long time, hugging in tears. It is almost starting to sound like something worth capturing — a fleeting moment and a strong subject matter, that would elevate the photo from a snapshot to a something closer to art.
Timelessness is a tricky one. Maybe I’d need to choose an old station with classic architecture and to look for people with vintage clothing or something like that.
Now a picture is starting to form in my mind. These are the primary building blocks for the kind of imagery that I’m after. I have an idea. A concept. This is the framework.
A fleeting moment unfolding in front of my eyes in 2018. This photo is one my all time favourites and it ticks all the boxes that I look for in a good photo, but it wasn’t a complete game of chance. I knew what I was looking and got lucky after realising that a little girl was getting ready jump across the puddle nearby. I rushed to the other side and just barely managed to take the shot as she jumped.
Go to a meadow of flowers
One major thing to consider is the time of the day, week and year. Are people gathering to enjoy their life on a parking lot of a super market, on a desolate evening during march? It’s not impossible of course, but those conditions aren’t in my favour, bearing in mind that I have pretty specific framework and vision.
There would be no butterflies to be found on that wintry parking lot either. It’s critical to have some kind of idea where the butterflies live, so maybe a park, forest or a meadow of flowers on a nice summer day would be a better bet, even though you definitely could encounter a butterfly in other unexpected locations as well. It is all about knowing how to increase the chances of encountering them, yet being ready to find them anywhere. It would be pointless to go after them in a wrong place.
The reason I’m mentioning this is, because I sometimes can’t understand why so many photographers are choosing to photograph in places that are not in line with the kind of photography that they are trying to do. This seems to be a common problem especially in street photography. It is often quite clear what street photographers are sort of trying to do, but the battle plan is just a completele mismatch. The idea behind the imagery is often incomplete or the concept not fully though out, or perhaps just not yet realised how to be executed correctly. That’s why I’m a firm believer that the idea, or at least a general framework, should be figured out first.
Camera is the butterfly net
The camera is simply the net used to catch butterflies. Photography becomes so much easier and less frustrating when you know what you’re trying to do with it. The camera itself doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t create the circumstances. It is used only to capture moments in time.
Many photographers put way too much amphasis on the equipment, but it is way more important to know what do with it.
Camera is a very small part of photography even though it is probably the first that comes to mind when talking about photography. It would be meaningless to point the camera to something at random and expect something worth while to appear. You’d only have a pointless image without any artistry, substance or content. It would be like swinging the butterfly net at random — 99% of the time, you’d catch nothing but air.
One of the most central challenges in photography, or in any creative endeavour is almost always to have an ideas, visions and concepts. They form the goals that determines the means.
