Preparation

I have been photographing in Downtown Los Angeles for over twenty-six years, but my affinity for the area began in childhood. As a kid, I loved being dropped off at one of the movie palaces that lined Broadway: the Orpheum, the Tower, the Million Dollar. While my parents shopped at one of the major department stores, my brothers and I enjoyed second-run horror films and kung fu movies.

Downtown was a city from another time. I knew nothing about its history as the former financial and artistic heart of Los Angeles, but I was enamored of the canyons of classic architecture, the majesty of the theaters, and the rush of people. This was a different world from my flat, residential neighborhood several miles south of Downtown.

It was these qualities that years later drew me back to Downtown Los Angeles. Soon after graduating college, I returned to Broadway with a camera and began to rediscover it with a photographer’s eye.

As the years passed, I gained a reputation for my work among other photographers and I was asked by a trio of photographers if they could join me on an outing. I normally photographed by myself, but I welcomed their company.

After about a half an hour of photographing, one of the photographers approached me and asked, “What are you seeing?”

At first, I did not understand the question. He explained that they had observed me as I made photographs, but they did not understand what I was responding to and why.

It was a question that caught me by surprise. I explained to them that I was often lured to a certain scene because of the quality of the light or the presence of shadow. I shared how I would look not only at my subject, but also at what was in front of it, behind it, and alongside it. I explained how I quickly scanned the edges of my frame to determine what small elements I would include or exclude. I talked about how I waited for the telling gesture or flourish to help complete the shot.

In explaining my process, I realized that not everyone knew how to see this way. I had always assumed that everyone else already knew this, but obviously that was not the case.

As with the photograph of a man walking on a downtown street (previous page), I did not understand that I was seeing it differently than other people. What drew me to the street corner was the quality of the light and shadow. I was fascinated by how the late afternoon light cut through the street and illuminated the sidewalk and the building in the distance. The long shadows not only obscured some of the elements in the scene, but succeeded in creating a very moody and high-contrast setting.

I had no sooner discovered the scene than the man walked out of the shadows. I responded to the light illuminating him by quickly exposing a single frame. I captured him just as he raised a hand to his mouth, providing a wonderful gesture. It was only later that I saw the silhouetted figure of another man several feet behind him, which added a sense of mystery and tension to the frame.

Like with many of the photographs I make, I was drawn to a scene even though there was nothing of interest happening at the moment of discovery. Nevertheless, I sensed its potential. In this case it was the quality of light and shadow, and my awareness of those elements culminated in the moment that eventually played out in front of me, a moment I would have otherwise completely missed.

I began to understand how my careful observation of scenes allowed me to make photographs rather than take them. Other photographers were often acting on a reflex. They saw something of interest, raised a camera to their eye, and released the shutter, not really considering all the elements in the frame. I, on the other hand, was fully immersing myself into every aspect of the scene, both big and small, and considering how each aspect would influence the final photograph.

I should not have been surprised at this disparity in seeing considering that any time I sat down with other photographers the discussion inevitably gravitated toward gear rather than process. I was as guilty of it as the next person. If I was impressed by someone else’s image, my first question would be about the camera and lens that they used. We all start this way. However, I found that my fixation on the camera and the technical aspects of the shot was a distraction. My fixation on sharpness or how a particular control was handled, while important, sometimes drew my focus away from observing the world around me. It was much easier to evaluate the quality of bokeh balls in an out of focus area than to learn how the slightest of hand gestures made or broke a photograph.

Over time, I recognized the importance of understanding the technical side of photography, but not being a slave to it. The camera and the lens are the tools I need to master so that I can translate what I see into a photograph. It is the photograph and not the camera itself that matters.

Seeing Beyond the Technical

While in South Africa, I was loaned a Fujifilm XT-2 by the South African Fuji rep. I appreciated the opportunity to use the camera, but I was faced with a bit of a learning curve. With my trusty x100s, I did not have to think about how to change any of my settings. I knew exactly where the controls were and how the menus were laid out. However, with the XT-2, I initially found myself missing some shots because certain controls were located on a different part of the camera body or functioned differently. The delay this caused was just a matter of seconds, but it was enough of a hiccup that I found myself focusing more on the camera than what I was seeing. Granted, the autofocus was much faster and more accurate than my x100s, but I was losing that advantage because the camera was not as intuitive for me.

I photographed a political demonstration several days after receiving the camera and it was the first time I was not distracted by the new body. I was finally becoming comfortable with its layout and functionality. As I weaved and dodged around the protesters, I was only concerned with adjusting my focus point as I selected individual faces in the crowd that I wanted to emphasize in the composition. When I shot slightly upward and included more of the bright sky, I easily applied exposure compensation without having to take my eye away from the viewfinder.

The sound of thousands of people yelling and chanting around me was intoxicating. Being in the middle of it all was an adrenaline rush. But in the midst of all that, I felt present and in the moment. I was making visual discoveries as the scene changed moment by moment. I saw with a preciseness what was only possible when I was free from distractions.

I easily would have missed special moments like this had I been too preoccupied with the camera. It was and is essential for me to make whatever camera I am using a natural extension of my eye and hand. It is only then that I am completely focused on my process of seeing and making photographs.

Be Prepared

Though it may be an oft-quoted cliché, you want the camera to be an extension of you, of both your hand and your eye. It is not about understanding every single control and feature of your camera; rather, it is understanding which features and controls most impact the look and feel of your photographs.

The camera features with which I concern myself are those that control ISO, exposure mode, shutter speed, aperture, white balance, and focus. The camera may possess other features and custom options, but I do not need most of them every time I make photographs. By focusing on the core features, I ensure that I get the picture to look just the way I intend it to.

As I discuss in detail in the next chapter, I set the key settings on my camera every day, even before walking out my front door for a shoot. This means that I set the ISO, choose an aperture of f/5.6, make sure that my white balance is set to Auto, and reset my AF point for the center focus point.

I do this not because I expect every scene to be properly captured with those settings, but because it creates a known starting point for all my key settings. I do not have to make the painful discovery that my first great shot of the day was ruined because of incorrect settings. I have plenty of stories where a shot was trashed because I was photographing with settings from another shoot that were completely inappropriate for what I was doing at the time.

When I have a fixed starting point for my settings, I know exactly how any given setting may need to be changed to accommodate a new shooting situation. If I want less depth of field, I turn my f-stop ring so many clicks to get to f/2.8. If I want to compose my photograph with my subject at the left edge of the frame, I can engage my AF control and move the active cursor in the correct direction. If I find myself moving into a scene that is appreciably darker, I can increase my ISO by the two, three, or four stops necessary to ensure not only a good exposure, but a fast-enough shutter speed to counter camera shake.

Knowing my camera and being able to quickly make adjustments provides me with a huge speed advantage over a photographer who is fumbling with their camera. I can go into a scene and immediately begin to make photographs because I have already made all my technical choices. I do not have to shoot, chimp, and make corrections for things I could have easily determined a couple of seconds before. This is an important skill to develop because it helps keep you focused on your seeing.

Because I use this approach, my process is one of discovery. By seeing rather than looking, I leap the chasm between taking photographs and making photographs.

Reading a Scene

While teaching a photo workshop in Hollywood, I let my students loose on the chaos that is Hollywood and Highland. It is a street filled with endless tourists solicited for photographs by costumed superheroes and faux celebrities. Camera phones are in abundance, held by outstretched arms or selfie sticks. The area is awash with activity that resists focus or order.

On this outing I spotted a group of formally dressed teenagers across the street from where I stood. They were obviously dressed for a quinceañera. The contrast between them and the scene around them peaked my interest and I could not get across the street fast enough.

As I was crossing the street, I evaluated the scene that I was walking toward. The kids were in a shaded part of the corner resulting in a flat quality of light. I checked my settings and saw that my ISO was set for 400, which with an aperture of f/5.6, provided me with a shutter speed of 1/200 second—just enough to freeze action. The young people stood around as if waiting for something, so those settings would be more than sufficient. However, I made a note that if they became more active, I would raise my ISO to 800 and increase my shutter speed to 1/400 second to freeze their movement.

As I reached them, the couple posed for a friend’s camera and kissed, but I did not get the shot. I was not in the right position. I was too far away to make them a more dominant element in the frame. I struggled as I moved through the crowd of people who were moving around me.

I did not give up. I lingered, making photographs. I held out hope that another kiss might happen again. I carefully refined my composition, paying careful attention to the edges of the frame. I tried minimizing distractions, which was difficult in such a fast-changing situation.

Their friend prompted them to kiss for a photograph again and I saw my lost opportunity return. I bobbed and weaved around the people who walked past me and I got a couple of frames of the couple sharing a gentle kiss.

As I made the exposures, I was aware of a family that included a boy in a wheelchair appearing at right edge of my frame. I saw a glimpse of an Elvis statue near the center of the composition. I saw the girl to my left holding her camera phone. I also saw the ATM machine, the presence of which I disliked, but which I could not eliminate in the seconds I had to compose the shot. And though I did not have control over those secondary elements, I was aware of each of them. I was not surprised to discover them later.

Even before opening this photograph in Adobe Lightroom, I knew I would render it in black and white. The girl’s white dress and the way that it contrasted with the boy’s dark clothing was a visual draw for me. I knew it would be the anchor of my image, especially when I converted the image to monochrome. This also helped eliminate some color distractions that existed in the background. I applied a subtle vignette to darken the edges of the frame and to emphasize the tonal contrast and the gesture of the kiss.

There were a myriad of choices I made in order to successfully capture this image. A few decisions revolved around camera settings, which I resolved even before I got into position to make a single frame. The majority of my choices were concerned with anticipating the moment, framing my composition, and hoping for a little bit of luck.

Great photographs are created by capturing fleeting moments of time, moments that can only be captured by a camera. But it is not the sophisticated technology of the camera alone that makes this possible. The key is you, the photographer, who when in control of the camera, captures that elusive and beautiful moment.