I’m not a baby photographer. I promise. I just resurrected this domain this summer, and one of my current projects is getting a decent film portrait of Rowan, the 6 month old daughter of some friends. As such, I had just developed a roll of Portra with Rowan, and have photographs of Malia, another photogenic baby, right at hand. I needed some images to set up the Galleries feature on the site, so babies it is.

Here’s the deal, though. I’m not a baby photographer, but babies stare at me. Always have. Toddlers, too. And black cats, but I don’t know if that’s quite the same.  So, if they’re going to stare, I can get photographs of them staring. “Art” photos, really, because I want portraits that present how I see the world, which means a goofy stare, probably with drool, while the parent doesn’t even know their little one is trying to get my attention.

The artist only ever truly depicts himself, right? Well, this is my world. This is what I see when you’re looking the other way, ignoring me. And if some friends get a nice print or two of their children in my quest for art, good for them.

This isn’t my only project, of course. I often have several things in mind, and will decide on goals for those projects so I might pursue one when the timing is right. Those goals, and the planning and consideration necessary to achieve them, are a big part of how I motivate myself. In fact, the planning and preparation are as much a part of the process as actually capturing the shots.

I might see a certain view, and decide it would be great at sunset or sunrise with just the right light and clouds.  Or I might want to get the right shot of a musician playing on stage.  Maybe even practice composition on a still life or local scene. Then I prepare to capture those things and wait for the right time.

Landscapes are a definite case where the weather makes or breaks it, so the combination of factors is substantial. I prep by having the right film loaded on the day the weather looks promising,  when I can get to the location I have scouted at the correct time. Then it’s up to mother nature to provide the light. Landscape is a lot more walking than actual photographing, especially around here in the spring and summer when the marine layer might just roll and and turn the world grey on any given evening. I can go out a dozen times and not get a shot worth sharing.

The same is true for street photography. You have to be ready for the critical moment and actively watching for a shot, but it cannot be planned. So you go out there and look for it until the light and the event happen in front of you. I miss a bunch more than I get, too, often thinking “Damn, if I just had the camera right now!”

Even for local scenes, it’s a matter of good light and the right timing, whether it’s getting to the shot at the correct time of day, or setting up studio lighting. For example, there’s a house nearby that needs a photograph, black and white, preferably when the car isn’t in the drive so you can’t guess what year the picture was taken. Every time I’ve gotten up early, hoping for the right morning light, it has been cloudy or, on one occasion when the light was stellar there was a bit campervan parked on the street in front of the house. Getting to the point where everything is perfect is just part of the hobby, and everything being imperfect all of the time is, too.

Portraits for me are much the same as street or landscape shots, as I really want a certain type of image. Something that looks natural, and that you can’t get easily with amateur models. Especially with babies, who do not cooperate and can be moody. Same with cats, actually. You can’t tell them what to do.

You have to be ready, then wait for the story to unfold, then capture that story before people realize what you’re doing and stop being natural. If you do it right, everyone will be running around trying to get everyone else to pose for the same stilted cellular telephone shots, uncomfortable subjects, with faked smiles or strained expressions, and you just quietly snap something real.

So, the first gallery shared was babies. Lots of babies. Only because it is on my mind as I search for that elusive photograph of Rowan, and because those are the negatives I have been handling. No problems with that, Rae and Rowan are beautiful subjects, and Malia is impossible to take a bad photo of. Good models make people think I take better portraits, after all.

I promise more galleries are coming. The next post is just walkin’ around photos shot with my Nikon S3, so check back next week. I’ll blog about using it just as soon as I take some shots of the camera itself.

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