The Sharp Edge

I'm going to be ready for spring. In previous springtimes, I spent most of my time driving around thinking, if I had a camera, and I were photographing, this would be perfect light and a great opportunity. (In fact if I were feeling cynical, which I'm not right now, I might say that's the state in which I have spent my life and in which I have mostly experienced the world.) But this spring, I'm going to be ready. I have my camera and its parameters in place; I've had some practice processing the files; I have an entire protocol worked out, from the kit I carry, to ingestion, to soft display of the results...so bring on the good light. I'm ready this time.

The thing is, though, I have to keep shooting now. Now. Because I need to keep in practice. Shooting with a camera is like shooting pool...every day you have to get over the initial rust and get back into the flow. Real pool players, if they haven't been shooting much, work intensively for some number of days—like, ten to fourteen hours at the table—because that's what it takes to get back "in stroke." Pool skills aren't just something you have and carry around with you and can deploy right away, cold, whenever the spirit moves you. It takes constant honing of the knife edge. Same thing with most skills that have a physical component. Most instrumentalists have to practice every day. Even vocalists. Athletes have to stay in shape by regulating their training. They can't just knock off for weeks and expect to stay right where they were.

Same thing with photographing. Most good shooters shoot every day. And even shooting every day, it takes a while to get back into it. And you still have good days and bad days. If you want everything you do to be natural and easy, you've got to keep your edge. I've heard plenty of stories of great photographers going out and shooting nothing for a while just to keep the hand and eye sharp. It's easy and cheap now, but you've still got to do it.

When I was learning zone focusing by feel with the Leica, I made it a habit to get the camera out every night and practice with it for ten minutes. Look at an object somewhere in the room, focus on it by feel, check for accuracy, repeat. It's not a bad idea with any camera. Take it out, pick out something to photograph, prepare to shoot whatever you're looking at...see how long it takes you to get ready to shoot. What are the sticking points that are slowing you down? Work on those things. If you have a spouse, go for a walk and ask your spouse to point to subjects. "That pine tree, vertical. That church over there, horizontal. Those flowers. That doorway, vertical." Whatever they call out, take a picture of it as quickly as you can—just for practice getting the camera around, holding it correctly, setting it, setting the lens, focusing, getting all ready to hit the shutter. Then put it back over your shoulder or back in the bag and do it over again.

Stay in practice! Whether with actual shooting or with exercises and drills. Shooting is a skill. Camera handling is a skill. They're not something that comes in the box. Touch the camera every day.

I'm going to be ready for spring.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2023 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Cliff McMann: "Just a thought but combine the two. Back when I was at NOVA taking photography classes, Sally Mann came and showed us her work organized by project. Some famous and published at the time like pictures of the kids. Some more personal such as her father after his passing, at rest in her home before his remains final disposition. Her regular pictures of her pregnancy as it progressed. The project that captured the struggling photographer in me was a series of still lifes. Objects partially submerged in water. It was beautiful subtle work, she was generous enough to share a lot of near misses, along with a few that she was happy with. I was inspired and spent a lot of time shooting really bad still lifes between my scattered opportunities to shoot natural light posed portraits (my true love in this hobby.) Every one of those still lifes was awful. But in retrospect made me better. A lot of them were shot in our basement, pictures of pool balls on a terrible cheap Sears pool table. I owe a lot of my 30+ year love affair with this craft to an hour or two of Sally’s unflinching willingness to share her process, and to a cheap MDF Sears and Roebucks pool table. I guess I’m thinking: practice on what’s close, especially if it’s something you love. There’s no obligation to share, but even your misses may have value to someone. Her willingness and honesty certainly affected me. Yours has too. Thanks to both of you."

Mike replies: I used to teach at NOVA! And I know Sally, and have experienced a few of her demonstrations of process. She should make YouTube tutorials....

Stan B.: "Robert Frank was supposedly the Steph Curry of camera handlers, could get the shot from whatever angle—and look good doing it!"

Mike replies: When I interviewed Ralph Gibson he told me some great stories about Robert's camera-handling skills. The best one: he told Ralph he was going to show him a trick, took Ralph's Leica, pre-focused it, set the timer, and carefully tossed it up in the air. Ralph swore he had a contact sheet with a focused picture of himself and Robert standing on the ground looking up.

Chris Kern: "Most good shooters shoot every day. And even shooting every day, it takes a while to get back into it....

"If you want everything you do to be natural and easy, you've got to keep your edge. I don’t think you actually need a camera to 'keep your edge' as a photographer. You can practice photography virtually by keeping your eyes open and visualizing images without making them. In fact, there may be some advantage to employing that approach to maintain or improve your photographic skills because thinking about the pictures you might shoot frees you from the mechanical distraction of operating the camera. The value of imagining a picture ('imagination' and 'image' are cognates, after all) shouldn’t be underestimated."

Olybacker: "You are quite correct. I have found after a lapse of some time, especially when doing 'street' or documentary photography, lack of every day practise soon shows up. The eye might be there but everything else that goes with it, timing, getting the feet in the right place, having the right camera settings, even speed of getting the camera to the eye quickly can all be gone. Even shooting landscape photos requires continual practise or the mojo goes away."

Dan Montgomery: "This post might as well be directed to me personally. I've never been a full-time photographer, but there have been stretches during which I had my camera with me all the time, and I used it as you describe. All for the better. Now I go days, sometimes weeks, without using a camera, but when I do, I need stills and video, run-and-gun style, often in bad light in tricky settings. Inevitably, in all the switching of settings and lenses, the hooking up, unhooking and re-hooking up of lavalier mics, of using, then not using, a tripod, and of shooting this part with video lights but this part with room lights, I end up with one or another camera setting all wrong (to be discovered only after it's too late), or I leave with the feeling that I didn't 'work' the assignment enough, or both. I tend to blame, at least in part, the overabundance of buttons, toggles and menu settings, but you are right, the bigger problem is my waxing and waning expertise at using those buttons, toggles and menu settings. (For the record, everything has always turned OK, but I know that everything could have been better.) Right now, the cameras are out, and I am going to practice just for the sake of practice. Thanks for the post."

Bryan Hansel: "Great post! In winter months, I use warm but bulky leather gloves to keep my hands warm. I can turn every dial, push every button, change lenses, add filters, and do almost everything needed with those gloves on. It's only through practice that that's possible. I've had other photographers laugh when I say that if I'm not shooting a lot in winter, I'll watch TV at night with a camera in hand and gloves on just to keep that muscle memory active. And then we go outside in –15°F temps and I watch them struggle with their cameras, take their gloves off often, and get freezing cold hands. The practice is worth it!"

Comments

[Mark Sampson]

I've spent a large portion of my life waiting for spring to come in western NY State. You're right-don't wait. Get out there with your eyes open on any day it's not precipitating... pictures just might appear. Unlikely as it amy seem, even in late winter.

Fred Picker taught the same thing; know how to set up without thinking, so you can respond in time when *it* happens. And he was talking about tripod-mounted view cameras, a complicated business at best.

"You can't catch any fish if you don't go fishing".

[Jeff]

With a monochrome camera, the time to be ready is Winter, not Spring, IMO. Especially in snow and ice-prone regions. Not practice time; real shooting time. So far in my mid Atlantic location, every day of Winter so far has been zero precipitation and well above normal temps. I’ve been keeping in shooting form, but still feeling deprived. Might have to drive north soon.

[Kirk]

We had freezing rain here yesterday, along with blustery wind and bone chilling wet cold. TV weather predicted everything icing over. What to do? Same as we do almost every day: Dress warm, put extra camera batteries in a pocket, grab a favorite camera and lens (yesterday is was the Leica CL and a 50mm f0.95 TTArtisan lens) set the rig to Monochrome HC (because the weather sucked the color right out) and head into downtown for a long walk. I shot a couple hundred shots and in between stuck my hands in some down mittens to warm them back up. After a couple hours walking and shooting the rain started to soak through and that was the signal that I'd had enough "practice" for the day.

Came home and immediately ingested the ones I liked into Lightroom. About ten in all. Played with them, posted them and then quit for the day.

Well, not really. After dinner I pulled out the Leica SL and practiced hyperfocal focusing via a focus by wire Sigma 35 and the feature on the Leica that shows hyperfocal distances for lenses used in MF mode. In real time. On the top panel.

Proficiency comes with practice. No other way.

Broken record: No matter how much you practice with your camera you can't shoot for long periods of time without being in good shape physically. That's why daily exercise is important to photography. It's the shoe leather that puts you into position to find the stuff you didn't know you wanted to shoot but realized it when you saw it. (weird sentence...).

The routine described above is not a once in a while thing but an almost every day practice. What else do we have to get to? Surely not watching sports on TV...

[darlene]

It is like cooking; we must know how to prepare the food before we can enjoy it. Having good technique makes everything more enjoyable. Cooking can take all day when you factor in prep and clean-up, not to mention grocery shopping. Once I learned how to cook what I enjoy eating, the number of kitchen tools got smaller, and clean-up got easier—knowing the right tools and techniques for either cooking or photography can positively impact our productivity. After I mastered a few dishes and achieved portfolio pieces, it was downhill from there.

I am fortunate that between my graphic design work and photography, my entire life has been about color, shape, and visual composition. When I go to work, I am content with what I create during my work time. However, I did go through a period about a decade ago when I realized I wanted to pursue more personal work, and it was a bit of a challenge for a while.

I am accustomed to a road map of what the commercial client expects. When I became the client, I had to reach for the box of crayons and relearn to think like an amateur. I try to remember what Gemma Gatti, one of my commercial photography instructors, said during a critique: (I am paraphrasing here) my visual message should be a blend of fine art and commercial art for it to be successful.

Probably not everyone can understand this, but because I was "trained" in advertising early on, I had to learn to loosen those reins and color outside the lines as I had as a child. My problem has never been motivation; it's a mindset. I need to keep the storyboards and typefaces out of my imagination when I create art for myself.

After I read Temple Grandin's book: Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions, I understood more about how a part of my brain thinks. It is an interesting book for visual thinkers and educators.

[Rob L]

I started this practice this weekend - needed a camera with a intervalometer to help record science fair project progress, so looked through what we had. My daughter googled and said 'My camera can do it!' with a gleeful, yelp, beating dad to the punch. So focus drills, but also feature drills, help you remember what these microcomputers can do. And props to Nikon for building that in the Z series easily, I still remember how to set my F4 to do the same thing but a lot more cumbersome...

[John Krumm]

Good idea. Spring, both real and metaphorical, sneaks up on you. I also find it the most difficult photo time. Muddy, branches still mostly bare, all the garbage the snow was hiding now in plain sight. But it feels good. More light, more warmth, a spring in your steps. So keep exercising, body, soul, mind and eyes. You never know when a practice shot might become something more.

[Kye Wood]

[POOL TALK ALERT]
My dad loved playing pool. But unlike most people, he was both ambidextrous and he was virtually unbeatable. Even taking road trips to Brisbane (15 hours away from Townsville), I saw him lose less than then ten games in my life. And he was both a gracious winner and loser.

It wasn't until I read your article that my mind went back to the weekends we spent at my uncles place. Where dad would practice and practice and practice. As great as he was, he maintained that level the same way he achieved it.

Thanks for reminding me about my dad. I can say for a fact, that he'd have loved reading your blog.

PS: How's your book going?

[Bruce Bordner]

How many people read a tech manual for their camera/system? I used to read computer manuals professionally because it is actual work to interpret what they are trying to say and see what they aren't saying.
I own a D800 and have Thom Hogan's guide, so I bought the D850 1000+ page monster. I read the first 300+ pages and I can understand how this would be a better tool for me. I'm up to the setup and use of the camera, but I want one in my hands first.
Even though the technical explanation of the sensor went on for....... pages, it was very comprehensible and complete. And always "this is what it does to your picture".
This reads like a novel; I think his style has improved since the D800 book. This clarity takes a huge amount of knowledge to present simply and usefully. If you have a Nikon, it's the best accessory to buy. Sorry for the plug, but I'm impressed. It makes me want to try things.

[robert e]

Awesome! I agree 100%. Have to admit that I have been feeling ludicrously rusty and awkward with a camera after a couple of years of less-than-daily practice.

I would add that even without a camera, at least one aspect of making photographs can be practiced, which is the seeing, as in: recognizing, framing and composing a picture. Some kind of rectangular frame--eyepiece, slide holder, one's hands, etc.--is needed to keep one honest about the frame. (Sketching has its own rewards, but won't keep us honest, as it lets us fudge the critical problem that the camera records *everything* in frame, and nothing that isn't.)

[Dave Van de Mark]

Wow, photographic techniques and "habits" are all over the place, of course, and mine are sure different from some practices you have suggested over the years (Get out there and take pictures - often!). But having just "clicked" 80 a couple days ago, my habits are well honed - but not consistently employed. I went nearly a decade without taking many pictures and any that I did are lost. It coincided with times of strenuous hiking and much "seeing" but not much "capturing" if you will.

For me, photography has always had an "environmental" twist to it and I often took pictures for land owners who needed documentation of property damage or as an activist helping to establish a national park or wilderness area. "Damage" or "irreparable loss" such as clearcutting a virgin forest were my focus and it took no training or incentive to do it - it simply came as naturally as getting out of bed every morning. Not that I didn't make mistakes, which were numerous and mostly due to being compelled to move quickly. So my skills at having the camera as ready as possible were well honed.

It helped matters that my start was in the all manual world of picture taking and metering and "zone focusing" and "sunny 16 rules" were always on my mind. I became an F8 to F16 guy long ago, almost always with a tripod.

Turns out I've rarely carried a camera unless there was a "mission" to do so. My cell phone's proximity hasn't prompted more spontainaity. My Nikon Z7ii and 3 lenses (4th camera system in 2 years) sits in pelican case always ready but rarely practiced with. But when I head out to my familiar Redwood National & State Park, to capture a meaningful image of change over a half century - my "50 Years Later project" - I don't think my skill at that has diminished much over time. I have carefully programmed the camera and I'm still able to zone focus a 21mm manual focus lens - @F8 naturally!

[Richard Tugwell]

With all due respect, I think this thesis falls into the problem of defining 'photography' or 'shooting' in too generic terms. Sure if you are engaged in technical stuff like product or sports photography, you need to keep your hand in. However, for e.g. street and candid stuff not so much. It's not about your ability to use the camera - more your reaction to your surroundings.

[We can disagree on this. --Mike]