If You Can Dream It, You Can Light It

Photography and I have a complicated relationship. For years, I have dreamt of taking the most gorgeous of photos. For years, I have lacked the resources.

Some time ago, however, I realized that with careful planning and light editing, one does not need to own the camera of their dreams.

When I take photos, I try to do it in the most simple and elegant way possible. I decide what I want to say/ show, and I set it up with only the required resources. I choose to work this way because I believe strongly in simplicity and cohesiveness.

Along with proper lighting, creativity and thoughtfulness go a long way when it comes to photography, which is the main point of this quick guide to taking photos.

It is important to consider what is worth taking pictures of, and it is important to remember that photographs can tell stories. This video helped me realize that.

This article, about the famous ‘Migrant Mother’ portrait, was illuminating for me in terms of clarifying this week’s assignment to take a photograph showing the ‘grittiness of built environment’.

I think I know exactly what to capture for that, and I will be posting it soon.

Film noir has a composition of its own, and some history/ advice on setting up a noir specific shot can be found on NoFilmSchool. My favorite sentence from their article on noir is this:

“Film noir is existential because, like the (in its modern form primarily, and probably not coincidentally, French) philosophical movement, it denies absolute meaning, hinges existence on contingency, and in doing so seeks to answer a question that has been asked since antiquity: is the world random and absurd, or am I (not me, I’m fine, thank you) crazy?”