[转帖] Zack Arias - 摄影师如何建立自己的Vision

freeman_sta

可能经常看我贴的人已经不止一次听我提到这个摄影师了，前两天在非死不可上看到他更新了一篇文章，看完之后觉得很有共鸣，发到这里与大家分享。

Anonymous asked:                        

                           Zack, previously you've stated that personal vision is a core element of every photo, project and assignment.  What's your inspiration and process for developing vision?                        

                     
                                                                              I think the best answer to this that I’ve found is “time” and “gut instinct”.


Vision and style and where you draw inspiration from takes time to develop. They come from a place inside of you that develops over time. It’s how you do what you do and why you do it. It’s what you are drawn to instinctively. It’s hard to put words to it. Your style and your vision typically comes from feeling something out. You feel it more than think about it.
You spend a lot time early in the craft trying this. Trying that. You see something you really like and you go out and emulate that look or that light or that “feel” or that pose that you see in someone else’s work. Something draws you in and captivates you. You try to figure out what it is. You copy and paste it into your way of doing things.


If you’re good you feel like a fraud for doing so. If you suck then you have no problem just stealing from others and doing exactly what you see other people doing. If you suck you’re just a copy cat. But if you’re good you realize that you are influenced but you work hard to throw your own twist on something. You mix one influence with another. Maybe you get some influence from painting, then from music, then from photography. You begin to string things together in a way that resonates inside of you.

Sometimes boredom is a good thing because it pushes you deeper. You get bored with your work. You nearly get apathetic. If you suck you stay there. If you’re good you push out from the way you do things. You are ok with failure as long as you are trying something new. You try this, you try that. You start to fall back to your normal way of doing things but you’ve now learned a new trick or two that you incorporate into your work.


After time, and I’m talking about a decade of time or more, you can start to look at your work and see vision and style rising to the top. You can trace little aspects of what you do back to your first influences but you got past the copying and pasting from the early days. You’ll still have a hard time putting words to what you do. Maybe even a harder time putting words to it because it’s all instinct and feel now.


Emotions, contrast (both in subject and in light), juxtaposition, color, shade, hue, composition, perspective, posing, depth, sharpness, mood, feel, texture, heavy, light, darkness, grit, sleek, polished, ugly, grain, dirt, age, impact, street, rural, people, sense of place, love, betrayal, drama, comedy, etc, etc, etc. These are all descriptive words that can begin to sum up vision and style.


There are dark photographers. Light photographers. Some photographers specialize in perspective. Some are masters of contrast in subject material and or light. Some are dramatic. Some are funny. Some are dirty, messy, and gritty. Some are sleek and polished. Some are complex. Some are simple. When you meet someone who has been creating work for 30 years you begin to see who they are as a person and how that person they are shows up in their work.


You pay attention to what your gut is drawn to. The type of light. The type of subject material. The type of perspective you take on the world and with your lenses. It takes time for this to solidify. It’s a slow moving target. You’re constantly chasing it. You’ve now spent years and years looking at photographs. You can become desensitized to it but then you’ll see something in the world that stops you. Take note of that. What stops you. Is that same stopping power in your own work? What’s missing? What little thing do you need to keep working on to stop others?

What subjects are you drawn to? What do you see in the world and say, “I haven’t seen photos of that kind of subject. How would I shoot that subject?” Then you have the birth of a personal project.


You take note of the things you are drawn to. You hear a song that you love. You want to know why that particular song has been on repeat for 3 days. How can you visually capture that feeling that song gives you? Can you take the attitude you hear in the song and put it into your next job?


What is expected of you on your next job? How can you break that expectation? How can you push your subject? How can you draw something out of them that they themselves don’t expect to see? They feel ugly and weak. How can you make them look beautiful and strong? They are handsome and strong, how can you make a vulnerable photo of them? They are rough. Can you polish them? Vice versa. How can I flip my own expectations on this job today? How can I make myself happy with a photo that my client may not like? How can I take that influence from that painting I saw last week and make my light look like that?


You might spend a year trying to make that light. You might take a year learning how to make a vulnerable portrait. You may spend a year trying to figure out how to always find juxtaposition in a shot. Or two years. There will be certain things in your life you are always chasing in your work.


Do you see how when you begin to look at photography like this the gear part of the equation fades away? When you start talking about emotions and vision and style and influence the gear isn’t all that important. Canons and Nikons don’t build vision. Your light and the way you use it starts to matter some. And this can be with strobes or with natural light. Focal length of lenses can start to play in here a little bit when it comes to the perspective you take on the world. But the gear part is minimal. The thought process is the key.


How you think about all of this is personal. We are all such a diverse mix of influences and instincts. The way we take all of these things and mix them are so different from anyone else. You start to see how there is room for all of us. You also see how the folks who are just entering the industry have a long way to go. They aren’t competition any more. They aren’t folks to be bitter about. You may feel sorry for them at times because you begin to realize how far they have to go and they don’t know it themselves. They just got the background to go out of focus for the first time and they are on top of the world about it. You sort of grin a bit, pat ‘em on the head, and let them have their moment. You hope to God they don’t ask for honest critique because you’ll have to rip their work to shreds. It’s ok. Your work is worthy of being torn to shreds as well. God knows you rip it up enough on your own.


Cheers,
Zack

FarmerC

对Zack不是很了解，但是有沙发就来坐一坐。