Friday, April 22, 2011

Shoot (through) clichés


I am the first to admit that when it comes to anything artistic the first thing that comes to mind is "how can I be different?" As I tried here. Today I will persuade you to do the exact opposite. That doesn't mean you will stop there though. Here is the deal. You don't want to have an image that looks exactly like what hundreds or thousands of tourist and amateur photographers have right? Well why not? I'm going to ask you to do just that. Reason: because you never know what could happen after you leave. If you are shooting a city scape and god forbid an earthquake hits the day after. Guess what? You could have some of the last images of that particular place as it was. Lets say you are shooting a landscape. Things erode over time and often fall apart. Its part of nature. Something drastic changes there and bam! You have another important image. Ok so you got that done. Now I'm going to ask you to shoot past that. To shoot through clichés. So you showed up to Yosemite and shot the typical Tunnel view. One of the most photographed places on earth. Now you got your bases covered and you can switch your mindset to other images. Maybe a close up or a less typical angle on one of the waterfalls etc. It gives you that sense of "I got some good images already I can move on".
Rembember, don't be affraid to shoot a "cliché" image. Shoot it, make it great, and move on.