The Accidental Photographer

     One of the favorite images I have of my Dad is of him with a baseball cap barely resting on his head.  It is if someone threw a baseball cap across a room, and it just so happened to land on his head.  Anyone else would have had the hat on straight and tilted upwards just right, but not him - he marched to the beat of a different drummer.

     In many ways, my favorite photography technique is much like that.  It is though I take a picture and just so happen to capture something interesting.  I avoid all the rules and techniques I learned in my photography classes, and instead I just take a picture for the sake of taking a picture.  No rules - just a rogue photographer doing things his own way.

     Primarily I use my iPhone 4S to do this, but I have used my beloved Pentax for this and it works just as well.  The iPhone works great for this because it is easy to carry and you do not attract any unwanted attention when you take a picture.  Carry around a big SLR camera with a lens and everyone wants to get in your business.

     When I use this technique, the idea is to not take the perfect picture, but to take numerous pictures over the course of the day and see how they turn out at the end of the day - see if there is a diamond in the rough.  Some days I might take 200+ pictures using this technique, and I might only end up with one good picture.  Typically I use this technique though, and wind up with terrific pictures I would have never been able to take otherwise.  You see, in photography school we are taught all the basics of photography, so years later we find ourselves taking nicely framed pictures of landscapes and flowers while using the Rule of Thirds.  The Rule of Thirds is great when you take your vacation pictures, and pictures of Grandma, but after a while your portfolio will lack freshness.  It will look boring to you and to everyone who sees it.

     Break away from what you were taught in photography class and try just taking pictures for the sake of taking pictures.  What you will come up with will be a nice little surprise.  I started doing this a couple years ago, and now some of my favorite pictures are ones that I “accidentally” took.

     For example, the picture below is one I took while driving in east Texas.  I saw something colorful and interesting while at a gas station, but with cars driving by constantly I was unable to get a good shot.  Plus I was in a hurry to leave for an appointment.  All I had was time to take one quick shot.  I did not frame the shot, hold the camera straight, and I did not even look to see what I was taking a picture of - I just pointed my iPhone at what I was interested in and snapped a picture.  It was only later as I looked at all the pictures I took that day over dinner, that I realized I caught a really interesting picture.  

The original picture - nice, but it is lacking some pizazz.

     The original picture is interesting, but lacks some punch to it.  In photography, not everything has to always be sharp, focused, and under control - sometimes it is okay to have something out of focus, sometimes it is okay to have the colors explode, and sometimes it is okay to have a picture that is crooked.  If I had stopped to focus the picture, make sure it was straight, and followed the Rule of Thirds, I would have completely missed the warmth and whimsical nature of the picture.

     I imported the photo in to Photoshop to set the image size and pixels, then imported the picture in to a new program I had, called Tiffen Dfx.  Dfx will do everything that Photoshop will do, however it has presets you can use to save a lot of time.  I love the program and it works great for what I want to do in photography.

     And what I want to do is create pictures that are visually interesting, colorful and different.  Afterall, like my Dad, I march to the beat of a different drummer.  I love pop culture, comics, and all those things we take for granted - like an Icee sign.  I like the dirt and oil stains in the parking lot, and I love how everything leans to one side because I took the photograph while moving.

The final picture - now it has some pop to it and screams KAPOW!

     In short, I love the picture for all the imperfections.  For me, it is a perfect picture.  And it does not follow any of the rules I learned in photography.


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