Get a Move On...With Your Camera

Get a Move On…With Your Camera Offered by Doug Blair, Kitchener ON, 2022 The Page That Journals...when lights come on.

As discoveries occur, this Notebook page will record thoughts for the benefit of myself and others who "have caught the bug".

1. I must never approach an assignment with the feeling that I'm not good enough at this. It is a process, and if I am well rested, then today`s start will probably be better than last session's wrap-up.

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2. The equipment is masterful in its capabilities, but you are STILL THE BOSS (Manual and semi-manual modes). Be assured that your imagination will almost always surpass AUTO-YAWN.

3. If you don't snap it, you don't preserve it. Be quick as possible to capture a few.

4. Try to bring a good sense of humour to the job. Think as an artist. A little conversation or story telling might start things off with a bang.

5. Don't be discouraged by seemingly bad weather or lighting. There are lessons to be learned; features to be tried; risks to be taken. FOR THE CRAFT AND YOUR GROWTH, my Friend. Press on and use what you have.

6. Learning involves encountering something you have never tried before. Pushing back the sighs and shivers. Saying to yourself " I can take this Hill. And the next one can just go ahead and be bigger. https://issuu.com/blairdoug64/docs/still_making_contact

7. Get used to thinking through all of the variables in advance before standing in the face of your subject/s. Practise and then practise some more. I used to talk to myself before an exam at school. This had me go through the hoops in advance. And build confidence

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8. Perhaps an available friend can steady a prop or a light or a mirror.

The friend's smile and positive expression will improve the carriage and comfort of your subject. A few laughs, although interrupting will improve the yield. But if the friend has no clear purpose and only wants to distract with banter/foolishness...it’s the highway.

9. Be quick to hear a name and REMEMBER IT. Repeated use before your client has a reassuring effect. Find a reason to speak it out over the first seven minutes...at least 3 or 4 times. So often our desire to ingratiate will erase the name from memory. If it ever had gotten there.

10. Animals and birds are NOT people. The calming, posturing measures will yield very little here. There is also the chance that something disgusting will fall from the air or be used as leg irrigation or rhythmic love.

11. Imagine the stick figures and shapes essential to alignment and form and emphasis. Hold on to them as you position every factor for the piece of Art. Perpendicular. Diagonal. Rounding. Stylized as most unconventional. Have fun...for Pete's sake, have fun. Some good will eventually come out of those jazzy options to draw?

12. Hold back from the moment if there are some noisy passers-by or pets or vehicles who are about to interfere. Who are nosy or smirking/laughing about something.

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13. Filtering might provide too much of a change from what the brain considers to be within reason and attractive. Often the natural colours or shading or black and white are most satisfying all by themselves.

14. As with the wonderful paintings of Robert Bateman, there might be an emphasis on environment with reduced featuring of the primary active character ie. the fox in the barnyard or the hawk hidden mostly behind the branches while the smaller prey takes flight. A mystery suggested and solved.

15. Have an abundance of SD cards. You might want to separate large sessions onto different units for easier scanning, printing, retrieval.

16. To date I have had frustrations trying to connect the camera to lap-top in wireless fashion. Went out to The Source store and got a USB

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cable for connection. Cheap. Easy. Long enough cord for convenient office use?

17. My Canon REBEL SLR has its own flip-up flash. Good enough for the time being. Have also been given a secure, tall tripod. Next expenditure should rather be a medium priced wide angle lens. Big vistas of nature. Crowds assembled at special events. Much more to be learned, Douglas. Always remain teachable and humble. Listen carefully to words of those more experienced who cross your path.

18. Music played during the session can be risky. Mood and meter and tempo can change from pleasant and soothing to tense and irritable.

Better just go with the happy exchange and tone of newfound friends moving forward in a joint venture of art and celebration.

19. Culture an appreciation for the Creator in such a way that the clients are aware of it and agree with the photographer to contribute to a sense of happiness and wonder in their expression and engagement, one with the other. Think of the Falls of Niagara and how the people of the Nations gather to agree that this is something great and good before their eyes. And enveloping them.

20. Keep telling yourself that you are a Lover of stimulating images. A photographer in many senses of the word. A communicator. A creator. A capturer. A courtier engaged in Kingly enterprise. In the Bible Book of Genesis old Abram was told by God that against all odds he and his wife were going to receive a miraculous child of Promise in their ancient age. God also told him that his name had been slightly altered.

Abraham. Father of many nations, the translation. And the old boy went around telling everybody that he was Abraham. Until it settled into his

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innermost being by Faith. And now you say and believe that you are a photographer. Good for you

Agreement in the Mist (Niagara)

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From round the world they come To see what God has done The mist is always there And rainbow in the air.

Of every tribe and tongue With children held secure Niagara bids them all

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Agreement glad and sure.

The beauty of the scene The Horseshoe Falls the star These breathless worshippers Arrive from near and far "It's priceless is it not?

The words assumed from all The eyes fixed on a spot Where God makes subtle call.

The cameras click and whirr And smiles are all around The spectrum in the mist A touch of Heaven found. at August 01, 2020

mine

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mine

21. Do not be unbelieving or reluctant about the strange juxtaposition of a fleeting moment of alignment or parallax in the subjects. No, you are not crazy. It can be interpreted and appreciated as you have done in the fleeting instant of observation. Believe. Shoot it, for crying out loud.

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the Beauty of Nature in Africa on FB

Google Images...misplaced mine 10

Hilary and Doug, Coffee Bistro in a Barn Near Meaford/Collingwood, ON

Now please excuse me for here inserting a couple of paintings by my FB Friend Scott Kish. His stuff moves with brilliance, blur, sweep and suggestive climatic and floral and natural enhancements.

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C. Scott Kish

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C. Scott Kish

C. Scott Kish

https://www.facebook.com/scott.kish.77

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