My best images were made while walking.
For me, walking is the best way to take photographs. It is a way to find something to photograph. It is a good way to exercise my mind as well as my feet.
I find that simply stopping the car and getting out opens up enormous new opportunities, new subjects, new perspectives and new light. It is like taking a deep breath. Your vision is refreshed. It allows you to get closer. New subjects begin to surround you. Things look bigger, more intense, more energized. You begin to see things differently. The world comes to you as you come to it. When I go out to photo walk, I open my eyes and my mind. I play with what is in front of me. I follow my camera and my instincts.
Walking with a camera has everything to do with finding self. I sometimes think of photographic walks as "Sole Searching". It is about finding my soul. The word play is intentional.
When you go out with your camera, keep a few of these great quotes in mind as you walk. Eventually, they will be ingrained into a new way of seeing and a new way of being.
My best images were made while walking.
Quotes to think about:
”Which of my photographs is my favourite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow.” – Imogen Cunningham
"All the technique in the world doesn’t compensate for the inability to notice.” – Elliott Erwitt
“I fell in love with taking pictures, with wandering around finding things. To me it feels like a kind of performance. The picture is a document of that performance.” - Alec Soth
”I don’t believe a person has a style. What people have is a way of photographing what is inside them. What is there comes out.” – Sebastiao Salgado
“The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it!” - Ansel Adams
“The Pictures are there, and you just take them” – Robert Capa
”It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter, because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the ordinary.” – David Bailey
”If I saw something in my viewfinder that looked familiar to me, I would do something to shake it up.” – Garry Winogrand
”I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn’t photograph them.” – Diane Arbus
“If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough” – Robert Capa
”Photography is about finding out what can happen in the frame. When you put four edges around some facts, you change those facts.” – Garry Winogrand
“You don't take a photograph, you make it.” - Ansel Adams
“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.” - Dorothea Lange
“A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.” - Ansel Adams
“Above all, life for a photographer cannot be a matter of indifference” - Robert Frank
“To consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk.” - Edward Weston
“Photographers tend not to photograph what they can’t see, which is the very reason one should try to attempt it. Otherwise we’re going to go on forever just photographing more faces and more rooms and more places. Photography has to transcend description. It has to go beyond description to bring insight into the subject, or reveal the subject, not as it looks, but how does it feel?” - Duane Michals
“For me, the subject of the picture is always more important than the picture.” - Diane Arbus
“The brightest light makes the blackest mark.” - Henry Holmes Smith
PLEASE NOTE: THIS WORK IS PART OF MY PERSONAL PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTFOLIO. IT IS HOPED THAT YOU WILL RESPECT WHAT I HAVE DONE AND HONOR MY COPYRIGHT. I HAVE BEEN WORKING ON THIS AND ALL OF MY PROJECTS FOR SOME TIME. THE IMAGES ARE A PART OF A MUCH LARGER BODY OF MY WORK. I SHOW IT HERE AS A WAY TO INSPIRE YOU TO DO YOUR OWN PROJECTS, USING YOUR OWN IDEAS. PHOTOGRAPHY IS NOT ABOUT COPYING OR STEALING CONCEPTS OR TECHNIQUES. IT IS ABOUT UTILIZING YOUR TALENTS FOR CREATING YOUR OWN UNIQUE IMAGERY AND ABOUT YOUR OWN WAY OF SEEING THE WORLD. RESPECT THE WORKS OF ALL ARTISTS. DO NOT PLAGIARIZE ANYONE'S ART.
You can learn about pinhole and many other imaging techniques from my book.
Buy my book here: Rethinking Digital Photography.
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NOTICE: UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED, THIS POSTING AS WELL AS ANY AND ALL PHOTOGRAPHS, GALLERY IMAGES, AND ILLUSTRATIONS ARE THE LEGAL COPYRIGHTED © WORKS OF - JOHN NEEL AND ARE NOT TO BE USED ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, FOR ANY PURPOSE WITHOUT WRITTEN CONSENT FROM THE WRITER, THE PHOTOGRAPHER AND/OR PIXIQ. THE IDEAS EXPRESSED ARE THE PROPERTY OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER AND THE AUTHOR.
"IMAGINATION IS WHAT MAKES IMAGES UNIQUE"
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