You step outside your door, camera in hand, prepared to acquire the ultimate capture; a photograph to set the visual arts world on fire. You are not alone. The world is simply brimming with art directors.
Usually these helpful advisors take the form of small children that either
1) Think your time, effort, and film are much better spent photographing them and perhaps their friends acting goofy or
2) “I want to try it.” because, though your hundreds of dollars of photography equipment looks extremely cool, it is very boring watching you use it when they could be looking cool peering through the viewfinder and pressing the button to hear the satisfying click of the shutter snapping.
There are plenty of adult artistic directors too. On a recent shoot in Lake Eola Park in Orlando, Florida, I had half a dozen homeless people, that previously were simply hanging out in the park for the day, acting as consultants excitedly telling me where all the swan’s nests were and where the cutest newborn critters could be found.
When I first made the switch from digital photography back to film, one of the major items on my ‘to do’ list was (and still is) to get the definitive image of an Alligator. Since I was able to understand the English language and the inevitable “what do you want to be when you grow up?” question, I would proudly respond, ” A paleontologist!” As many young children who give that answer to that question, I did not really want to learn the extensive knowledge of Latin or spend my days under the brutal desert sun unearthing, one speck of sand at a time, a dinosaur skeleton with a delicate brush which are several of the real required geological disciplines for that profession. I wanted to be amidst the gnashing teeth and blasting volcanoes of our planet’s violent past.
Therefore, I was very excited to end up in Floirda where the backdrop of exotic foliage looked, to me, like the scene from a favorite Smithsonian Institution poster of when Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth and there were enormous reptiles still roaming the landscape.
Alligators are tough, though. They’re common in the deep south. There’s tons of photographs of them. Still, the siren to an aspiring photographer, is that there are not so many good photographs of them. To photograph an alligator is not enough. I’m trying to get the definitive photograph of one of these beasts. Something with visual interest in the foreground, and maybe the background, that makes you want to say, now there is an alligator.
I’m still working on getting this shot.
One evening at sunset, on the shores of Lake Dora, I was close. it was a beauty lounging on the shores; nearly twelve foot long.
(S)he was in my sights. There were cattails and tall Florida swamp grass in the foregroung, the gently lapping waves in the background. In the viewfinder of my Pentax ME Super was the perfect composition painstakingly taking shape.
While crouching behind my tripod peering through the viewfiner, I heard the exclamation, “Amigo!” yelled with a thick spanish accent.
“Amigo!”
“Hey Amigo!”
“Amigo!!!“
Finally this increasingly urgent exclamation from the man behind me annoyed the beautiful specimen of an Alligator sending it to swim to another shore.
I slowly turned to glare at whoever was yelling, to see a hispanic man pointing excitedly now that I was finally paying attention to him.
“Alligator!” he exclaimed grinning from ear to ear and gesturing at the retreating beast.
I turned back to the reptile and clicked off a shot of this huge specimen swimming across Lake Dora with the sun setting in the background.
It is one of the better pictures I have taken.
To all the armchair artistic directors who have pointed me in the right direction on what I should photograph:
Thanks Amigo.
