Althouse: "Ann could drop her camera and it would somehow take an amazing photograph. Some people just have the eye."

October 9, 2013

"Ann could drop her camera and it would somehow take an amazing photograph. Some people just have the eye."

"I'm not jealous, its just that I would have to take two or three hundred photos to come up with one of Ann's throwaway overnight thread pics."

Said Jimmy in yesterday's "Yellow-and-Red Café," which features a photograph that — Jimmy doesn't realize — was one of 200 shots I took on a single walk through Horicon Marsh the other day.

13 comments:

Meade said...: And you never once dropped your camera!; 10/9/13, 9:03 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "And you never once dropped your camera!"

Not this time.

He knows I do drop the camera now and then. And I've already spilled a big cup of coffee all over my desk (and keyboard) this morning.; 10/9/13, 9:06 AM
Big Mike said...: That photo puzzled me. Surely for Wisconsin you'd want red and white?; 10/9/13, 9:12 AM
Anonymous said...: I Know the Feeling: Sometimes it Takes Me 200 Comments to Find Something Worth Saying.

Trying to Be Better About That.; 10/9/13, 9:15 AM
Anonymous said...: If Betamax stays in character for months — online and off — is that acting or something like madness?; 10/9/13, 9:18 AM
PB said...: That's what most people don't realize about great photography. You have to take a LOT of pictures to develop an eye, and even then you have to take a lot of pictures to get great photos. Digital photography makes this very easy for the average person today, whereas before it cost a lot of money to pay to develop all that film, or the need to acquire the skill and expense of developing and enlarging in your own darkroom.

Soon we'll have wearable cameras taking high resolution images with us almost continuously and software to help identify good or interesting ones.

Something more for the surveillance state to sink it's teeth into.; 10/9/13, 9:45 AM
Richard Lawrence Cohen said...: Jimmy's right. You were born with it.; 10/9/13, 10:32 AM
cubanbob said...: Said Jimmy in yesterday's "Yellow-and-Red Café," which features a photograph that — Jimmy doesn't realize — was one of 200 shots I took on a single walk through Horicon Marsh the other day."

Not only a great photographer but an equally good photo editor.

Unfortunately for me these are among the many talents I lack.; 10/9/13, 10:38 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "That's what most people don't realize about great photography. You have to take a LOT of pictures to develop an eye, and even then you have to take a lot of pictures to get great photos. Digital photography makes this very easy for the average person today...."

A lot of the eye-development occurs at the computer, sorting through what you've gathered. What is it that makes some photos feel usable and others you know to delete in less than a second?

With this set of photos, a big thing was the light. The sky was cloudy the whole time, but at one point, sunlight slanted across. I knew that was important, but if I'd realized how much of a difference it would make in the excitement of the pictures, I'd have done many more shots right then.

I even had a dream last night that I was seeing that landscape, with that light, and I wept at the sight of it (and didn't want anyone to notice and need an explanation).

In real life, when the sun broke out a bit, we were talking to a man and that made it a little difficult to go into total photography mode. Later, looking at the photo set, I wondered why social pressure (toward a stranger who happened to be there) overcame my artistic mission.

Partly, it was that the man had a boy and the boy was interested in things (for example, he had invented the manufacture of gravel).; 10/9/13, 11:44 AM
Rocketeer said...: Partly, it was that the man had a boy and the boy was interested in things (for example, he had invented the manufacture of gravel).

It's alway fun to find one interested in things, particularly inventing the manufacture of gravel. I remember inventing it myself. I was about six, and my manufactory was the front walk of my grandparent house and an old discarded window weight. It was endlessly fascinating, and I don't say that to condescend either to my younger self or to this new inventor of the process. I mean it.; 10/9/13, 1:33 PM
Rocketeer said...: I should add: Thank you for unintentionally and unknowingly sparking a pleasant memory.; 10/9/13, 1:34 PM
Ann Althouse said...: You're welcome.

I love kids like that.; 10/9/13, 5:40 PM
Coconuss Network said...: Ann, Are you manufacturing headaches because I'm getting a headache from you. And no, I have not dropped a camera. Call Me Maybe.; 10/10/13, 4:15 AM