I can't see a damn thing while driving. Relationships between near-far, shapes the light is forming, etc are just about impossible for me to see while driving. I can find subjects while driving -- but not images. I prefer to walk to find the light.
No time-of-day limitations for me -- as long as there is light, one can photograph. Under the redwoods I prefer 10am to 2pm (a little later if it is not winter).
Thanks Vaughn for the key distinction:Originally Posted by Vaughn
Cruisin’ for subjects vs. Cruisin’ for images.
To confuse the two means you’re Cruisin’ for a bruisin’!
Isn't language great, "Cruisin" has a whole different connnotation in a different country... you're more likely to get locked up as a result ;o)
That said, I find a drive great to recce the lie of the land in the area and then explore by foot at a time of day / year that's likely to favour the right light conditions.
I find driving hopeless for looking for scenes as you're supposed to be looking at the road. However, travelling as a passenger on the top deck of a bus is ideal (as long as it goes where you want to go!).
Steve.
I like to listen to music of a subtle and inspirational nature - because it's already on the wavelength I'm reaching for - but there's no special method. Different approaches work at different times: as with meditation, romance, and sleeping, we can't force things, but merely create the environment where things can happen on their own time.
During the times I went out shooting with Fred (over 40 years ago), sometimes we would talk while driving around (central New York) - or just quietly look. Coming upon a scene with potential, we'd acknowledge it and stop the car. Silence would follow. No looking under someone else's ground glass, except when teaching. Real looking would come later: critiquing the finished print.
It's OK to spend a whole day searching and not find anything. It's a bit like playing a slot machine: we just keep putting in the coins, and when we least expect it, we hit the jackpot - or not. If it happened when we expect it, we'd soon grow bored and find something else with inherent uncertainty.
That uncertainty principle is why shooting with film (b&w in particular) can be more appealing than digital when making "fine art": in spite of experience, we never really know how things will look until we're well along the process.
In Fine Art photography, uncertainty is our friend: it makes surprise possible
I tend to agree with Kirk...
If you want to be expressive, you need something in your mind or your heart you want to express. Cruising for snapshots is like cruising for one-night-stands in a bar. Fine if it's what you're into, but don't mistake it for something "meaningful"...
"I love my Verito lens, but I always have to sharpen everything in Photoshop..."
I also tend to not find ready-to-photograph image scenes while driving, though I do keep a camera or two with me. I see scenes/subjects and think that would look nice in snow, fog, different weather, etc... Those flowers/blossoms would have been a lot nicer a week ago, etc... My mind is chock a block full of such things within a 20 mile radius of my home. Sometimes my free time and the light/weather cooperate and I return to a spot. Some spots are ready, but I'd thought of them as good portrait spots, but my daughter/sitter is busy elsewhere. Being a passenger instead of a driver is a better way to spot scenes, but either situation overlooks 95% of the potential.
Walking is the better way to "be there" with the camera. I understand extended walking is tiring carrying a ries tripod and an 8x10 and all the accessories... I carry a speed graphic and accessories in a widemouth tool bag, and a tiltall in the other hand. Much easier. I could go back with an 8x10 another time if I needed an 8x10 negative or needed to shoot it with a lens for 8x10. If I want to travel light, I take a dslr or TLR, which is far lighter than my DSLR. Walking, you can actually look around, see things at different heights, ponder, and not be a motor vehicle statistic. Walking tends to be repetitive too, which is important for understanding the photo possibilities on a route. As you begin to notice the change of seasons or change of what man has made (or is it something government made for him?) your sight and perception will increase for that route.
Well, I continue to respectfully disagree because the end product is what matters, and how you got there really doesn't.
Take for example the story of Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico. Mr. Adams tells the story that he and his friend and son were on their way back from the Chama valley after a hard day and not too many photographs. Basically he was thinking lets get back to where we are staying and get the kid fed and happy and try again tommorow. He was "cruisin" for home basically. And then, out of the clear blue sky pops up this extraoridnary scene. He steps out of the car, fumbles trying to find his meter, figures things out on the fly, and exposes a film.
Of course of course there were other times when he saw things that he came back for so that the light was better.
My point is that you can make great photographs just driving around and you can make lousy photographs when you had intentions of making great ones.
In the end all that matters is the photograph itself and really not even that so much as whether that piece of paper with the image on it caused a reaction of some sort in either your mind or another's mind. That is the true pupose, to communicate in a way other than speech or writing. Or to put it another way, does it matter if I write a letter to you with a pencil or a Mont Blanc fountain pen, or does what really matters is what I said in the letter, the feeling I put into it, etc. etc.
Here's a "cruising fer snaps" image captured two week back:
I had photographed this before on a sunny day, when the grass was green and short and two horses were standing alongside the barn, using a 6x9 transparency. While driving down coast on a foggy day I remembered this barn and decided to check it out. The grass was high and brown and the foggy overcast suggested a soft focus lens which I just happened to have with me. The horses relocated to inside the barn while I was setting up but I am pleaswed with the resulting image. Although I found two more images that day, it alone was worth the drive IME.
Thomas
Precisely.
And a beautiful photo.
Perhaps people should post more of these, just to share what we can "stumble upon" while driving. Almost all my landscape photos are made this way.
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