NEW YORK PHOTO BLOG / DAVE BECKERMAN

The photo workshop finished around 12 at the Metropolitan in the Dendur Wing.  I think it went pretty well, but I learned a few things.  The main thing was that even with only five people, it was hard to connect to the needs of all five people at once, as they were all somewhat different.

I thought that the one-on-one lessons I’ve done so far were more productive for the students since they could be catered exactly to their needs and it was easier for me to make a better connection in a short time with a single student.  Since I’m really not trying to teach technique, so much as the why of shooting, it is difficult to do with five students.  So going forward, that’s what I’m going to do: offer one-on-one lessons.  As I say, these can be more easily catered to the individual needs of the student.

As far as street shooting goes, although having Park Avenue completely free of traffic – it was only open to pedestrians and bikes today – this is almost impossible to do with five students and needs to be done in a more intensive way.  Basically, what I found was that street shooting is not something that comes naturally, and as I was sitting there at the end of the session, I was talking about how I felt when I first began shooting on the street.  I remember how difficult it was for me and how nervous it made me.  That is going to be natural for anyone who is halfway sensitive.  And it’s not something that can be learned in a 3-hour workshop, at least not with more than one person.

But I do think there are some rules and exercises that can be developed, just as you would need to learn techniques for other art forms.  For example, I noticed a tendency of some of the participants to want to shoot from the hip.  There are times and places for that – but it certainly isn’t necessary on Park Avenue with bikes and rollerbladers speeding by.  For me, it is a fallback position – when you are actually in a situation that may be dangerous to photograph.

In general, you should be able to photograph people with the camera to your eye before they notice that you’ve taken the shot.  And if they do notice, you should be able to deal with that too.  Sometimes, you just chat with them.  Sometimes, you ignore them and continue on your way.

Another thing I noticed was that at least one participant was deleting images from the camera.  I would never do this for two reasons: 1) while you’re deleting the image something else may be happening.  In other words, part of the street photography mindset is that you are almost always “on.”  Things that are happening are rare enough that you just want to kick yourself if you miss something because you were looking at the image on the back of the camera.  It totally breaks whatever flow you have. 2) If you are going to delete images, at least wait until you have a bit of temporal distance.  Don’t do it when that day when you are editing the images on your computer.  Unless they are obviously impossible to use (all black, or all white, or just so damned blurred that you know you’ll never print it).  But keep in mind that even mundane images may have historical value in ten years.

That’s what I learned from the session.

I’ll post a few shots of my own, and I asked the participants to send their best – or in some cases their worst shots for me to post.  Street shooting is definitely an entirely different skill than other forms of photography – something that since I’ve been doing it for so long – I discovered only by watching the group take a crack at it.  Definitely a good idea that I didn’t do what I was originally planning and go into the subway.

Oh – as far as the Aspire One netbook – useless as far as viewing goes for a group in the sun.  It’ll be fine for me to offload images onto and browse through indoors – but outdoors – couldn’t see a thing.  The screen (as Markus warned me) had too much glare.