Marc showing the concept of “framing”, originally uploaded by marc silber.

My Uncle “Sambo” was a WW II “Top Gun” pilot, he drove a Corvette and he was a photographer—wow what a mix! He was the one who really helped me move from being a snap shooter to being a photographer when I was about 11.We used to go out and shoot together, I’ll never forget when he told me that I had to “frame” my photographs. He said, “if you just shoot this field with that tree in the middle of it, it has no real impact. But look, move over here with the oak tree at the edge of the frame and now look at it.” He was right, it was like magic, the shot just looked better!

From then on I framed every shot and now I was a photographer! That was the instant turning point for me.

Time passed and framing was something I never had to think about, it was an instinctive action, like taking in a breath. But when I started to give workshops and approached this with students I found I had to relook at it all over again, “how do I get this concept across?”

The definition of “frame” in the Encarta dictionary is

Image border: the border or set of borders of an image. Form surrounding framework for something: to form a surrounding border or framework, especially a decorative or contrasting one, around something.

Do you see what you’re doing when you frame? You form an edge to the scene, or a framework, but this can be a contrast, a line, shape, etc.

Henri Cartier-Bresson said,

“To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression.”

When you have a great shot, it tells the significance of the event—what the story is— as well as its proper form, which framing helps to give it.

Ansel Adams taught his students to see shots by handing out a “framing card” which was file card with a rectangle cut out of its center. Students were told to go frame shots using the card—no camera! You would hold the card to your eye, and move in or out, to the sides, up and down to frame your shots. What a great exercise this was!

Here’s how you can improve your eye and ability to frame (yes, it takes practice just like tennis, cooking or surfing (my fav):

1. Watch this short video where I talk about framing and using the framing card.

2. Open up this framing card and print it on a 3×5 card (don’t worry abut the “Zone System” on it  for now.) Cut out the black rectangle so you have a hole about the shape of the images you’re shooting

3. Do the drill above: hold the card to your eye, and move in or out, to the sides, up and down to frame your shots, until you just start seeing the shots.

4. Now get out your camera and shoot. First with no regard for—in fact don’t frame the shot. Then same shot, frame it.
5. Compare the two until it clicks.
6. Send me your best shot, but only one, and I’ll give you honest feedback. I’ve set up a Flickr group for this. Also stay tuned on my FaceBook.
7. Keep doing 1-4 over and over for weeks.

BTW, Years later Uncle Sambo gave me his Roliflex, what an amazing camera. I loved the big square negatives and took it all over including my series My Mexico.

Good Shooting!

Seventh Grade Geometry, originally uploaded by marc silber.

You’ll hear this over and over from the photographers that I interview: Take your dang camera with you everywhere!

Cartier-Bresson took his camera with him EVERYwhere—to the cleaners, to the cafe, to the cinema…he always had his trusty Leica M2 with him. Yep, that’s why I got one many, many years ago, hoping the magic would rub off.

Ansel Adams got his famous Shot “Moon and Half Dome” on his way to happy hour. Yes, he pulled his Cadillac over at 4 PM and grabbed his Hasselblad and got that shot. Got back in his car and drove off to have some more fun. Ironic how photographers now line up in droves to try to get the same shot. Ansel loved to get shots of the moon, and was prepared to jump when he saw that shot.

In her new book At Work, Annie Leibovitz said about her early days, “What mattered was photography. Being a photographer was my life. I took pictures all the time, and pretty much everything I photographed seemed interesting. Every single time I went out to take a picture was different. The circumstances were different. The place was different. The dynamics were different. Every single time. You never knew what was going to unfold.”

If you saw my last show you heard Chase Jarvis tell you to get off your bum and get out and get some shots!

So this is the basic point: Take your camera around with you everywhere. In fact that’s your assignment for this weekend: Take your camera with you for one whole day (nope, sorry your iPhone doesn’t count for this, nice try.) I mean your camera, your point and shoot, your cool new DSLR, your granddad’s 4×5, whatever you’ve got. Take it with you for the whole day and shoot. In fact set it up the night before by the bed so you pick it up first thing and grab shots the whole day.

Then next day process them and pick out your best and send it to me. Tell me a bit of the story if you’d like and I’ll post the ones that really grab me, deal?

BTW, as one by-product of this exercise you’ll have to get over any sort of “stage fright” that accompanies having a camera with you all the time and getting shots! But if you’ve set out on this road you might as well face it, you’re not going to get the shots you miss!

There’s lots of ways to get me your shot, here’s a few easy ones, let me see what you’ve got!
email: marc@silberstudios.com
twitter: @marcsilber
FaceBook Marc Silber

In this absorbing interview,  get an inside look at multi-award winning Chase Jarvis’ photography. Follow Chase around the globe as he discusses his style, what he loves about being a photographer and his five tips for getting exceptional photos.

Please let me know how you like it.

Chase Jarvis All Stars, originally uploaded by marc silber.

I had the exceptional opportunity to spend time with Chase Jarvis at his studio. Not only is his own work enough to “stop you in your tracks” but he is also motivated to add “cultural capital” by sharing his insight and tips, which is what brought me to Seattle to film our next episode of PhotoShow

You’ll hear him talk about these 6 points:

1. L O O K at the shot without your camera: Look it over, walk around and see what’s there. He mentioned that at this stage even the camera is constricting, so just look with your eyes (and mind) open to the shot and possibilities.

2. Visualize the shot: From seeing it as it appears now, visualize the final shot that you want. This will drive it through all of the other phases of making your photograph: capturing the shot, post production, printing and even where it will be used.

3. Fanaticize how to improve the shot: He said this is where you might add in elements into the shot or more likely simplify and remove.

4. Make it exceptional: “Turn it on its head!” He discussed that if you’re even asking “how can I make it exceptional?” you’re already on your way to making it so.

5. Close the creative gap: (the gap between one’s vision and ability to render that shot.) Study, shoot, learn, practice, follow his blog and bang the street! Bang your shutter! Take thousands of shots. Don’t be afraid to blow it, just get out and shoot tons and tons of shots and learn from these.

Stay tuned and subscribe to our blog for updates.

We had some great comments on Why Set Your Photography Goals? Shows how important it is to define and clearly state your goals.

Now that you’ve stated your goals, how to arrive at them so they don’t get lost like all those New Years resolutions (exercise more, don’t eat____, walk the dog every day, clean my office, garage, car, etc.,  be nice to____) that start to fade by the end of Jan 1st!

Once you have stated your goals, what’s the next step? Strategic planning. Wikipedia defines it as:

“Strategic planning is an organization’s process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people.”

This applies to each of us as individual photographers, as well as any organization we have.  What are your directions and your strategy to get to your goal, and what are your decisions about allocating your resources?

Here’s a simple example from Annie Liebovitz’ new book At Work:

“The first thing I did with my very first camera was climb Mt Fuji. Climbing Mt Fuji is a lesson in determination and moderation. It would be fair to ask if I took the moderation part to heart. But it certainly was a lesson in respecting your camera. If I was going to live with this thing, I was going to have to think about what that meant. There weren’t going to be any pictures without it.”

Boil it down to determination and getting to know her camera, and as she said later, taking it with her everywhere, shooting tons of pictures.

Ansel Adams came up with the strategy of moving photography from simply being a recording device, to using the whole process as a means to capture and show the world what he visualized.  Remember, we largely have him, and his pals, to thank for moving photography from being simply an illustration means  to being a fine art—something we tend to take for granted. He operated on a long-term strategy to accomplish that goal.

So now that you have your goals worked out, let’s define your strategy, get out your paper and do this (and yes leave them as comments too so we can learn from you.)

1.    What are your decisions and your directions to yourself? Look at Annie’s above “I’ve got to be determined and I’ve got to get to know and respect my camera.” Yours could be as simple as “take at least one shot a day, even if it’s with my iPhone!”

2.    What are your resources?  This includes your time, equipment, classes, models, etc. Just take a good look around. In an upcoming episode of PhotoShow you’ll hear Thomas Hawk talk about how he steals moments during the day to get shots— waiting for a meeting to start, or walking to one—just grab those moments and fill them with your shots!

3.    Now get clever and work out your strategy to make use of these points to arrive at your goals.

You might ask what my goals and strategy are?

A big one is to make PhotoShow a hit by bringing to you those who have mastered photography. I came up with the idea for PhotoShow after teaching many, many workshops and realizing there simply were no great resources for hearing directly from the masters of photography (I’m a big fan of hearing, or better seeing, those who have excelled in a subject. Sometimes you learn just by watching their expressions or seeing their examples.) So I decided to put the show together and put viewers directly in touch with Ansel Adams (we have unreleased footage that we’ll be rolling out) Annie Leibovitz, Chase Jarvis (we’ll open with this soon, I promise), Thomas Hawk, and we’ll just continue on this journey…

No matter what you put in your strategy it has to include seeing more of other’s work and expanding your knowledge. I hope to help you along the way with both.

BTW, subscribe to my blog so you can be part of the conversation, I also put out tweets between posts so follow me on twitter here as well as on FaceBook and FriendFeed.

Good shooting in 2009!