Home field advantage

Sami Serola

What I often wonder is how such thing as home field advantage affects on what and how one takes the pictures. It is widely popular to take travel shots at fancy places. But in order to find really new point of views, one have to get to know the place better.

For example I just visited Malta for the second time in my life, and what I saw and photographed during this second visit very likely differs from what I saw and shot on my first trip. Although, one could also try to think this the other way round. Is there a way to try see the familiar places with eyes of a stranger?

Anyway, since I have lived here at Tampere, Finland for over twenty years now, I start to have a certain home advantages. I know certain places "like my own pockets", I know what to find and where, if I for example have to shoot something for the photo challenges and assignments, and I also know when it is the best time of the day and year to shoot something in my hometown. But also the home advantage means it is quick and easy to go some familiar place to see if there is something new to find out.

Currently I've tried to find something interesting for the high angle assignment by Ted Forbes. On my way to work, I often walk through the whole University building, and also walking on a bridge that leads form one block to another at the hight of fifth floor. This route provides plenty of places to photograph views from a high camera angle. During past years I have photographed people around campus, open lobbies and stairways seen from above, taken cool wet window glass shots, and cityscape shots.

For the high angle assignment I first checked the potential place and view, to find out what composition and focal length would work best. Then in the noon I went back to the spot, and I was lucky to see just this one person on her way downstairs. Then on editor I decided to use black and white high key effect to emphasize the structures of modern architecture.

Process

Sami Serola

I'm just looking to find out more about the world and if it turns out there is a simple ultimate law which explains everything, so be it; that would be very nice to discover. If it turns out it's like an onion with millions of layers and we're just sick and tired of looking at the layers, then that's the way it is. ... My interest in science is to simply find out more about the world.

~Richard Feynman 

For me it looks like it's more likely an onion, except I have not yet became sick and tired of looking at the layers. It is the quite opposite. And I suppose it was the same for Richard Feynman. If I ever feel tired, I actually start looking at the layers, pictures taken by others, or my own. I often feel jealous for what others have accomplished, and sometimes I even become jealous for what I have manage to achieve months or years earlier. But all that jealousy works only as an inspiration and catalyst to try harder.

And that's what the process is about. One may claim there is not much science in art and photography, but for me it is very much a similar process. I study the works of other's, make a review out of it, form a hypothesis, conduct some empirical experiments, and then hopefully manage to come up with some promising findings and results. And if the process has been very successful indeed, I even manage to form a "theory", which I can try to replicate.

But the real point is there's not exactly so much new discovered, and the layers indeed have a great deal of resemblance between them. To find something new, one has to find a new way to combine what's already known.

All this in mind I somewhat intentionally and also subconsciously have approach for example the eye-level assignment I wrote about in my previous article. I for example realized how interesting it can be when I start the photography session by first selecting the focal length and try to shoot eye-level. It sort of opens my eyes to see world in a new way. And I also find ways to combine there into the image my own old ideas and "mannerisms", like Mr Nobody and maximalism.

Afternoon light

Forcing myself to use only certain focal length, I can not "zoom in" or "zoom out", and then I have to decide what to de with the space. Or whether to step closer or further. And the same is with the camera level. I need to take what I see more seriously, and sort of find a way around the limitations I have set to myself. And by doing so, I indeed discover something new!

Normality

Sami Serola

Latest assignment by Ted Forbes is "eye level", and also it is reminded to take the "depth" into account. Although, shooting eye level is indeed typical way to take pictures, it suddenly turns out rather challenging when trying to do so in purpose. And this is because usually one first and foremost only focuses on what to shoot and how to compose, and the choice of camera level becomes more or less only as a last choice. At least that is how I work with a camera.

So, when doing the other way round, I suddenly became more aware of multiple other variables like what focal length to use. Somewhat obvious choice probably is to use a wide angle lens and shoot something like a landscape. Or telescopic lens to capture a detail somewhere further away.

Then I started to think something I read years ago, when I was just beginning to take photography as a serious hobby. It was an article on a booklet introducing (advertising) Olympus Zuiko lenses, and how to use them creatively. On one article some professional photographer was telling how to use "standard lens" (50mm on 35mm film format) as a "new telescopic lens", to pick up details. At that time among professionals wide angle lenses were sort of popular, and then any longer focal length had started to feel as a "long lens". Except normal lens then was like a lightweight and small choice instead of using "real" telescopic lenses.

"History of standard lenses" especially on amateur photography is rather interesting. First cheap and easy to make 50mm lenses (or 80mm on roll film formats) were what everyone had and used. It is usually described this normal lens "has a similar angle of view to the human eye, giving photos a natural feel". Indeed it is how we observe the world from a "safe distance", and therefore this normal lens gives images a look what may turn out even "boring" and flat.

When other lenses (focal lengths) became easier and cheaper to manufacture, something like 35mm lens first became as a standard on pocket cameras, and also as a wide angle focal length on cheap kit zoom lenses (35-70m zoom lenses). And today 28mm equivalent lens (or even wider) has became more or less as standard on mobile phone cameras and many pocket cameras. It means something that is seen as a common, then also becomes as a normal on the majority of images we take, display and see these days.

Then among more serious amateur photographers, shooting with DSLR cameras, it is very common to use extreme ends on focal lengths instead of using so called "old good normal lens". Only when we need very "speed lens" (large aperture), we choose the 50mm prime lens. But also this is quickly changing because also other focal length lenses with large aperture has became affordable.

Very recently also zoom lenses has turned out "faster", providing such apertures as f/1.8-2.8. It means the traditional "normal lens" had become even less obvious choice of focal length to be used.

Therefore I have decided to "take a step back" to "the age of normal lens view", and shoot with it on an eye level for the current Ted's assignment. It is kind of interesting to experiment how to imitate what once was a "standard", and yet try to make the image interesting, and also try to give a feeling of depth in the image.

As a first attempt of mine I took a shot of empty billboards at the university corridor. I sort of got fascinated by the idea of "tabula rasa", when I saw them "waiting to be moved and used" somewhere again. Then the outcome was surprisingly monochromatic, with a tint of sepia in it. I only desaturated some blue hue out of the left side of the image, and as a result, got almost nostalgic image with a feeling of renunciation in it.