Dave Block Photography

I spent the weekend camping with a big group of friends and got asked a lot about photography and what I like to shoot. Now, I love shooing a lot of different things, but the one that makes me happiest is portraits because for me, creating an image that expresses who someone is, or conveys a moment or captures an emotion is the greatest thing I can achieve as a photographer.

How does that work though? It happens on a couple of different levels. Becoming a better photographer has changed how I look at the world – and I mean that in both a literal and metaphorical sense. In the most literal ways: it’s seeing the light – not just is there enough of it or not, but what shape it has, its warmth, and where the shadows fall. It’s retraining the visual processing part of your brain, which has an elegant system to filter and prioritize incoming visual information into two big buckets – threats and targets (important stuff), and most everything else (less important), which is why it’s so easy to fail to see that lamppost in the background that in your photo is obviously sprouting out of someone’s head. It’s seeing patterns and textures and shapes and space, and assembling them into a composition that will be pleasing when isolated in a photograph.

But, I think as importantly, good portraiture requires developing an empathy for the people and things that you see and shoot. Sometimes you have a conversation to establish it, sometimes you have a fraction of a moment and have to trust your intuition, sometimes all the variables are controlled and you’re working with professionals who are used to being in front of the camera and it matters a lot less how people are feeling because everyone’s there to do a job. But even in the last case, if you don’t develop a rapport with the person you’re shooting, the images will suffer. And on the up side, when you do have it, it’s like a light shining through the image.

So back to the weekend – this weekend was just fun, I shot  a fair amount but all very casually – nothing posed. But the neat thing is that when you shoot with clear eyes and an open heart, even candid shots can be wonderful. Here’s Dave and his new daughter Nola, sharing a moment while waiting for the ferry.

Every week there’s a farmer’s market in my neighborhood, and last week I wandered up to see what kind of images I could make there. There are usually great colors and scenes at markets like this, and I got some typical shots of bins of vegetables, trays of berries, and the like, but the one I like best is this portrait I shot of Kristian, who works at one of the stalls. The available light was ok but not great, and the stall had a tan-colored canopy, so I stood a flash over in the corner on an ice chest pointed straight up to bounce off the inside of the canopy and give the light some punch and direction. It worked out very nicely, giving a nice shape to the light on Kristian’s face, with the ambient light from the open back of the stall acting as a hair light.