… ringy … ringy…ok for the oldheads ….this is the sound of a real telephone calling. For youse youngin’s… even your digi-phones have a simulated old school ring. Anyway,  I recognize the ring as The Girl Child Lindas. So she tells me she is home after almost 2 months travel vacation. Linda tells me that my method of One Shot Per Shoot saved her. It kept her focused and gave inspiration.

Oh’ sorry about that. I need to clarify exactly what that means. No, not the part of being focused or inspiration, the one shot per shoot part. Alright, here comes the street shooters guide to the universe. Well, it’s the universe of our own and we live in it. What’s the name of this universe? Well first off, it’s a private unique universe lived in individually by each of us. What makes the private universe universal is the common universal denominator, “GRATIFICATION”. I know, who in the world cares about gratification? It must be some foreign thing that may be a small esoteric group of shooters are aware of and work towards. Imagine that!

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Ok, let me get to the point. If we go out and shoot and say make 50 exposures, what we have is a visual salad of images. Emotionally we are in a conundrum because we have too many images from a shoot to really absorb and digest each one. Let me make this even more personal. I always go out with the 1 shot per shoot intent. That doesn’t mean only one shot per shoot to make, just one shot per shoot to show and love. See, there is the problem, I go out and make photos, I am not a heavy shooter, I’m about 184lbs. So, I tend to really want to make a photo that stays in my heart.. So here’s the issue, we have about 2 means of editing. The first is pre-exposure. Here’s where we need to be tuned into ourselves and be kinda selective. This is also where our NAMED camera is our partner. If you have an unnamed camera, may Mother Light shine on your soul and show you the light.  We have post exposure. Here’s the editing process again, usually a darkroom or pc whatever.

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One of the largest differences and what also makes the POC, Point Of Confusion, is pre-exposure, you are dealing with source and scene definition. Post-exposure you are dealing with the two dimensional captured images. Linda is asking me a lot of questions. I can’t be a numbskull with her, so I need to give answers that are true as I know them. or at least as I can convince her they are true. Maybe some think I know a lot and maybe I do but I don’t believe it. I’m not even a good student in life. I’m told that with all I do that, in the end, I will die and can’t take a camera with me. What the hell kinda life is that I’d rather be dead.

Oh’ don’t worry, I’m gonna drag youse thru this stuff all winter. Anyway, Linda, youse know her as the Girl Child Linda, want’s me to explain what the foundation of work really is. Seems like she’s really charged on just doing her photography. So we be talkin’ ’bout cameras and she pulls out of her bag a Leica M10P I think it is. Anyway I make a fuss about it and she’s smiling and her pretty little self with her pretty new camera and if she reads this, I’m dead meat. Nice camera, the kind ya can build a foundation on. Not the only one but if ya have it, well, why not go for it.

 

Well, I start talking and ya know, when that happens and I even surprise myself sometimes, I get ta giving info that’s locked up in me poor brain. Linda, see…the foundation of your work is the same as a home. Sure, it seems like if you have a foundation and you work on that , then you may be kinda locked in or boxed in, at least feel that way. When we think about anything, it’s good to be on the outside looking in. With a new home, a builder makes a foundation. Then many times the house actually extends above and beyond the foundation. See, the foundation is a strong one and the builder knows how to work within and without. So he can do things that may surprise others and even himself because he understands the foundation he works on.

 

(Yo ya’ll….I am already working on the second part of this but Linda don’t know it. Please just don’t say anything and we will get thru this in a long jiffy.) I smile cause she’s looking at me with a face like, get to the damn point shooter, or else. See I know that face. It’s the face that a woman gives you and you know you better wash the dishes. Linda, here’s some info.

We all know that the Eye, Heart and Mind are the cornerstone of the foundation that we work from. It’s the cornerstone and perhaps the most important but works synergistic-ally with the rest of the foundation. We live and build our work from that solid concept that we have etched in your heart and mind. Wait, wait…. gotta run, I will put the next post, the follow up to this shortly, not my shortly but the shortly that most of us, except me take as a standard. I promise……

 

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……….end transmission………………………