How do you visualize a shot?

I give up on visualization. Usually I just shoot, often without even aiming through the viewfinder, at something that catches my attention. Then when I look at the contact scan, I'll see things that I feel I need to print. Others often like them too.

But when I do visualize something, I shoot differently - deliberately. And it looks nothing like I visualized, so I mess with it, tone it in some weird, radioactive color or something, and finally end up with something entirely different than what I visualized. But then I like it.
 
Visualization for me means a lot of serious preparation work, almost a location shoot like making a movie. First I come to a location and observe the surroundings, then think of what kind of effects I'd like to see and fix the camera on a pod, take light readings and set shutter and aperture combination. Finally wait for a subject to show up.

I don't do this often.
 
http://lightmancer.blogspot.com/2009/09/thinking-past-end-of-your-lens.html

Thus:

4486623493_2ae525cd68_o.jpg


Regards,

Bill
 
Usually check the light, zone focus the camera to a certain dof then catch whatever gets in there :p It's more of an instinctual thing, feeling something then going for it. Kind of like shooting a shotgun, about the feel.
 
nathanp said:
I spot something interesting, look for compositional elements, get excited by what I've seen and then chicken out of raising my camera because there's people around.

That's why nearly all of my pictures are of inanimate objects.
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Same here; well said.

Visualization is the first step - to notice something interesting, whether it be shapes, events, light, textures etc. This step helps in deciding on lens, DOF. Then comes framing. This is my preferred mode.

In busy places I pre-focus and selected aperture for DOF coverage, then all that's required is quick framing. It's still too slow for most fleeting moments that I see.

Steve
 
SteveM said:
Same here; well said.

Visualization is the first step - to notice something interesting, whether it be shapes, events, light, textures etc. This step helps in deciding on lens, DOF. Then comes framing. This is my preferred mode.

In busy places I pre-focus and selected aperture for DOF coverage, then all that's required is quick framing. It's still too slow for most fleeting moments that I see.

Steve
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Dear Steve,

That's interesting. You're using 'visualization' for what I would call 'seeing'. For me, visualization refers to the final picture, and is very nearly the last stage in the process before taking the picture. It goes:

1 Notice subject
2 Find viewpoint (includes lens choice)
3 Imagine what final image will look like, as noted above (= visualization)
4 Focus, set exposure, shoot.

I'm not saying that either of us is right, merely that it's intriguing how differently we understand the word. For me, the process you describe (which is how I normally work) is 'grabbing' not 'visualizing'.

This is one of the fascinating things about RFF: it makes us question even those things we have taken for granted for years or even decades.

Cheers,

R.
 
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same to me too. Like everyone said this need to practice.

I use Kodak Retina and I need more thing to do.

1 pre-light measuring regularly along the way when I'm walking with my camera (This to ensure that I can capture that picture I saw.) and usually set at wide open due to my preference
2 notice if there is something interesting or give me some feeling or message.
3 usually I keep the distant to my subject 1-3 meters away.
4 grap the camera and take the picture

I mainly use 50mm lens which the FOV is close to FOV of our eyes.
I try to take every picture at full frame and walk in-out to adjust what I need.
Later I reallise what is the right distant to my subject to best fit my 50mm FOV
and this make everything seem to be right when I grap my camera and see through
the VF and take the shot.

Some shot I can have little time to think about what effect I want and set my cam.
(for example. shutter speed / DOF / pan the camera / or silhouette look)

edit: added below
Some time we need to guess / predict what will happen and wait too.
 
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Sometimes particularly people shots where I know the surroundings beforehand I will imagine what I want it to be like, and then try to work to that, not often but it can happen.

Other times I just mooch around and take pictures of things I am drawn to. Not things I like, that's a big distinction because I do turn the camera to things I don't like too.

When I see something I am drawn to, then I frame it all the way that works with my eye, snap, and off I go again.

So most of the time I'm not going with a pre-conceived notion, especially if it's somewhere new to me but that goes without saying; but I don't go somewhere thinking "Hey what if x was there, that could make the picture mean this..."

Vicky
 
When I visualize a shot before actually shooting it is always about composition.
I ponder the proportions in order to indicate a aim or a meaning then I use this draft of a composition when I compose through the finder.
It is easy to do in inverse and to counter "the rules" but you have to know them beforehand and then you have your thing going on!
 
More than composition. Also final image size, image tone (neutral, warmtone, selenium...), paper surface, dodging, burning, whether or not to use a filed-out neg carrier...

Cheers,

R.
 
Difficult to define the photographic creative process out there in the dynamic world, as so much is constantly changing. I'd think it would be much different for, say, drawing or painting where you'd surely have a visualized image in mind at the start.

And what part does intuition or subconscious play? In looking over the "take" later I'm sometimes surprised by elements I don't recall seeing at the time but which are clearly part of the pic's organization. So at some level I must have been aware of these elements -- except when my intuition is taking a nap. :)
 
1. See something I like
2. Put camera up to eye
3. Decide shot looks rubbish
4. Find another angle
5. Miss shot because I'm to slow
6. Take bad shot to offset frustration
 
i often see a quality of light that attracts me; then i look for a shot to go with it. i think the shot is already there, but it is the light that gets me first. composition/angle is third ...
 
1. I see something appealing
2. Cock the shutter (I like my springs to last a long time)
3. Set aperture and speed
4. I look through the viewfinder
5. Focus
6. Shoot

takes about 2 seconds
 
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