Blog #203   4/25/17

There are infinite ways of making photographs of a given subject.

One can circle around a subject, get on a ladder and look down, lie on the ground and look up.  One can wait for the light or make one’s own light.  One can use various lenses and shutter speeds.  The limits of technique and technology are restricted only by one’s imagination.

This blog is about one subject, photographed from the same exact viewpoint, the north-facing window of our apartment on the 29th floor of an apartment building on 29^th Street, near Park Ave South in Manhattan.  The NoMad (for North of Madison Park) district.

The subject is the city’s iconic skyscraper, the Empire State Building.  With a few variables including time of day and weather (which in the winter changes quickly and phenomenally—yielding all sorts of “looks”), from high noon to deepest night, and a variety of lenses.

From this single point of view over the course of four months I made a few thousand images, some very different, some different in slight but significant ways.

This illustrates one of the strongest basic lessons I know: To make a special portrait (or any image), if you have very little time to explore, your chances of making something wonderful will be limited.

To be rewarded, pick a subject that you cannot take your eyes off of, take your time (if you can), live with that subject (even if it’s a huge skyscraper) and look, and look, and look.  And make photographs of what and how you see.

Sometimes wait.

Then look, and look some more….

And then, try stuff….

One picture may be worth a thousand words, but a thousand pictures: priceless.

Glitterati Incorporated, the publisher of the Retrospective, Schatz Images: 25 Years is now offering the two- book boxed set at a discount from the original price. The set comes with an 11″x14” print of the buyer’s choice.
http://schatzimages25years-glitterati.com