I am still trying to find that balance between having a photographic goal and still being open to possibilities. If it's an event, such as the one I shot this weekend, my main goal is coverage—wide shots, band shots, booth shots, kid shots, etc. I also ask the organizers what they really want to see pics of. After those two things are taken care of, I just follow my eye. I've learned that when I don't question and just follow my instincts, that I'm rewarded more often than not.

But for the most part, I just follow the light. A little research would do me good, especially when it comes to wildflower fields and stuff, but most often I just wake up and say, "I think I'll head west today and see what I find."

Yes I do...

1)I try to get straight guys to have gay sex..

2)I suggest they take off their pants...

3)I underexpose my shots in digital and shoot with a flash during the day time to create a sense of Film Noir..

4) I socialize and watch everything people do, and I get into their Intimate space.

5) I pretest my lighting situation for correct exposure before I start shooting for my assignemnt.

6) I shoot mostly wide within a confined space of people in a small room usually point blank without looking at the viewfinder. I shoot in weid angles very much like gary winogand did. Diane Arbus and Nan Golden are my people heros....

7) I follow the formula basic story telling shots and tend to over shoot...

8) I make eyecandy of mundane things...I look for them all the time...

9) I use horizontal lines in a room to show a sense of space and bring the viewer to the subject being photographed.

10) Since I am a poor editor in post production, I need to follow this list otherwise I won't know what images to select..I usually pick the best composition out of the same group of repeat shots.

this is a good exercise if I think of more I'll post them here..

I feel a little awkward answering this since this still feels very new to me. Sometimes, the shots are just technical--show the structure of the flower, the habit of the plant, etc. But the "zen" imagery comes fom a particular mood, or state of mind, and then I feel as if I am trying to "get inside the flower" or whatever I may be shooting, trying to capture its essence.

Trying to express how it feels to me, and often I will have an idea about how I might be able to express that better, and so I will go out at dusk--experiment with that, try different techniques.

But I have a very unzen attitude towards the results. There have been a few shots that I was very content with but in general I haven't had a lot of success in really conveying what I am feeling, the whole of it. Usually, I end up with some pretty pictures and feeling frustrated. I think some of them are pretty good but not...what I'm really after.

Has anyone read "Zen and the Art of Archery" ? One of the first books on zen that I read--where is the boundary between passion and letting go? I want to let go into the passion but wonder if my intensity just becomes another obstacle.

"One of the central points of Zen is intuitive understanding. As a result, words and sentences have no fixed meaning, and logic is often irrelevant. Words have meaning only in relation to who is using them, who they are talking to, and what situation they are used in. Some postings are indeed nonsense; other postings appear to be nonsense at first but this is because the meaning is all between the lines. Zen and poetry have gone hand in hand for centuries."

Thanks to the members of this tribe I found that I had Zen all along but needed to understand the eqipment more so I could have a steadier Zen. So I would have to say I'm planning Zen by learning more.. :)
Shell

When I am lucky enough to have my camera wtih me, I shoot when my eyes catch something worth saving. If I don't have my camera with me, I take a mental note of a beautiful spot or thing I want to photograph and then try to go back when the natural lighting is right. Although to be honest I've only begun to do that this past couple months. For the past 15 years most pictures I took (except photo assignments) were pretty spontaneous and in the moment. I used to carry my camera at all times, and set it up on a tripod while hanging with people and then take random shots once everyone was relaxed and being themselves - very beautiful and cool outcomes. Now I am more into nature, which seems to be zen no matter how good or bad the photo itself is - meaning I can't really give myself as much credit. With nature I think it's your own ability to be still and let the beauty come to you - then how can you go wrong with the photo?

>> Going into a photo shoot do you have specific goals/ideas in mind or do you just let the muse take you and see what turns up? <<

Working with film with my Nikon N80, I planned it all - at least insofar as I always set out to take photos with a particular project in mind, and looked for images that would suit that project. I did have some particular ideas of kinds of images I wanted to find and looked for those - but I also let the images reveal themselves wherever they may be, and let myself abandon any preconceived ideas I may have had if they weren't working, or simply weren't available. I may have thought I wanted lonely trees on the hill, for example, but if nothing suitable found its way into my path, I looked for what *was* there instead - and in addition to.

One project I did that I'm not even remotely through with yet is "solitude, loneliness, and spaces in between", which I wrote about last year at the time I was doing it on this tribe. I find I really like the headspace of being focussed on a particular project like this, with certain general goals for the session, and it produced a number of images that I doubt I would have even noticed had I approached it any other way. It became a form of meditation almost.

I always felt very limited, though, and unable to take as much advantage as I would have liked of other photo ops that presented themselves in the course of these forays, because of only having one kind of film and speed loaded at a time, and the constant awareness of not only those limitations but also just not wanting to end up with so many images that I simply would not have time to process, never mind print.

I just got a Nikon D80, however, and took it out for its first spin the other day, and I am *so* excited about it. I was shooting fairly randomly, mostly just to get the feel of the camera and what it and the new lens can do, and refresh my memory about basics, since I'd put the other camera down at the end of the class I took last year and hardly picked it up all year for a variety of reasons, despite desperately wanting to.

I got a couple of interesting shots, but I was struggling to find a focus, and I didn't like how that felt. I'm definitely going to return to my focused, planned series approach on the whole because it puts me in the kind of meditative mindset I need to *find* the kinds of images I want to make, and gives a direction to whatever I am doing.

Otherwise, I find I feel like I'm just shooting snapshots just to take pictures, which is fine for some things, of course, and can still produce some beautiful images, but it lacks the "Zen mind" element I need to do the work I want to do - and I think that really *shows* in the images. My random shots where I'm not really into focusing on something in particular like this, no matter how carefully set up, just tend to lack the same depth and power of the more meditative ones have. My connection with the result is very different as well, and those shots don't feed my soul.

That said, I'm just *so* excited about the possibilities of what little I already know about digital SLR photography, for being able to work both in series and to snag extraneous shots at the same time, with the same camera, and not have to worry about how much film I have left, or whether it will be the right type for the shot. It just boggles my mind that I will no longer have to forgo some of the shots I had to leave behind before, even if focussed on a particular project, and can return to whatever settings (ISO, B&W vs color, etc.) I want, and flip back and forth with ease.

Wendy

Rarely when setting out to shoot "zen" images do I plan. I have found that some of my strongest images are very minimalist, stripped down to a core, as it were. I do set out to shoot in a minimalist style, but tend to find an area and prowl until I find inspiration. My prowl, as it were, is a slow stalk, an examination of my environment with a goal of recording what strikes me. So I would have to say that I move til the muse stops me...