Photographers: Try Working Backwards
No — I don’t mean turn around. I am talking about pre-visualization. Don’t let your eyes glaze over. This is real.
If I’d have known this stuff when I was a kid, I would have gotten a whole bunch better at photography — a whole bunch faster.
Because it took me a while to realize the value of pre-visualization, I did what most people do. I sprayed and prayed. I reacted. I’d see something and THEN raise my camera and make a snapshot.
That’s a valid photography experience…
But for those who want more, try working backwards. I keep writing and teaching on this topic (pre-visualization) so often because it’s so important. Unfortunately, it’s also very ethereal. Shutter speeds and ISOs are a piece of cake to figure out. How to see the image BEFORE you press the shutter — not so much.
Let’s take the featured toy photo at the top of this article, and I’ll try — once again to express the idea of pre-viz. (NOTE: I am not writing multiple articles on pre-visualization because I think my audience is stupid; Far from it. I am writing more and new versions of these articles and attacking the concept from multiple sides because I am not sure I am very good at expressing these ideas. If some of this seems repetitive, please forgive me…
About the picture:
I call this image “Forest Guardian.”
It features Vitus. One of the last surviving members of the Mercurian army, Vitus is only a shell of the man he once was. Devastated by the destruction of his people and their once glorious city of wisdom and enlightenment, he has set his sights outward on a new mission, to protect the entire realm so it does not meet the same fate. In an effort to bring the spark of life back into Vitus, Attila Leossyr asked him to train the Army of Leodysseus in the methods of Mercurian warfare. With this new purpose comes the tiniest glimmer of hope that this great warrior will regain the peace he once knew.
In my toy photography, every picture has to have a story. It makes me a better toy photographer when the story is good. Part of pre-visualization is having a full story in your mind that describes the image you want to create.
I got this new forest diorama and I knew Vitus (From the Mythic Legions line of action figures) would be the perfect character to use with it. I have decided to use the ADAMSKI EFFECT on this image — well sort of — the ADAMSKI EFFECT combined with a similar blur in Boris FX Optics 2022.5. It didn’t come out perfectly, but it came out better than I expected.
I say work backwards because I had been envisioning a forest scene with the ADAMSKI EFFECT for months. Unfortunately I hadn’t found the thing that really set it right in my mind. Then I saw Vitas standing there on the shelf and he happened to be standing next to two of my 1:12 scale trees, sitting in my prop bin. That lit the spark. I am often inspired by a prop or a background and THEN I get the image in my mind. I used to be like that when I recorded music or in the really old days, radio commercials. A sound effect would trigger a vision and away I went.
Trees are perfect for the ADAMSKI EFFECT because they blur in one direction. Vitas was perfect because he looks like he belongs in a forest setting (as opposed to a space ship or a futuristic planet.)
Once I had the vision in my mind, the rest was just adding some fake grass and some simple, soft light to complete my final image. (You can see the BTS shot of everything raw before I took it to Photoshop and BorisFX below.)
I used my Fuji X100V mounted on a Platypod Platyball and got eye level with the character. Then I used a large Genaray LED bounced at the ceiling of my camera room for an ambient light. Then I used a ProFoto C1Plus and a Lume Cube 2.0 LED aimed almost at each other but passing in front of the figure to just give a kiss of light to his face without it being noticeable. (When you pass a light in front of your subject but not on your subject — this is called feathering and I use this technique often.)
Remember, my metric for success is not how many likes I get, but rather — did the image come out the way I wanted it to. In this case it is a yes.
CONCLUSION
I’ll close with an Ansel Adams quote — and maybe not the one you’re expecting.
Mr. Adams was not the inventor of the pre-visualization technique but he was a great proponent of it. He said, “the term [pre]visualization refers to the entire emotional-mental process of creating a photograph, and as such, is one of the most important concepts in photography”.
I know this is a very difficult concept to grasp for beginners. Heck — it’s hard for some intermediate to professional photographers. But if you have that gift — the gift of sight — the gift of being able to see the final product in your mind’s eye — however you get to that point — if you can do that, your photography will become very next level. Work backwards from that vision and see what you can create.
I’m rooting for you.
And remember, toys are joy.
For a list of my toy photo gear and props go to:
bit.ly/toyphotogear
