Shooting from the hip

stuck behind the bus on a rainy day

Turns out I'm not very good at it. Figuratively and literally. For the most part, I'm a planner. I like to know what's going to happen, and when. Of course, compared to M I'm completely reckless and unpredictable, but primarily I like to plan the work and work the plan.

This translates literally into my photographic process. While I'm content to wander about and look for images wherever I find them, once I see something that strikes my fancy I'll work it a bit. I'm not all obsessed with breaking out the tripod and spending 30 minutes lining up one shot, but, you know, I'm conscious of lines and negative space and backgrounds and such.

I recently learned of a photographer who shoots a lot without even looking through the viewfinder of her DSLR. And she's pretty dang good. Her theory is that when she's making images of people she wants to be able to interact with her subjects instead of having a giant chunk of black metal in the way. I can see that. What I can't see, though, is how she manages to nail the framing and keep her horizons straight and all that other stuff.

So I thought I'd give it a whirl.

Yeah. Good thing I'm shooting digital or I'd be pissed about blowing a ton of money on a massive waste of film. I'm not sure how many frames I shot...too many to count (it'd be depressing), but suffice it to say that getting only two fairly decent images out of a ton of shutter actuations is not what I'd call success.

I think I'll stick with looking through the viewfinder and leave shooting from the hip to others.

sometime between mojitos number 3 and 4, I think