Photographic Subjects

Subjects

I wouldn't dream of telling you what kinds of pictures to take, but here's the kind of things that I go for.

Graveyards, urban decay and anything without people in the frame.

Or, more recently: People, and animals.

People.

  Its amazing. No matter how careful you are, when you take a picture of someone walking you always catch then looking stupid. I dunno, maybe walking is an intrinsically silly action, evolving as it does falling over every two seconds and then just catching yourself in time.
  It is for this reason that I usually wait for people to leave the shot if they are in the way, or if they're the subject, I go in much closer.

Snaps.

  As I have said elsewhere in this site, I try to divide my picture taking at the start. If I am going out to take pictures I take the SLR and lenses, but if I'm actually there for another reason, say on holiday etc. I remember this, and leave the SLR at home.

  In these situations, a simple compact camera, gives me all the functionality I need, without the weight and time of the SLR. You don't feel so bad taking a few quick record shots either, since the film will probably end up in the chemist rather than the darkroom.

Decline and decay.

  Decay has go to be my all time favourite B+W subject. I feel I need the stark contrasts, if I am not able to have colour tones. Saying that, "rust" has got to be one of my favourite colour picture tones as well, so its true, maybe I am a depressing character... (Quick get me the Prozac).

  And lets face it, one of my favourite colour subjects, forests, contain a vast proportion of decay... I dunno, I'd like to say that it was the balance between the rebirth and decay which I find interesting, but in reality it is the decay which I find to be the most artistic.

Animals.

  The most important thing I ever read about photographing animals, was that you must always get their eyes in focus. Whatever else you manage to do will be wasted if they are dim and lifeless. This rule is of course not set in stone, and indeed in one of the pictures in my own B+W gallery this rule is well and truely broken, however for the most part it remains true.

  They say that you should never photograph children and pets together, as the pets steal the show. This probably is the case, though my mother does have an example where the photographer has just about pulled it off.

  My dog, Zircon, features in a large number of the photographs I have taken. Maybe it is just me, but I think he's very photogenic!

A page from James David Chapman's website. Located at: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jchap/ Site mirrored here at: http://www.j.chap.btinternet.co.uk
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