They say that you should only know the rules in order to break them, well I did!

One of the  portraits rules states that you should 'Give room to the subject to look into',' this means that it should be looking inside the frame.  But of course, there are times when you can break this rule.

You can use the position of the subject and the direction of the eyes to indicate that there is something beyond the frame, this leads the viewer to imagine what is out there, creating a very powerful effect.

Dear

Hello World!!

This is my first post in this blog and hopefully one of many to come.

I will try to use this space not only to tell my story as a learning photographer, but also to provide tips of what I find useful in this journey in an attempt to help others in their own.

So, here is the first.

I recently read a post about how to keep your self motivated and also a way to document your life and the changes it brings, among many other benefits.

'One photo a day'

As the name states, the idea is to take at least one picture every day, not just any picture, it should be something that says something about that day, you can post it and add comments, or you can just let it tell the story on its own.

The idea is to carry your camera all the time, it can be your phone camera or your DSLR, anything works.

So, I will keep you posted about what I find and learn in this new venture, and I hope you all can too.

Regards,
Felipe

Photojournalists, I like to think, are the world’s only professional witnesses.

Our role requires us to be on the scene when the news breaks. I have written about this before, but there is one interesting dilemma on which I have not yet touched, namely how we interact with the world while photographing the developing stories.

Every witness of every event plays a small part in the event itself. Whether you are a football fan cheering on your team to victory, or an interested bystander peering into a car after a horrific accident, the mere fact that you are there has an influence on the events and how they unfold.

When I started my first job as a local newspaper photographer, my editor took me out to the scene of electricity substation explosion. “What would you have done,” he asked me, “if you were here when it happened and you saw an injured man lying nearby?”

“I would call an ambulance and then take pictures,” I said.

“Very good,” he replied, “but you have the order wrong.”

For many years I have thought about his words, and I agree with him even less today than the day he said it.

There is a school of thought that believes that we, as witnesses, have a very specific role to play when events unfold around us. The doctrine goes that we should have a responsibility to record what has happened, not to play a part in it. If we find a lost man in the desert, on the verge of dying of thirst, it says, we should stay there, take his picture, and watch him die.

If we saw a monk burning to death, our responsibility is to capture the moment. If we saw a father raping his daughter, our best course of action is to get the picture and expose him to the world.

We have no right to interfere, only to record and alert.

Over my dead body.

As witnesses, we are by default human beings, and as human beings, our first responsibility is towards our own humanity.

I contend that we not only attempt to change the world with our presence on the scene, but that we also have a responsibility to interact with the reality around us while we take the pictures.

Go on, be the difference you want to see in the world.

Being in the right place at the right time is what good photography is all about.

To get the picture, you have to be there when it happens, right there in the thick of it. Nobody knows this better than a photojournalist. Turn up late, and you’ve missed the shot. It’s simply impossible to replicate certain situations. For instance, say you get sent out to a burning building, if you arrive on time, you can get shots of brave firefighters rescuing terrified residents, arrive late, and all you have is smoldering ashes.

Often the phone will ring in the middle of the night, and off you go, pulling on your work pants over your pajamas, with your poor wife laying dazed and confused by the blur of movement rushing to the door, dashing down the stairs and into the car, skipping red lights as you go, with the camera on the seat next to you, to the latest Chernobyl-like disaster to hit your news-patch.

But being in the right place at the right time is often thought of as pure luck.

If it is, then it is the luck of the poker player and the fisherman, rather than the lottery gambler.

This type of luck is made, not found.

Being in the right place at the right time requires thought, planning and dedication.

All pictures, they say, are born out of ideas, so the first thing to do is to think of the shot you want to get. Plan it, think it through and visualize it. Then think of a place where you are likely to find it, because there’s no point looking for a blizzard in the Sahara.

And then, put yourself in position and wait, patiently with your camera ready, so that when opportunity comes knocking, you will be ready to open the door.