Earlier today I posted a photograph of an icon, Yosemite’s Half Dome. The idea of photographing such a thing evokes a variety of thoughts and concerns that I suspect many photographers understand: Is it too easy? Has it already been done? How will the shot stand in comparison to those that have already been done by greater and more famous photographers? Why bother?
It is interesting to see the variety of ways in which photographers respond to this issue. At one extreme are those who perhaps chase the icons, realizing that they are beautiful and compelling and that there sure as heck is a market for them. (Experiment: Take two of your best photographs from a famous location, one showing an icon and one showing something less familiar, and post them at Flickr… and see what happens. :-) At the other extreme are those who fall into the camp represented by a photographer who, when asked how to photograph icons more or less replied, “Don’t.”
I suppose I’m somewhere in the middle. Let’s use Yosemite Valley as an example since it is so familiar and since I frequently have the opportunity to travel there to do photography. I most certainly do not head straight for icons when I shoot there. In fact, when I photograph in the neighborhood of most of the icons you will frequently find my camera pointing the other direction. After visiting the Valley for decades, I think I’ve come to understand there is much more to this place than the post card shots.
However, icons are icons for a reason. Every so often I’m in the company of someone who is seeing the Valley for the first time, and through their reaction I am again reminded of the visual power of some of the icon scenes. (I wish I could experience what it must be like to emerge from Wawona Tunnel for the first time having never seen that stupendous view of the Valley before!) So I will shoot icons, but I suppose I at least think I’m more selective about how and when I’ll shoot them. I look for a different angle, a way to position the icon as a background element in a photograph of something less iconic, or perhaps unusual conditions.
It isn’t for me to say how successful I might be at this, but it seems that it is perhaps more of a challenge to find a way to shoot an icon in an interesting way than it is to shoot something that is less familiar.
So the photograph I posted earlier today fits into this category – you can’t get much more iconic than Half Dome! I’ve been trying to learn to understand this particular location – the variables of season and time of day and weather and technical issues about capturing the scene – and I now have a couple images in mind that I’d like to shoot here eventually when the time is right. This one gets close to one such shot I have in mind… but I’ll be back at this overlook many more times.
Well said, Gary: “Just because many hear the siren-song doesn’t make one better because they purposefully choose to turn a deaf ear” – and the counter-message that follows. :-)
Dan
Great post. I have no problem taking pics of icons. But for me, I won’t get caught-up in the idea of forsaking a better opportunity just to get an Icon shot. On the other hand, I love getting a really spectacular or personalized vision of an icon bathed in some unique lighting conditions. They’re an Icon because they strike a chord deep inside the hearts of many. Just because many hear the siren-song doesn’t make one better because they purposefully choose to turn a deaf ear. On the other hand, if you miss a great shot behind you because your mind is so focused on the icon, then your at fault for being too-lulled in by that same song.
Thom, I recall a time when I virtually stopped making photographs for reasons that included those you mention – a feeling that there wasn’t anything new for me to shoot. For me, part of the problem was that I was trying to, more or less, make other people’s photographs. There is so much great photography out there to see that it is sometimes hard not to try to “be those photographers.”
Another thing I had to get over was the block that comes from fearing that every photograph must be brilliant to else it shouldn’t be made. This notions comes, I think, from several sources. One is that when we see the work of great photographers we generally only see their very best work – perhaps far less than 1% of the images they captured – but when we look at our own work we see everything! Even if you were as good as Ansel you’d seem deficient if you compared your worst work to his best! A second problem is the unfortunate repetition of simple-minded misinterpretations of ideas like “pre-visualization.” Sometimes this is presented as something quite different from what it actually is and instead becomes the belief that great photographers always see astonishing finished photographs before they click the shutter in all cases… and if you can’t do the same you should just not bother.
Put these two ideas together and it is astonishing that anyone can face the prospect of trying to make a photograph at all!
Several things help me avoid these traps.
Dan
Yep, good post. Coincidentally, it was a trip to Yosemite a few years ago when I went searching for icons that did me in and made me stop shooting. It was my first trip back in ten years, and ten years ago I had a Pentax K1000 strapped around my shoulder so I was excited to shoot the icons with a 6×7 Mamiya. Got back home and was disgusted with all the shots for one of the reasons you pointed out – they have all been shot before. I’ve never gotten back the excitement for photography sense basically because of this very reason – anything and everything, not just the icons, have been shot to death. Or done before. For whatever reason, that’s been tough for me to get over. Oh well. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
cheers,
thom
Well, I just returned from Yosemite a week ago and I went there for the fall foliage mainly. Now, the icons just seem to keep appearing in my shots, even when my focus is not on them. :-) I think the icons can be in the shot, and yet, not be the subject. I think having icons somewhere in some of the shots, gives you a much needed reference as to where the photos were taken. I always like the challenge of shooting an icon in a different way. Maybe at a different time of day, in a different brand of light, or from a different point of view. That’s the key.
Thanks for the post, Robin. What you write both makes sense and resonates with my experience. Every time I’m in Yosemite I at least stop at Tunnel View and take a look. Sometimes I may drive into the parking lot, take a quick look from the car, and drive on. Other times I get out (virtually always without the camera) and spend some minutes looking at the view and the people there. (Sometimes I photograph the people instead of the view!) Every so often I do find a reason to shoot even here. (I did on my last trip, primarily shooting some images of El Capitan with a very long lens – not your typical Tunnel View shot at all!)
Every so often something special happens there. During the last few years by favorite “shoot” was on a rainy early spring evening when I was virtually alone there – believe it or not! I set up my tripod in the light rain and stood around for about an hour waiting for something that I thought might happen and eventually ended up with some rather subtle images that I like, but perhaps as much because they evoke the memory of the time alone in the light rain as the Valley went (barely) in and out of view through the mist.
Dan
Interesting post–I think it may be an unresolvable conundrum (but in a good way). As you said, icons are icons for a reason, but I’m finding myself as my own skills develop just being kind of bored with them from a photographic perspective; they’ve just been done to death. My heart pitter-patters every time I come through the Wawona tunnel, but I’m finding almost no desire to set up the tripod and take pictures. I’m content to just take in the magnificent view, and then point my camera at something more interesting. When I was there last month, I ended up with a pretty good picture of Yosemite Falls, with a nice reflection in the Merced. Just like thousands of other photographers have. And I shrugged it off, much more pleased instead with some of my long-exposure shots of dogwood branches overhanging the Merced.
On the other hand, I never get tired of taking pics from Valley View, even though that’s also been done to death. In part that’s because I have an unshakeable fixation with El Cap, but it’s also because the conditions can vary so much there with the light and the weather and the way the river’s running. But I also feel a little guilty every time I set up there, because I feel like a cliche (oh, look, another photographer at Valley View!). But who knows–maybe someday I’ll capture something beautiful and different, and then I’ll be glad for having taken the time. Since I’m still something of a neophyte at both photography and the region, it’s fascinating to me to watch what seasoned guys like you are shooting (and having to say about it), and then gauging my own reaction to icons vs. other subjects as I go back to the same places over and over. If you’d even suggested to me six months ago that I might shrug off the opportunity to photograph Yosemite Falls, I’d have looked at you in abject, idealistic horror. But last time I was there, I took a lot more pics of the big elm tree in the meadow below the falls than I did of the falls themselves.
I’ve rambled much longer than I intended, and mostly to say I agree with just about everything you wrote. I’m reminded of the Wallace Stevens poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird;” while I think I grow more as a photographer when I look for non-iconic subjects, I also need to be aware when conditions might present themselves for a compelling shot of the old favorites.
Thanks for the comment, Greg – sounds like we think of some of the same issues! I just saw an interesting example of a non-iconic view of an icon over at Jim Goldstein’s blog today – a photo of Mobius Arch that does not frame Mt. Whitney but which instead looks in a different direction entirely.
Dan
This is a very thoughtful post, Dan. While I am always happy when I can make a unique composition in an iconic landscape, and I often strive to do that (for instance, in Joshua Tree yesterday, I refused to take a photo of a joshua tree!). That said, you’re correct in saying that icons are just that for a reason. Some of my favorite shots are ones from the icons–Mesa Arch, Zabriskie Point, etc. I think we have to shoot them once in a while.
Cheers,
Greg