I spent the weekend listening to an online workshop by David duChemin on Vision Driven Photography.  One word…AWESOME…INSPIRATIONAL…MOTIVATIONAL…WISE…INSTRUCTIONAL…Okay, more than one word, but one word at a time.  It was such a worthwhile experience that I bought the video downloads of all three days so I can watch and rewatch and absorb some more.  If you want a class on f/stops and shutter speeds and all of the technical stuff that goes into creating a photo, then this isn’t the workshop for you.  If you want a class on how to express your vision, this is the one.  Why am I saying “is” instead of “was”?  Because you can buy the videos – click on Vision Driven Photography - it’ll take you there.  I am an affiliate on his CraftAndVision.com site for the purchase of his ebooks – I am NOT an affiliate for creativeLIVE and the purchase of the videos, I just think it would be worth the investment.

I learned so much this weekend.  One thing I learned, and I already knew this so it really was just reinforced, is that we need to ask ourselves when we create a photograph, “what am I trying to say?”  So what am I trying to say with this photo?  How could I have said it better?  Is there something in the frame that should have been left out, that isn’t a part of the story?  Is there something I left out that would have made the story clearer had I included it?  How can I see this differently? 

One thing David talked about was “sketchbook photos” – the photos you take on the way to getting the shot you want.  This is probably a sketchbook photo for me.  There are some things in the background that are a little too distracting for me.  I needed to adjust my POV, my point of view, to get the whole bumper in the frame.  What I was trying to express was the face within this pickup, with the headlights as the eyes, the grill as the nose, and the bumper as a smiling mouth, but I kind of cut off the mouth a bit and that is just unacceptable.  Maybe shot from the other side so the license plate isn’t so prominent.  One of these days I’ll go out and try it again and see how I can see this differently.