…or The KISS Approach …
As we are about to start our 2015 workshop season, I am reminded of how Arnie and I continually encourage and admonish our participants to keep it simple, to only keep in the image what is essential to that image. Everyone will translate this differently, and that is fine, but less is often more.
It has been a few years since we were last in Savannah, and we look forward to heading back there in March with another group. Savannah can be a challenging place to Keep It Simple (Stupid, as the old saying goes), otherwise known as KISS. There are so many wonderful buildings, stately trees often festooned with Spanish Moss, busy fishing communities, and statues in the parks that it can be overwhelming.
Photographing on a tripod is critical to doing your border patrol and making sure that you only have what you want in an image. In our upcoming workshops in New Orleans, Venice, and Cuba, there is a lot more hand-holding of cameras, and it is not as easy to be precise.
Savannah & Her Lowcountry, however, is a place for tripods.
In this image, Arnie captured the essence of Savannah in a deceptively simple shot of a bench against a building. This is Savannah, not Charleston or any of those other, wonderful, old cities of the South.
For me, the intricacies and detail in the statuary are astounding. The love and care that went into the crafting of the memorials in the cemeteries is compelling. I was struck by this particular statue and found a section that to me captured the essence of the flow and elegance of the dress.
The Lowcountry and its fishing communities are very much a part of the Savannah area. The boats may be old and rusty, but there is an enduring quality about them. Here, Arnie made a still life of a lone, latex glove against part of a hull.
In this last one, I wanted to do a panorama of the Lowcountry, using the omnipresent shrimp boats to set it off. The composition is deceptively simple … shrimp boats on one side, the vastness of the marsh on the other, and the river meandering through to who knows where.
So, the next time you head out, work on simplifying your photographs to capture the essentials and leave out the extraneous.
Next: Perhaps something from New Orleans …
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