Leisure Time Photography (1980)

Um the one with the uh camera around his neck is world-class photographer Freeman Patterson. It's his contention that as photographers, most of us don't reach our potential. We're bound by rules and a reluctance to risk creatively that limits our ability to see. By altering his perspective to that of a dog's, Freeman is picturing the world in a way few of us take the trouble to see. I'm doing two things here. Um I'm overexposing the picture because the of the lightness and delicacy of the light, and also because of the subject matter. I want to keep this feeling of lightness and airiness in this photograph. The sun's just coming up this very moment. Especially at sunrise and and at sunset, it it sometimes sounds really it looks really easy to get a photograph, but I think those are sometimes the most difficult of all situations because you've got to be very very thoughtful about exposure. You've got to not simply rely on the color and try and get everything into a really fine composition and and sometimes it just isn't possible and you have to give up and go away and live with the fact that you're not going to be successful. But just getting out and trying is great. There are there are lots of times when I come down here in the morning and that I make maybe two rolls of pictures and then another morning I'll come and it's just as good, but nothing seems to work. I can't sing, you know. I'm a lousy dancer. I really can't paint and yet when I was given one of these little machines about 20 years ago, I realized that right away I had a tool that I could work with to express myself. Now, I'm not saying that all of the people who who start to make pictures are people who are not gifted in music and painting and this kind of thing, but the what happens is that for a lot of people the camera offers a creative outlet more than a hobby. A place for them to not just get away from work and and from bills and all of that kind of thing, but a chance to to express themselves and the people who who learn the skills, which are very easy really to learn and to who practice find that it is a medium that just offers them unlimited opportunities for self-expression. Yeah, but you see in a different way. I mean, the pictures you take are a lot different from what my eyes see. How have you learned to do that? Um well, I think it's it's something that that some people are born with that they perhaps have a greater natural talent. But, I think that perhaps too much is made of that. Certainly since I started photography about 20 years ago my ability to see things has improved dramatically, and it began very quickly. Um when you look through that little viewfinder, uh you have a space, a rectangle, and you you're responsible for organizing where everything goes in that. And you begin to realize quite quickly that there are good ways and not so good ways to organize things. Uh my point is that you don't have to go to exotic places in order to take pictures that anybody can take them right around home. My kitchen is not really any different from anyone else's, and and there are all kinds of picture possibilities here. The trim on this refrigerator, for example, picks up the colors of all of the things in the room, and I could make it the center of interest. Um This is a just a red tea box that's sitting on some black and white inside black and white marble. As I stand over it, all kinds of things uh come up in the way of designs. Teapots, the spice racks, the the potholders, the knives, there's just all kinds of things here. This is Freeman's kitchen through the handle of an ordinary beer mug. Okay, can come right in close. Come right in close to the daisy, and and get down just as if a butterfly were landing. Pretend you're a butterfly. You know, one of the really nice things about working with with children and giving them a camera is they have such a a completely fresh point of view. Uh in fact, the people that I enjoy working most with are are children or people who have never had a camera in their hands before because they're they have no bad habits. They have no preconceptions. They'll they'll try absolutely anything. It This is a place where uh we quite often practice because it's uh it's a very lovely woods. But you'll notice that that all of the trees there's just um there's so many uh trees and black trunks that there it could be a very confusing situation if you just sort of set up and and and try to photograph it without really analyzing it. So I'd like to uh have us go down here and pick out some of the uh the trunks and and select those and try and make them represent the whole thing. This right down in here is a place that I think is quite good. Okay, two things. First, the whole point of this is to not hold your camera steady, okay? Okay. So the first thing to do is literally jump up and down, bounce up and down, and click the shutter as you go. Okay? Okay, now try that and try it again because the second picture won't be a bit like You've all heard the rule, hold the camera steady. But by breaking this rule, you free yourself. You're open to results that you can't predict. You're experimenting creatively. Okay, now now that's the second thing. This time stand still, but do this with your camera. Make go up and down the tree trunks with your camera like that. And it's actually a little That's the spirit. Okay? I got my head going, too. Right. Well, you have to, okay? Like that. It doesn't always work, but like this lead to a greater understanding of your camera as a tool of self-expression. Yeah, and then the the the wood of the tree above it is sort of a difference. Yeah. Can I see what you fellows are talking about? Come on in. Oh boy, you've got more imagination than I have, I guess. That's nice. Well, let's take a look at yours. Well, that's a little conventional. Well, it's just very, very different. Take a look at this, Alan. See how completely differently he's approached this. Very uh sort of very vertical compared to mine that's all fuzzy and different. of how two people see completely differently in the same situation. It's just an example of how two people see I I think I'll take I think I'll take this shot, eh. Yeah. Yeah, but do something about this one, too. Before it goes away. Now, the best light in this kind of circumstance is always when the sun is not shining. Um and this is kind of what we have here today. Good night. You got a red watch on. I think red wings. Do you see it? I think I guess it's a little bit behind me. I think I see it. Oh. No, I don't see it. Red wings. Ooh. Hmm. Look at this thing. Isn't it nice? There's so much purple Yeah. that the yellow becomes a distinctive accent point. And establishes itself by the very fact there isn't very much of it. Oh, right. See? So, it's it's kind of this yellow flower is kind of like um a piece of silver jewelry on a blue dress. Okay. It's that kind of thing. All right. All right. Come right to here. I think you haven't done a nice job. Take good pictures. it's it's It's all in the point of view. Um we had uh a friend here last year who took on us and an assignment her tent she was tending in the backyard. And she did two things with it. First of all, like the outside part was blue Mhm. that's sort of the upper roof and then the inner roof was red and she shot between them and the blues and the reds mixed and they were rippling and it just looked like the sun a sunset streaming across water. And it was all it was was red and blue can plastic. Another good example is the gravel pit right behind our house which I consider to be an abomination because it's a an ugly uh thing that breeds noise and dust and all that sort of business. Right. But the class goes down there from time to time and they take pictures that look like the Sahara desert or Grand Canyon. Grand Canyon and and and make great things out of it and it's just really amazing. Hi. What do you think? Well, Have you made any pictures here yet? Well, I looked through the camera bit. Doesn't look very promising, eh? Because people are not really careful, they they they're very sloppy. They have no pleasure in taking the real pleasure in taking the picture in the first place. They get their negatives back. They're they're unhappy again and it turns them off photography. You know, like to really get want to go out too fast and immediate results. Well, this is true, but I think that no matter what you do, if you're if you're a dancer, if you're a boating or you know, canoeing or taking pictures, if you you have to be careful and disciplined. And that's where the pleasure comes in, you know, you really see yourself improving. But if you just sort of go out and say, "Oh well, I don't care, you know." And "Oh, that looks nice, you know." It's you know, then then it's uh there's no discipline, there's no pleasure because you can't you can't see yourself growing and improving. egg And it's up to you to do absolutely anything that you want with it. And you know what I don't want is an egg put on a a piece of paper and just simply photographed. In other words, take that egg and take the label off it. Stop thinking of it as an egg because as long as you think of it as an egg, all you'll ever photograph or see is an egg. I used to just take pictures of my kids with my camera. I had a simple little camera and I took pictures, but I always wanted to be able to do something more. So, Freeman had this photography course up here and I thought, "My goodness, here you live right handy. Why don't you take the course?" So, my husband encouraged me and finally I put my name in and I can't believe the things I learned in in just a few very few days. I couldn't believe what I was seeing and I couldn't believe the films that I got. It was just fantastic that I had taken them myself. I've lived here and I didn't seen any of these things. Well, photography to me is an outlet for my creative energies. Uh not only from the standpoint of the the photography itself, but I can use my photographs as as design elements in in other work that I do in in fabrics and and crafts of other kinds. Right. You see all of those repeated circles? You saw nine Mhm. The perfect example of how two people standing side by side can have a totally different thing. Nima, with how what depth of field would you give this? I don't know. I haven't thought about it. Probably I'd be tempted to give it very little. Yeah, like it is. Absolutely. Here's another one for you, James. This girl. Oh my god. they're everywhere. You can just work on that, you know. They're just all over the place. Oh, I can't wait to get a zoom lens. Learning photography and being sure that you're going to get successful pictures is like anything else. It's a matter of first of learning the basic craft and then of of practice. And as soon as you achieve a little bit of facility, you start to get excited. And that is the biggest guarantee of success of anything at of anything because you develop the motivation. Are you doing the just working in the uh In the reflection. In the reflection of the car window. Yeah. Say, gee, I want to know how to be able to get a fantastic sunrise or I really want to be able to to photograph wildflowers well. And as soon as you're motivated, you'll learn. You don't have to be born with, you know, buckets of talent. You get out there and and do it. Photography for me has been a medium of discovering the world around me and it's also been a very real means of self-discovery. I have to put this in my New Brunswick book when I get around to doing one. This is fantastic. Oh my. I just can't get over it. at the colors, people. Wow, look I'm shooting right through all these yellows at the rainbow. Just in terms of cost, there are so many things like skiing. You can't ski in your backyard. You can't do all kinds of things in your backyard and just the cost of going and staying somewhere are tremendous. These costs you don't have to involve yourself in when you're doing photography. You can if you want to, if you really want to go to Grand Canyon and photograph it. You can pay the money and and so on, but it's not necessary for the pleasure and the pictures you get of Grand Canyon probably won't make you as happy as the ones you took in your own flower garden or or you took in uh off your apartment balcony of say the city at night. I think that photography is the most accessible of all of the hobbies and leisure time activities. It's something that literally everybody uh can try and can become involved into some extent or the other. Uh it's something you can do at home. Uh no matter if you live in a high-rise apartment or if you live in a a little house on the edge of the city or if you live in the country. You don't have to go to Australia. You don't have to go anywhere. The opportunities for pictures are not increased by the the distance you put between yourself and your home. See how the light the highlights pick up on the back of each pew? And that's that's just as much a part of this church too as the hymn books or the or the beautiful arches. Or come up to this arch and and put the camera very straight right about there and see what kind of composition you get. Oh, yeah. Does that have a nice symmetry to it? Yes. Yeah, that's nice. Like five or six archers behind on the other side, plus these archers here framing it. And I think it would still be very much like your eye sees it. Let's try that. Oh. Isn't that nice? Oh, I like that. Oh, that's just that helps a lot. Well, I think that that people get both a mental challenge. They get a physical challenge out of photography, and they're involved in in a creative artistic outlet. Call it a hobby, if you will. I think it's more than that, if you get serious. That that is very very stimulating. You you literally start to see and appreciate the world around you in ways that you never suspected. Your time is now. You are learning how. You can try. Come on, spread your wings and fly. Why don't you live? Oh, live it all. You can give. And you can get it all. Where are the people who want to be free? Let them show their faces to me. Oh, and I know you'll hear the call. You can all your dreams. See what I mean. See what I mean.