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I Blew It
How I learned to shoot as if there are no re-takes (because
there aren't)
By Matt Gholson
If life was like a video game and every time you messed up you could just go back and play it again, I would be a great photographer.
The image that brought this thought to mind still lingers. It was the shot I had been hoping for. It was the shot I blew.
Picture it: Shawneetown Illinois, less then a hundred yards from the banks of the Ohio river. One of the oldest towns in Illinois, Shawneetown is instilled in with history. In Huck Finn, it was mentioned as one of the regular ports for river traffic. Shawneetown was home of the first bank in Illinois, which is perhaps its greatest claim to fame. It's said that speculators came to the town in its early days to borrow money. They planed to start a city up north, closer to the rich farmland of Central Illinois, on the banks of Lake Michigan. The citizens of Shawneetown thought this to be quite hilarious; I'm really not sure if the money was loaned to Chicago or not-- I've heard it told both ways.What was once a great rivertown has now dwindled to a few hundred people, flooding forced the town to relocate further back, and today original Shawneetown is known as Old Shawneetown.
I went to Shawneetown to take some pictures of the fabled old bank building--perhaps one of the most magnificent buildings in Southern Illinois. Unfortunately, I discovered that its huge columns and giant pediment were obstructed by unsightly power lines and a big wooden telephone pole. I tried from every angle but the shot was blocked. I couldn't keep my eyes off that pole. While sitting on a curb, digging through my gadget bag looking for the cokin magic Powerline remover filter, I looked up and saw The Picture.
Further down the abandoned street was an old woman sitting on the steps of a decimated storefront. The store had once been a bank, and it was decorated with a cracked and broken neo-classical relief pattern that matched the woman's wrinkles perfectly. The scene spoke for Southern Illinois as a whole and would have been beautiful, if I hadn't have blown it.
How did I mess it up, you're asking your monitor. A variety of ways, it replies.
First, I deiced to play secret spy photographer. Instead of approaching the lady, who at the very least could have told me no while I shot the scene, I attached my 200mm lens and 3x conversion tube. I wasn't worried about any loss of resolution, but having ten and a half inches of lens sticking out from a 3 pound camera is usually a little inconvenient. My cheap tripod was bobbing up and down under the weight while I was trying to compose the picture.
Thinking back I'm sure the lady would have been obliged to let me shot her from up close, I could have made up some story or just told her I was messing around. Unfortunately the sight of my foot-long optics scared her back inside the decrepid structure.
I did snap four pictures before the subject ran away, but due to some inattention in the darkroom I ended up with a blank roll of film. This roll was cursed!
So the moral of the story? Slow down. Use your brain while you shoot, especially if you see in your viewfinder a picture that you think belongs in National Geographic.We may study this stuff but if anyone else is like me, and statistics show that some of you have to be, we have to be prepared for surprised and have the technical chops to make it work. That's what separates the pros from the wannabees...and it comes with practice.