A few weeks ago, the word for our Word a Week photography challenge was orange. I had the idea of taking a photo of half an orange being squeezed to make orange juice.
We tried out a few shots, then Tim (who was doing the squeezing) asked: ‘how about I wear a black glove?’ and so the Black Glove series was born.
This morning was very wet and very windy, thus the perfect time to squeeze some more fruit. It’s a messy business, so we turned the garage into a makeshift studio.
I don’t know what I’m going to do with these images, apart from share them here, but that’s not really the point.
The point is, I really enjoy the process. There were aesthetic decisions to make: how to hold the fruit, where to put it in relation to the light, how much to squeeze, when not to, where to put the fruit in the frame; and then there were technical decisions: do I need the reflector? One light or two? Do I need to feather the light? Side lighting or front?
And that’s mostly what I enjoy about the process: being intentional.
Intentionality
When I did part of a photography course a number of years ago, one thing was emphasised over just about anything else: ‘intentionality’. Being intentional in photography is being deliberate about the decisions you make in relation to things like choice of subject, composition, lighting, equipment, post-processing.Now, I love wandering around, seeing something of interest, whipping my phone out and taking a photo of whatever’s captured my attention as much as the next person. But I really love being intentional.
I can remember when Tim first gave me a camera – I’d make all kinds of decisions I really didn’t know how to make – about lighting, composition, and what I wanted the image to look like – and over the years I think I became less intentional. It’s so easy, with the camera in your phone now (I first started taking photos with a camera before mobile phones had decent ones), to point it at something and click the shutter button.
But everytime I get into the studio (whether that’s a proper studio or the garage), I get to be intentional. I’m not just seeing something of interest – I’m creating something. For me, it’s the difference between taking the shot and making the shot. When I’m being intentional, I get to make something, and that brings enormous satisfaction.
A blog post on the fstoppers website, outlines the difference: “One is a passive approach meant to capture what occurs in front of the camera should something interesting cross its view, while the other is an active engagement in the creative process that draws on the technique, imagination, and foresight of the photographer“.
So, after a quick burst of intentional decisions – from choosing the fruit to squeezing it just right, adjusting the lighting, and framing each shot – here are the results.
All image ©Sharon Pittaway
Photography for me, especially when I’m intentional about it, gives me a great deal of satisfaction. These images aren’t only about fruit being squeezed; they’re about creativity and play.
I can be creative through playing: playing with the lights, playing with angles, framing the subject in different ways (low in the frame, or high) and playing through the post-production process. It’s no coincidence that the tagline of this blog is playing with ideas and images.
But of course, there’s more to images than taking them. There’s the viewer. How is a viewer going to respond? They don’t see the decisions, only the outcomes; they don’t know why I asked Tim to squeeze an orange in the first place, that he came up with the idea of putting on a glove (partly because he wasn’t enjoying the juice on his hands) and why I chose to shoot more fruit in the way I did today.
I won’t know your response, unless you tell me in the comments, but one person who saw the orange juice image recoiled at the “violence” in the shot. Another person who saw it said, “that’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen!”
Neither of those responses were anywhere near my thinking when I took the shots. As the photographer, I can make deliberate decisions about how to make the shot, but I’m not in any kind of control over how a viewer responds. And most of the time I never get to find out because people don’t generally comment or give any feedback.
What do you think? Leave a comment and let me know your response to these images. And/or tell me about your intentionality. What kinds of decisions do you make in your photography?
Thanks, as always, to Tim for being my willing accomplice.
Musings from the cold 