 Knowing how the great photographers see, think and shoot is so helpful in your own journey with the camera. How's it? How's it? This is what critics have had to say about Joel Mayovitz, that his brilliantly observed street images have changed photography. Today we are going to take six tips from his fantastic book How I Make Photographs and talk about how you can employ them within your own images. Photography is about ideas. What do you want to say? Find your subject. In this book Joel says that it took him a long time to evolve as a photographer, to get to a place where his appetite was bigger, where his ideas about photography had become more developed. This is such an important thing right at the beginning to understand, which is why I kind of included this first, is that so many photographers, especially beginning photographers, think that your voice, the ideas, what you want to photograph just springs fully formed the moment that you pick up a camera, but it doesn't. It takes time to get going and in the beginning, like everybody else, like Joel says in his book, we all photograph just general things and often what is really our style, what we are actually drawn towards is staring us in the face, even though we're not aware of it. Joel's advice about how to find what is it you want to photograph, what you're inherently drawn towards is a wonderful story. He recounts that he was working on a commercial shoot, he was looking at the slides on the light table and he realized that he was photographing a lot of flowers and then he went back and he noticed that there were some more flowers and he went through his archive and he went, ah, there are flowers a lot. I'm not aware that I was photographing flowers, but flowers seem to crop up a lot in my images. So he went out with an idea of looking for flowers and you may find this within your own photographs, that you look through your archives, you look at all your images and the same subjects might pop up repeatedly, the same ideas, the same shapes, the same forms. Then once you realize these things that you are subconsciously photographing without an express desire to, then you can actually go out and start looking for them. The middle isn't always best, shift the focus of your picture away from the center. When you first pick up a camera it is natural to put the subject, the thing that you're photographing, front and center and Joel Milvitz is also, you know, he touches on this point. He says that at the beginning he wanted the thing to be in the middle, to draw the eye straight towards it and then he kind of realizes, you know, there's a lot of sameness in his photographs and that he was missing things that were hanging around happening on the edges. When you read about a famous photographer and their growth and their development, much like you do with Joel Milvitz here, it's interesting to see that they struggle with similar problems, that we are not, you know, all very different people. At the core we're all people with a camera who are learning to use it as a tool and, you know, Joel, he says here that, you know, to learn to put things off to one side, to draw things away from the center is a skill that you have to work on, that you have to practice. He uses a phrase here of becoming more sensitive to the way that photography works and to your own instincts. And I love that idea because, you know, it's, we so often, I think as photographers, you know, beginning photographers, especially are working against their instincts because we are kind of hamstrung with these rules that we get told when we pick up the camera, like putting the subject in the center of the frame. The idea that Joel's driving here is that if you make the photograph interesting enough, and again, what a wonderful term of phrase he uses here is that they will follow the tune that you're playing inside the photograph, that you show people how to see by the images that you're presenting to them. So how do you employ this within your own photography? Well, in Joel's case, you know, he is talking about trying to get across the idea of the craziness of living in Manhattan, of the busy city center. So his frames and, you know, the compositions are all very dynamic. There's a lot going on. And if you want to convey a certain specific mood, then think about how you can use composition to do that. Embrace the everyday uncover beauty and significance in the ordinary. Joel suggests that the street photographer immerse themselves in that busy environment. And this can be true for any photographer, really, who's looking for something to photograph, is to immerse yourself in the situation. And sooner or later, something is going to jump out of you. Some event is going to occur right in front of your eyes. It's too easy to dismiss the everyday. We talked about this at length on this channel that, you know, that so often photographers want to go somewhere visually exciting, where it's almost impossible to take a bad photograph. But being in an environment where initially you get bored, you get weighed down by the almost seeming blankness, as Joel puts it in his book, that all of a sudden, once you get past that, events start to happen in front of you. Things that once you push through that, that psychological barrier of nothingness start to have a richness that you have been ignoring this whole time. Joel Maivitz talks about starting his photographic process with a sense of all, of connecting with something and then going with the flow from that. And this is something that you can employ within your own images. It's quite easily is if something interests you, something catches you, the corner of your eye, chase it down, explore it, see what it's worth to you as a photograph. Think the lesson from this is don't dismiss things because they don't fit neatly into the box of what you are supposed to photograph. Throughout the history of photography, you can see that people have made whole careers about photographing the most seemingly random things in the history of the world. Have the courage just to photograph whatever it is that you want. It's so wonderful to get an insight into the mind and the process of a photographer like Joel Maivitz. I really, I wish that more of this kind of insight had been available when I was, you know, I was learning photography. And, and the reason that I am sharing with you this, you know, from the book is because you may not be aware that these, these places exist or these, these resources exist. This is a 14 pounds book, 15 pounds. You could probably get it for cheaper. But how much more valuable is it to invest in your photography by buying a book like this, to reading, to taking the courses that, you know, that Joel Maivitz and others have put together. And if you're interested in finding out more about those, I will link to them in the description box below. They really are wonderful to get you inspired, to get you in the mood for taking photographs, to see how you can overcome some of the hurdles that other people are facing. Great photographers have faced and are willing to help you get to grips with your own journey as a photographer. Be at one with your camera. Gear isn't everything, but use a camera and a lens that feel right. Now, if you have photographed with a prime lens for any length of time, you will no doubt recognize this feeling that once you have become in symbiosis, in symbiosis, it becomes sympathetic with the lens and the way that it sees the world. You start to see the things around you natively, naturally the way that the lens sees it. It's almost like you've got grid lines, you know, emblazoned on your vision. And what a wonderful way to think about the question of gear. Joel talks about personality, that you choose a lens that suits your personality. If you see the world compressed and as one sort of plane, then use a longer lens. If you want to see the world as like a fish, then go for something a bit wider. Joel recounts a story where he was given a camera with a 50 millimeter lens when he was younger and for a week he felt so frustrated. He was like, ah, this doesn't work because he was photographing with a lens that wasn't connected to the way that he saw the world. And then when switching to a 35 millimeter lens, he saw the world or saw the results on his print in the same way that he saw the world. It felt natural, it suited his personality. And in addition to finding that one lens that suits your personality, it is going to give you discipline. It is going to make you seek out photographs because you physically have to move. To get the image closer, get closer, to get it further away, you need to move further away. We don't often talk about gear on the channel, but if you don't have a prime lens, rent one. See how it feels for you. See how it forces you to confront the world differently with your vision. There is a very famous photograph of Joel Mayovitz's and he recounts the story. It was a photograph that he made in Paris and it was the only picture that he made in that moment, that there wasn't very obviously time for another shot, that he was walking along the street and saw a crowd, that he felt the energy of the crowd was drawn towards it and there in front of him was a man who had fallen on the pavement who seemed to be unconscious. And then at the same moment, he noticed a man with a hammer who was stepping over the gentleman. And it looked as though this man had just bludgeoned the other man with a hammer and knocked him to the ground, but of course it hadn't happened like that. Story in photographs. You don't have to have story all the time, but if you do, it makes your image so much richer. And this isn't just restricted to street photography. It can be any genre of photography. If you can inject story into your images, you give a reason for the person looking at your photograph to linger, to spend time with it. The way that you interpret that photograph by Joel, of the man collapsing, will be very different to the way that I do. But there is something there for us all to sink our teeth into, to spend that moment considering the photograph. And the longer that somebody spends considering a photograph, the more that they are going to have that image, stay with them afterwards. There's a lovely quote here in the book that part of the reality of making images is that they are flexible, that they can be read in singular ways as individuals, or they can be read in what he calls global ways, with universal meanings about culture, society, and the time in which the image was made. When you are connected to the everyday, when you are pushing through that barrier of, you know, of actually seeing the events that unfold before you, when you are, you know, at peace with your camera, that it becomes almost natural, then it becomes so much easier to find the stories, to find these things that are happening, and to respond to them naturally. And I think that is the key here. If you go seeking out these things too hard, if you are trying to grab onto them, if you're trying to walk around the streets going, I must find the next great photograph, then you are closing your eyes to the possibilities, that something that might happen just off to your left, off to your, maybe behind you. You don't get charging through the bush, hunting for that wonderful butterfly, to seek and look at and admire. You have to go gently, so you don't scare off the events that are happening all around you. Now that you are feeling more confident and capable of creating these images, it's time to learn when to take the photo. And for that, click on the video on screen now to learn how to press the button like Henry Cartier-Bresson. Thank you ever so much for watching.