Photography Tips: Look for New Vantage Points

So much of what we know as photographers is learned behavior. Shoot with the light over our shoulders. Make sure you can see the subjects face, etc. Well, I say it’s time to forget all that and go make pictures. At 47-years-old I’m beginning to realize that I need to UNLEARN many of the things I learned in school. It’s not that these things are evil but they might not fit how I see the world. And how I see the world is different from how you see it. That’s the great part of all this, THERE IS NO RIGHT AND WRONG. There is only how we see. I walked across this bridge each and everyday we spent in Cusco. I’d made several pictures on this bridge, including a few made during an Easter celebration. And then one day I looked over the edge of the bridge and there was the picture I’d been waiting for.

When I look at this photograph now it reminds me of all the other images I’ve made from strange vantage points.

Here is the shot made straight down of thousands of spilled paintball pellets made while I was covering that sport.

Here is the farmer in Sicily carrying a dead sheep up a greased pole. I was inches away shooting straight up into the sky.

My advice here is to simply move yourself. Bend down, climb up, crouch, spin, twirl, peer, duck, dive, jump and try any other method you can think of to look at the world from an entirely new vantage point. And while you are at it, try to think about all the things you learned that you might want to consider forgetting.