Learning that you just have to let go and FEEL the shot
I’m going to go ahead and admit it: I was very sad about Michael Jackson’s early departure from this realm. No, I didn’t own any of his albums nor did I go to any of his concerts. I lean more towards rock n’ roll, baby. But I grew up with Michael, in a sense. We are roughly the same age and I grew up listening to the Jackson 5. And I witnessed the Motown 25 year Anniversary special on TV the night Michael did his legendary moonwalk and the music industry changed, over night! I remember that night clearly, in 1983. Michael took the world by storm! He became a legend!
I have had friendships torn up over his death, literally. Some of my friends just couldn’t stand him and thus really weren’t too sympathetic about his early passing. They just couldn’t see past some of the things Michael was accused of doing. I, on the other hand, was moved by his music, his passion, his abilities and his contribution to the world. He was a master at his craft. I overlooked his personal life and tastes because I was only interested in his creative process.
This post isn’t going to be about Michael Jackson, per se. But a few nights after they announced his death, my husband downloaded an interview they did with Michael about 5 years ago. There was one part in it that really struck a nerve, and I thought: THIS is what I’m going to blog about next! It was one of those tacky documentaries where they are truly more exploitative than informative, and I knew eventually I was going to become outraged by the interviewer’s intrusive and disrespectful brow beating on Michael to get him to open up to some pretty heavy subjects.
In the beginning, though, when they first met at Michael’s infamous Neverland house, they were in his music studio and the interviewer was asking Michael just how he goes about writing a song. Michael answered, “Look, if I HAD to sit down at the piano and tell myself I HAVE to write the best song I’ve EVER written, nothing happens. Something from the heavens has to say, look, this is the time that we’re going to lay this song on you and this is when you can have it. I remember when I wrote Billie Jean, I was in my car driving down Ventura Blvd. All I had in my head was, I want to write a song with a great bass hook. And then I just let it go, really. Several days later the music came to me.” The interviewer stopped him and asked, “Yes, but WHERE did the music come from?” Michael pointed to the ceiling and said, “From above. The thing is, artists seem to get in the way of the music. You have to get OUT of the way. Don’t write the music, let the music write itself”.
“What’s going through your mind when you’re dancing?” the interviewer asked. Michael said, “I’m not thinking. Thinking is one of the biggest mistakes a dancer can make. You don’t think, you have to FEEL. You become the bass. You become the clarinet and the strings. You become the physical embodiment of music“. He went on to try to teach the interviewer how to moonwalk. Towards the end of the interview Michael became frustrated with the interviewer and at one point said, “You know, the process is really hard to explain“.
It IS hard to explain, I have to give him that. Look, photography is such a technical medium that sometimes we get too caught up in all the technical aspects of shooting. I agree that we have to have a good understanding of how to use the equipment we need, in order to create the images we want. But I think a lot of the time, photographers get too caught up in the gear and they don’t realize that, honestly, it’s not the gear you’re using, it’s the photographer behind all that gear. Too many times, I think, photographers HIDE behind their cameras, behind their gear because they are afraid to let go and become one with the camera. Look, NO camera in the world is going to get that shot for you or tell you when that moment is, YOU’VE got to find the shot and the moment and get it. You can go out and buy all the equipment you can afford and try to copy a photographer’s work that you admire but that doesn’t guarantee that you can create the same photographs. After all, a camera is just a housing unit. You need an eye with that thing in order to take phenomenal pictures. It’s hard to articulate how to get the creative impulse to create something that makes a statement or create phenomenal art. You DO have to learn the discipline and the craft, but ultimately you have to let it go, and let the impulse to capture the moment come and not have a barrier. If you’re too wrapped up in the technicality of photography, you won’t be able to feel the moment and get the shot.
There’s an old saying. There are two different types of photographers: Image Takers and Image Makers. Image Takers have a lot of technical know-how, and that’s about it. Image Makers create memorable art and photographs, they leave behind a legacy. Personally, I’d rather be an image maker but I guess to each their own.
I’ll end with this, you can say what you want about Michael Jackson, and I’m not going to get into an argument about him however you cannot dispute the fact that he was a legendary artist and has left behind a legacy and that’s because he knew that he had to let it all go and let the music write itself. Oh and this kid could fuckin’ dance!
So true words…!
well said- totally agree about MJ- whatever has been said about him he still was an amazing talent. Most forms of artistry require learning the basics but well enough that you don’t have to think about it anymore, let the magic flow
. Have a great day!
Wow….this was such an unexpected yet inspiring post. First of all, I was deeply saddened by Michael’s death for about 3 days. It was pitiful. He is one of the greatest talents to be able to inspire that many people. His music was beyong moving.
Now…thinking about that you said about “feeling” the shot. Goodness this is right on time. I just had a shoot after I bought a ton of equipment. I honestly struggled with the shoot because outside of not seeing the location before hand it was dificult for me to “feel” the shot. I was so busy trying to get the technical perfect.
At the end of the day, I defintely want to be an image MAKER not an image TAKER.
GREAT POST!!!!
Thank You Melissa~..I watched the Interview myself… I liked these things he said…
The thing is, artists seem to get in the way of the music. You have to get OUT of the way……..
Don’t write the music, let the music write itself”.You don’t think, you have to FEEL.
I believe this to be True…
And Yes………….The kid could fuckin’ dance!
Image Makers create memorable art and photographs
I believe You are doing that : )
Right nowc Melissa~
M~
Thank you Mellissa, Very well said and it parallels my own feelings about MJ.
I am actually a wedding photographer and am constantly battling between creative and technical. I find that if I have time I can relax and let the juices flow but when under time restraints I fall back on habit, technical and often trite images. I have often thought about it but your words seem very acurate.
I have said it before, one of the things that makes your photography blog so different and meaningful from others is that you understand and cover the artistic and creative aspects of photography. It is a difficult area to express in words and you nail it.
You and I shoot in completely different areas of photography but the thoughts that you share apply to all areas if people are willing to be open to the message. I learn something from all of your posts.
Love you
Thanks for the great post.
Yes, it is not just about the gear and technical stuff. If it was, why would anyone need a photographer?
Keep up the great work!!
Thanks Melissa for the awesome post!!! This is just how I feel.
Micheal was a real artist as he let the art inside him, and that is why he was incredible.
Art is about FEELING and FEELING is about LETTING GO!
Great Post!! Thanks for the inspiration!
“If you’re too wrapped up in the technicality of photography, you won’t be able to feel the moment and get the shot.”
Love this quote and totally agree with it.
Outstanding post! You, maybe unintentionally, did MJ a great justice by posting this. Besides my absolute agreement with every word you laid down here… I think you summed up everything Michael was and will be for the world of music. Thanks!!
I totally agree with FEELING. People always want to know what are you gonna do during a shoot. I tell them I don’t know until I put the camera to my eye and SEE/FEEL what I’m gonna shoot. It’s the same thing!!!!
You’re quote is gonna be forever burned in to my brain…“If you’re too wrapped up in the technicality of photography, you won’t be able to feel the moment and get the shot.”
Thanks for the wonderful post!
Very well stated!!!
Brilliant article Melissa, and well versed. I never let any of MJ’s personal business get in the way of my love for his music, talent, and the things he brought to the industry as a whole. This reminds me once again, how it’s NOT about the camera, and trying to explain how we as artists “get the shot” is sooo difficult. Thank you for sharing.
what a great post! very nicely put!
As I’ve always said since day 1, shoot with the camera in one hand and your heart in the other hand, somehow it is impossible to shoot without you exposing your thoughts and feelings, but if you are honest and aware of what are your feelings and why you want to take a photo, then the photo will have a more stronger meaning, the technical aspects its compared of how to read and write, a typewriter alone never wrote a great novel such as a camera alone never took a great photograph.
Hey Melissa,
Great post! I really like the parallels you draw.
I too was saddened when I heard the news about Michael (ha, that line reads as if I knew him personally
). Actually, when I read the headline in the papers I couldnt believe it!
Thriller was the first vinyl album I ever bought. Many years later I bought it on CD too. The music on this album is timelss. Musically Michael Jackson was a genius. If you dissect his songs you find this out. Each and every part, bass, percussion, etc, work so well together. Having played guitar for most of my life I am still amazed at how anyone can write music as good as ‘Billy Jean’ or ‘Beat It’, to name just 2.
In the photography world each photograph has different parts, just like one of Michael’s (or any artists) songs. You have your eyes, the light around you, your subject, your gear. And when they all work together in harmony the magic happens.
Thanks again!
Cheers,
Dave.
That was really from the heart, Melissa. Very nicely done.
Sometimes, when I’m doing landscape/nature/non-people photography, I’ll just wander around and ask myself “where’s the image?” Not *is* there an image here? But *where* is it? I feel like images are already in place, and it’s through luck, skill and determination that we sometimes find them. And other times, they escape us.
I used to be in the music business, and I know all about music just popping into one’s head. (Certainly not anywhere near Michael’s level of achievement.) Sometimes a complete piece of music would just appear, and it would be a struggle to get it out into the real world before it disappeared.
Photography, for me, is not something that appears like that, unbidden. It is more likely to be revealed to me in the heat of the moment, rather than when I’m driving down Ventura Blvd. But perhaps that’s because I haven’t been “breathing” photography for as long as I did music. Time will tell.
Perhaps a future blog post could be your thoughts on your personal relationship with photography. Your “Michael Jackson” moments perhaps!
This post reminded me of the first large production shoot I did a couple years back.
The subject was a girl getting into a bath of dead cicadas. We collected 100s of the dead bugs and the model and I spent a lot of time scouting out locations and found one about 2 hours outside Chicago.
The day of the shoot I had a whole bunch of people who had agreed to help, all friends. We were setting up and everything was going just fine. Then the shoot happened.
I knew what I wanted. I had visualized the shot in my head and knew that if the model and I kept at it the sun was going to fall into place close to the exact moment that she truly became comfortable in front of the camera (it wasn’t a hired model). If I knew all of this and we were ready, why didn’t I get my shot?
I was silly to invite my friends, some of whom were photo hobbiest and tech managers. They scrutinized my every move, you should be using this lens, why aren’t you moving around more, the reflector shouldn’t be there, just keep clicking the camera….I tried to explain to them that this was a shoot that I had organized, not theirs not to mention I had been photographing for much longer than they had; I work differently then them. It didn’t work and I gave in before getting my shot.
This article explains exactly the difference between what I was doing and what they wanted me to be doing. Eye opening!
Thanks again Melissa. Can’t wait to you on the 11th!
Well said Melissa,:)
Couldn’t have said it any better!
I was going through a book i got the other day on the great fashion designers, trying to find some inspiration and i was reading their statements and that’s exactly what they where talking about. If you have passion for what you do, the rest will come to you.
Its really sad how we see many people nowadays doing photography just because its their work and the way they make a living.
Our job is to communicate a message and if you have the tools and the heart for it, then it will get to you but we need to feel what we do.
It’s one thing to lose yourself in the moment but you have to be familiar enuff with your equipment to produce something beautiful…otherwise you might end up creating something that looks off…it’s all about knowing your stuff so it becomes instinct and striking a balance of becoming entranced and being technical.
Fantastic piece of writing, Melissa. Saying the unsaid.
Melissa, I totally agree with what you say about MJ. And that interview – I watched it at the time and was disgusted with the interviewer.
On photography – I’ve lost count of how many times someone has said to me, ‘Wow, you must have a really good camera’ or, ‘I can’t get photos like that with my little camera,’ and I’ve replied, “It’s not the camera that takes the photo.”
Cheers,
Avril
THANK YOU for SUCH AN AMAZING POST !!!
She is sooo beautiful. Thx for the pics!
I wasn’t a huge fan of MJ either, not really my style. But I do think after seeing interviews with him and watching him, that he was completely misunderstood and I think now that he is gone, people should let him rest in peace.
Controversy aside MJ was right in that if you don’t feel the creativity flowing, then sterility will likely emerge. But what underpins all that? Referencing, making mistakes, trial and error and experience. Sometimes when I shoot ideas seem to flood from nowhere and it’s the same inspiration that feeds the playing of music and like with music, if you ain’t practiced, then you’re not going to get the result you want.
So get the good kit but practice your art and get dangerous just like MJ did.
Thanks for this Melissa – thought provoking as ever.
Yes yes yes. Thanks for sharing, Melissa. Great perspective. I posted some thoughts about MJ and his life on my blog (link below). Pop over if you’re interested and care to leave a comment http://gregorybyerline.bigfolioblog.com/weblog/post/112918
Very well said Melissa !
In phases of our(photographers)life we learn how to work with the gear and become acquainted with the thousand technical switches. No way if we can’t master them. But shortly before being tied up in total control photographer may let go part of it out of his hands whithout safety whether it will pay off. But if it comes back it will bring something unexpected and new along with it, might be transcended and will produce truely a memorable variation of our original idea. Let loose is a way to grow.
Perfectly stated. I had serious photo block awhile back, no inspiration, nothing. I forced myself to pick up the camera and try to shoot a few shots, and then when I didn’t like any of that I said I was going to take 100 pics and whatever happened would happen and that’d be it. I stopped trying and ended up getting some of my favourite photos of me that I’ve ever done. Of course they were all of me looking surly and fed up but it was genuine feeling on camera. They looked great. Streak over.
But on the other hand, if I’m not truly feeling it, pretty much nothing I do be it photo or model or writing will compare with the quality and purity of what I get when I’m feeling it to the point where I have to physically stop what I’m doing and go get the idea out of me. My best day of uninspired isn’t close to my worst day of when it’s like that.
Your blog is just fantastic. I always pass by here and all the text are interesting reading. Thanks a lot for the time to write all those great things.
I’m so impressed and pleased you featured this paticular issue that has had a great impact on many of us, particularly those who grew up at the same time as Michael. Michael was a fantasticly creative and amazing talent. We owe so much to what he brought to us. I will miss his presence; his willingness to point out the wrongs of the world; he was misunderstood and wronged. I hope he is happy now.
Great post. Basically I think I get the gist of where you are coming from. Michael had the “feeling” behind the music and for him it wasn’t about making as much as he could or getting as much money as he could – although of course he made plenty of money. It was about letting the music take him, and what you are saying is that you have to let the photography take you as well.
Feel the shot, feel the music, don’t force it, if you have to it just doesn’t come off the way it is supposed to… just my humble opinion.
I also never owned a single Michael Jackson track but I loved Thriller and I will always always remember the Moonwalk!
I love the closing bit about image takers vs makers. So very true.
Great read
ah this what i need may be
Well said! I too watched the interview last night (uk) listening to what he had to say was inspiring. I don’t have the most expensive cameras or equipment but what I do have is my creativity. Only over the last few months have I truly started to shoot what I want and the results are starting to show
))
Nice interesting post:)
A real good insight into the realm of creativity. I always like finding out how people look upon their own creative process and Michael Jackson was one of the greatest in his field. Thanks for the inspiration.
I don’t really agree with the distinction you do between the tho kind of photographers. I would rather say that image taker take images, and image maker make images, it speaks by itself, image taker shoot what already exist, it’s more about documentary, being an image maker it’s more about creation and style, we create something out of “nothing”.
But even though it touch me less, a documentary image can also be a masterpiece in itself with load of emotions while a fashion built photograph can be cold and empty.
It’s maybe what you said but I did’t get it this way
Wanted to share my vision too.
MICHAEL JACKSON WAS PURE ART, CREATIVITY ,MAGICIAN ,DANCER , HE KNOWS AND DOMINTATE ALL ABOUT SPACE OR PERSPETIVE , I THINK WAS DE MOST POWERFULL AN D
COMPLETE ARTIST OF ALL TIMES.THE ONE AND ONLY, HE’S SOUL NEVER DIE, HE LIVES IN ME
I feel the same way about Michael Jackson. He was an icon, as big or bigger than Elvis, and his album Bad was a major soundtrack of my childhood years.
Gotta respect him for the music/art he had created.
Same goes for producer Phil Spector – he’s a total nutcase, but the music he has produced is so full of soul and texture and tension and feeling.