As I’m sure many photographers can attest to, there are times when you peer through your viewfinder and think, Am I making this f-ing shot AGAIN?  I’m boring myself.  Same use of light, same composition, same brain.  And so I’d like to announce the perfect (and laziest) way to surprise your creative brain and remember that, thankfully, there are a limitless number of ways to see the world.  The test shot.

You didn’t look through your viewfinder.  You guessed at the metering.  And you didn’t bother to focus because you were using your focusing hand to stuff your face with the last bite of the chicken burrito you splurged $4.50 on at the local mexi-wagon.

Art works in mysterious ways.

And, come to think of it, I want to see what your test shots look like.  Send me links.  Maybe we’ll have a test shoot off.

Salmon Street Springs. Fountain in Waterfront park.

Pendleton Round-Up.

Make friends who are photographers, even if you too are a photographer.  In exchange for a mere chuck of steak (medium-well) from my rickety barbecue, Daniel Root made this image of my daughter.

Dear Dan, Please come over to dinner every night this week.  - Brian

Everyone in Portland has noticed and appreciated the Times’ laudatory attention to all things Portland over the last few years.  I’m not sure who it has benefited more.  We sent them Stumptown coffee and hope.  They’ve sent us creative talent.  I myself certainly enjoyed a nice run traipsing around Oregon photographing “all the news that’s fit to print”.

“I’m a photographer with the New York Times”.  It goes without saying that that feels good to say.  What doesn’t feel good is knowing that both the Oregonian and the Willamette Week show more contractual respect for their photographers.  And so with mixed feelings I have to say good bye Times.  I’ll sign off with images from my last assignment.  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/realestate/commercial/19space.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=real%20estate%20intel&st=cse

The beauty of re-design.

Light gray on light gray motif.

If you look very closely, you can see an airborne steer!

I don’t often shoot this way, from so far away, but it makes it fun to try and think about compositions on a grander scale.  My friend from graduate school, Uwe Martin, was a master at this (check out the second image in his Bangladesh story).  He would make a composition and then just wait for the moment.  I usually get impatient.