Access & Previsualization Again

Access & Previsualization Again

by William Lulow

I have written many articles about photography, its various techniques and philosophies of why and how I work, but one indisputable fact about all of it is that you cannot make any images unless you are actually standing there and have a camera at your disposal. You need ACCESS to whatever it is you wish to photograph. It seems like a given axiom, but it is one that needs to be mentioned from time to time.

My latest photographic trip was to a spot in Rhode Island that I had visited more than thirty years ago. Back then, I made a few images with my 4×5″ view camera on sheet film. They were good, but this week, going back there, I was armed with some new digital equipment and some more knowledge. The weather wasn’t great for a day or so and I had to resort to making images under cloudy conditions:

When you’re a “touring photographer” you often have to accept the conditions that Mother Nature gives you. You don’t always have the opportunity to wait around until the weather (and the light) changes. One way around this is to concentrate on other items in a scene that may be of interest besides a sky.

On this trip, we did get in day of sunshine that enabled me to make some good “sky” pictures:

One of the techniques I have been using lately, involves using higher ISO values in order to be able to increase depth-of-field and sharpness in my landscape images. I always made images like this on sheet film, but now, it’s easy to make them digitally as well. I have made images like this that can be blown up to six feet by four feet and be just as sharp as an 8 x 10″ shot. This one, though, was made at ISO 100, f/11 @ 1/160th of a second with a Canon R7 and a 20mm f/2.8 lens. 

When I began photographing rock musicians and other performers in the early 1970s, I was privileged enough to be able to have great access to them for the better part of two or three years. I continue to cultivate relationships with various venues around the New York City area so that I can continue to make these images. Sometimes, the hardest part of doing these shoots is gaining the ACCESS necessary.

For images of performers, you definitely need to be in attendance AND have a decent spot from which to make your pictures:

So, it is all about being at the right place at the right time. Access means that you are in the stadium, at the performance AND ready to make images. It means that you are in the same room or location of the person, place or thing you wish to capture. You also need to be prepared to make the images you want. You need to know about lighting conditions, how to make your pictures sharp enough, how to print them correctly and even how to display them. But you cannot make any photographs at all unless you are there!

The image of Elton John was done on film where the settings were Nikon 200mm f/4 lens (used wide open), Tri-X film (ASA 400) exposed at ISO 1600 and processed in fine grain developer (Acufine). The shot of singer/songwriter John Gorka was made with Canon 90D, ISO 2500, f/7.1 @1/125th of a second. 

So, the preparation comes in what is referred to as “pre-visualization.” It means that you need to have some kind of idea in your mind about exactly the kinds of images you want to make. These ideas can be general at first, but as you get into it a bit, they tend to become more specific. For example, when I’m shooting a musician or performer, I have an idea in my mind about what I want to see in the final picture. This usually means a shot including the instrument. But since I am also known as a portrait photographer, I am always looking for a lighting and a close up shot that is eye-catching and revealing an expression at the same time. In the case of musicians, they are most always performing under “stage light” conditions, sometimes with colored gels, but usually the light is fairly dim. I know I’m going to have to bump up my ISO settings quite a bit in order to be able to shoot with enough depth-of-field to render everything from the instrument to the person’s face in sharp focus. Separation from the background will have to be achieved by camera position. These are just some of the things I’m thinking about BEFORE I do any shooting. This is previsualization. It means having a concept of what I want to achieve with the images. 

Sometimes, access is obtained by a photographic assignment from someone who pays the bill. Other times, you have to provide it yourself. I knew a photographer back in Denver, who loved mortocycle racing. He would travel down to Baja, California every year to photograph special events and got to know the sponsors of the race so well that they gave him access to certain special spots on the course that allowed him to get spectacular shots of the bicycles flying through the air off the jumps on the course. He then sold his images to a number of restaurants in the Denver area and beyond. His shots were so good that bicycle magazines purchased many of them, or better yet, they would commission him to make others. So, getting access is an important part of the photographic process. I would say it’s probably equally as important as the technical aspects of making the photographs if you intend to make a living from your craft.

Back in the 1980s, when I was just beginning to start photography as a business, I was asked to photograph an LPGA golf tournament. That gave me access to some of the greatest women golfers in the world.

Nancy Lopez, shot on film in 1981. Made with a Nikkor 200mm, f/4 lens. 

NY Rangers’ hockey player from the photographer’s box at Madison Square Garden, 1982.

Since then, I have tried to concentrate on what “being there” meant and to concentrate on making what I sometimes refer to as a “money shot” that documents that particular place. Here is a shot of Amalfi in Italy, swarming with tourists on a warm day in June:

I actually shot the original in color, but thought the colors were too spalshy and detracted from the essence of the people walking on the street. So I converted it to Black&White. 

Here is a simple action shot of my granddaughter at a swimming meet:

So, being there is important. Knowing how to get the image you want is equally so. As I am a portrait photographer mostly, I’m always looking for a kind of portrait image when I shoot people. Sometimes it fills the frame, others it is part of a composition. This one was made with my old Canon 90D, fitted with a 135mm f/2 lens, with settings of ISO 4000, f/2.8 @ 1/1000th of a second. I was just blown away with the clarity of this image with these settings. 

My portraits are always focused on light and expression, and they always contain some elements of previsualization in the sense that I consiously think about what kind of image I want to make BEFORE I set everything up. That’s an important part of the process.