Access & Previsualization: Necessary Steps For Any Photographer

Access & Previsualization: Necessary Steps For Any Photographer

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.

We finally got a decent sunrise at our vacation spot on Longboat Key, Florida after a month of probably the worst weather since we have been coming here for the past eight years. So I decided to wake up early and go out to try to capture some sunrise light here. I was thinking about just going back to sleep, but my photographic instincts got the better of me and I got dressed, grabbed the gear and the tripod and went out to see what the light was like. I was actually a bit late, as it turned out, but still was able to capture some of that “first light” imagery. Here is one:

Make sure you can find the crane wading in the water here. The light was just right to make a good picture of a kind of mundane bridge. The light says it all here. Camera was my Canon 90D, with the following settings: ISO 640, f/10 @ 1/125th of a second. There was also some post-production work done here to enhance the photo a bit.

Here is another photograph:

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!

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. 

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:

It always contains some elements of previsualization in the sense that I concentrate on making it part of a planned images.