Outside WHAT box?

Unleashed

I really dislike the expression “thinking outside the box”. Whose box? What constitutes “outside the box?” Hasn’t pretty much everything been done and thought of by now? Well, maybe not technological breakthroughs that we may have never anticipated. But in this day and age of instant information, the minute we think we’ve discovered something new, it usually turns out whatever it is has either been around a long time, or someone (maybe Leonardo da Vinci) had thought of it eons ago even if it has not existed in real time and space yet.

On the Court 42

 

I also have grown to dislike articles about photography that urge you to “think outside the box”. Generally, the advice goes something like this:

Get under your subject instead of shooting it from the top.

Try to get a backlit image of your subject so it’s just a silhouette.

Get low to the ground so everything looks larger.

Shoot a flower with the sun shining through it from behind, not with the sun directly on it.

Etc. etc.

Boston Harbor Logan and Hotel lamp 2 BW

The only suggestions I can remember thinking were kind of interesting were ones I personally had not thought about, like placing a clear glass container of water in front of a plain background and fixing the camera in front of it, then drop some food coloring into the water and shoot the resulting patterns as the food coloring moves through the liquid. 

I’ve never tried that one, but I might give it a go some time. In fact I forgot about that one until just now writing this blog entry.

I’m so over the image of someone holding up the Tower of Pisa, or “holding” the setting sun….these have been done to death, in my opinion, and it’s hard to get an image that someone else might think of as a “cool shot”.

All Done with Mirrors 3

In any case, I can’t pretend to have ever thought of anything new in photography, but my “out of box” experiences almost never come from thinking about them. They just present themselves to me. Most of these images you are looking at here have “been there done that”, but to me, they were interesting accidents, or came from deliberately looking at something differently than I normally do.
  

“Unleashed” at the top is simply a fireworks photo left sideways and emphasizes the smoke instead of the actual firework light trails. “All Done with Mirrors” was done at the office with two mirrors and the sun coming through slatted shutters on to the carpet in the afternoon. “Boston Harbor…” was taken from an Airport Hilton window looking out onto the harbor and a runway at Logan, with a hotel lamp reflected in the window. 

Construction Zone Abstract

“Construction Zone Abstract” was taken in town when they were replacing the boardwalk and that ugly, orange plastic construction fence ran the entire length of the boardwalk, and I included a bit of a park bench that had decorative holes in it. “Half Pipe Abstract” is just that. I small slice of a skateboard halfpipe. 

Half Pipe Abstract

“In the Scary Woods” is just an interesting thorny tree in muted lighting. “On the Court 42” is a ‘sideways’ look at the local basketball court with its brightly colored surface. And finally “Rainy Drive 3” was me being bored in my 50 mile commute to work, so while stopped at a stop light, I turned off the windshield wipers and enjoyed the distorted taillights of the traffic in front of me.

In the Scary Woods

 

I suggest if you want to try something different, actually shut off your brain and don’t “think” outside the box. Just look around and see if something calls to you because it looks like it might make an interesting photograph. Most of the time it doesn’t work, but sometimes it does.

 

Rainy Drive 3

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