Ansel Adams talked about pre-visualisation as the foundation of his photographic method. He could see the final print before making the exposure, knowing exactly what the image would look like after development and printing. Not just approximately but precisely. The vision came first, complete and detailed, and the technical process existed to manifest that internal image in physical form.
If you can do that, if you can see the finished photograph in your mind before you press the shutter, your entire approach to photography centres on capturing that vision. You’re trying to match what you see in your head with what the camera records. The image exists first internally, then you make it real through technical execution. Vision precedes and guides craft.
Josh Warner posted on Substack photos he took with a Kodak DC210A he bought for next to nothing on a flee market.
This was a version of my first digital camera (mine was a DC200) I bought with one of my first salaries in the UK as I was working on a post doc project.
I dug up some old photos from my archive taken with that camera. I only have a few since I had it stolen very quickly after I bought it (it was in my rucksack, with my ID papers, my wallet, and my house keys).
Most of these were taken around Edinburgh, where I lived at the time. I seem to have shot in low resolution (640×480) because storage was at a premium in the 90s (and note that these images survived nearly 30 years in my archives without cloud storage!). They are unmodified, as they came out of the camera at the time.
Most people assume everyone thinks the same way they do. They imagine that when you say “picture this in your mind,” everyone experiences roughly the same thing. When you say “think about it,” everyone has the same internal process. But cognitive variation is enormous, and these differences fundamentally change how you approach photography.
Out of cycle post. This is something I’ve been noticing and I’ve been trying to articulate for a while. I’m not sure it’s completely clear in my head yet, but here goes nothing.
When I started writing on Substack, I was already moving away from pretty pictures. I’d been getting interested in people more than landscapes, in human presence more than nice light falling across empty scenery. But I hadn’t yet articulated why that shift was happening or where it might lead.
In today’s near infinite storage space, it’s easy to lose track of the photos you take. You stop seeing any of them because there are so many of them. They become wallpaper, a continuous scroll of undifferentiated moments that mean nothing precisely because they were supposed to mean everything.
I have cameras I haven’t touched in months. In fact I have cameras I’ve never used. They sit on a shelf, visible every time I walk past. Some moralists would tell me to sell them. To clear the clutter, to free the mind. Be honest about your actual practice. Stop kidding yourself.
They’re plain wrong because they’re looking at it from the wrong angle.
Photography sells itself as preservation. We take pictures to capture moments, to remember what happened, to hold onto people and places before they disappear. The promise is that the image will keep the past accessible, faithful, ready to consult whenever memory fails us.
That’s not what actually occurs. What happens instead is more complicated and more interesting. Photographs don’t preserve experience. They create scaffolding for reconstruction, and nostalgia is the primary material we use to build with.
When I left Lyon, it started to snow. Not completely uncommon here (at home we call it the frozen East), but not common enough to have a negligible effect. The woman ahead of me was telling the little girl not to be worried about the snow, but to be careful walking in the street,
Snow in the street
In front of the old station, a teenager was drawing things in the snow. Teenager + snow, 3 guesses what he was making.
Snow artist
One of the things I remember from previous visits to Lyon in the 90s, are those electric buses connected too power lines. I’ve never seen them elsewhere. In theory a great idea to reuse existing infrastructures and without heavy roadworks. In practice, when the country is France, expect people to park in any number of random places and block the buses.
Electric bus
I don’t know what the chimney is. A power station maybe? What I liked was the contrast between the electric bus and the smoking chimney.
Smoking chimney
Lyon has changed since my last visit, with lots of towers. And they’re continuing to build. I like the verticalities of the tower, the crane, and the sculpture, as well as the contrast of the snow with the granite floor, and the triangles formed by the various features on the pavement..
Verticals
Nearing the station, some bus stops, lined up, attracted my attention. Strangely, bus stops are made differently in different countries. When I arrived in Scotland, I was surprised to see bus stops back to front, with the glass on the street side. Here the glass is at the back. But it makes more sense to use the glass to protect people waiting from the splashing from the street.
Bus stops
Inside the station it’s still Christmas.
Christmas
Halls
Unfortunately the little snow we had has wrecked havoc on the schedule and my train will be an hour late.
Late
When we finally get on the train, everybody is miserable and complains. They’ve lost the novelty of taking the train. they need to spend time where I live, with no trains, no buses, no trams, and no taxis.
On we go
Trains are weird when they’re empty. Normally, people move around, lug suitcases around, make noise. But when you’re the first one on the car, it’s like seeing behind the scenes. It reminds me of the Twilight Zone episode called “A Matter of Minutes” (one of my favourite ones). I shouldn’t be here, I’m seeing something that is not for human consumption.
Twilight Zone?
Me again taking photos in the window. I like the effects of the multiple glazing (5 layers or something like that).
Hello
Other people.
Other people in the window
When I get to Paris, I discover that it’s been snowing way more than in Lyon.
Snot on the tracks
There is something both poetic and eery in nearly empty giant subway stations. All that space that has been built to accommodate a lot of people, but barely anybody there.
Empty station
I liked the repetition of the pattern of the chairs, the frame created by the pillars, and the single person on the frame. This station is nearly under my high school, but didn’t exist at the time.
Sitting in the station
This is my Lartigue moment: the vertical lines are sideways because the train was moving and the capture times means that the bottom part of the picture was captured a fraction of a second after the top (also that the electronic shutter on my phone is somehow top to bottom). The lines on the background wall are vertical because they weren’t moving.
Lartigue train
Continuing the empty theme, that train i empty. It’s getting late, people are home,, even in Paris.
Empty train
Outside, despote no snow for a day or two, it’s still very much white and frozen. It’s currently -4. I haven’t seen this much show since Oslo.
Some of us maintain that gear doesn’t matter. And technically, we’re right: a camera won’t make you a better photographer. But there is another side to the debate.
