[Leica] Things I learned from Ted

[Richard S Taylor]

As a recent re-joiner myself and a big fan of Ted’s from all the Park Square Camera meetings I attended on Cape Cod, let me add my own thoughts.  

“You can’t fix a bad photo in Photoshop,” he would say. “Get it in the camera."

"Shoot from the shadow side.” “Don’t cut off feet and elbows.” “Fill the frame.” “In complex photos, make sure there is something simple to catch the eye.”  A mast coming out of your subject’s head is a definite no-no, as someone just mentioned, or, as in a recent photo of my son where I didn’t pay attention, a tiny women seemingly coming out of a tequila bottle on our table.  Definitely bad—and no fair taking it out in Photoshop, either.  His constant attention to image details makes me scrub every picture for extraneous stuff: beer cans, splotches of light, annoying background objects, whatever.  

These rules are in my head so firmly that in any situation involving photography they have a tendency to flow out of my mouth easily, so much so that I fear becoming a bore about it. 

Someone here has already said that he thinks about Ted every time he takes a picture.  Me too.  Ted - you will be in my thoughts and I wish you peace.  

Dick


> On Apr 11, 2020, at 1:58 PM, Keith Wessel <keith at wesselphoto.com> wrote:
> 
> The international Hash House Harriers group would call me a “Seldom Seen” in the context of this list.  I have been reading posts on and off since about 2004.  Being confined to my home I am reading the list more.
> 
> I am sad to learn that Ted is now in hospice care.  To celebrate Ted I am starting this thread.
> 
> One of the things I learned from Ted is to avoid background items appearing to be coming out of my subjects head.  Someone posted a photo of a person on a boat with a persons head centered on the sail mast.  Ted pointed this out and ever since I have thought of that when taking a photograph. 
> 
> 
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