My Back Yard

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The significance of one’s own backyard is not so much what is unusual, but developing the discipline to see beyond the usual to what is artistic and expressive. I often tell students that until they learn to do effective work in their own back yard, they will not consistently produce good work at exotic locations. By “back yard” I don’t literally mean the real estate surrounding their house or apartment, rather all the area within a five or ten minute drive: the places you can get to quickly if you have an hour or so to work, the places that you see so often that you don’t really pay attention to them any more. Of course, what you will see depends in part on where you live, but also upon how keenly you’ve developed your powers of observation and back yard exercises will accomplish just that.

For this month’s column I have chosen to be rather literal and have included images done within 20 feet of my house, but I could just as easily picked images done on the next street over, the nature park a half mile away, the zoo, or the botanical gardens. (To be sure, my wife and I have gone to great lengths to modify the comparatively sterile suburban green lawn environment to include lots of trees and shrubs of varying sizes and types, ornamental and wildflower gardens, and a pond, all to provide a wide variety of habitats attracting birds and bugs, not to mention the occasional fox and raccoon. I encourage you to do the same - the resulting subjects will keep you busy for a long time.)

One must learn to be observant of small detail, of the small-scale stories that play out around one’s self all the time. Take your camera and a single lens and prowl around, looking carefully, seeing beyond the obvious. Do this every chance you get. I have been amazed by the number of serious amateur photographers who take pictures only on major trips and keep their cameras in the closet at all other times. Developing the photographic eye takes constant practice; it’s too easy to slip back into the laziness of non-observance. Unless this skill is developed and nurtured, it will be too slow to react at times when you really need it.

The same holds true, naturally, of the physics of camera work. Unless you know instinctively through practice which command dial does what and which you turn to increase aperture or shutter speed and how you add or subtract light from the base exposure, where the lens release button is, you will be caught fumbling in the field as a dramatic and fleeting moment passes you by.

If you photograph flowers, your own garden, not to mention formal botanical gardens, are the place to learn about isolating a subject and use of hyperfocal distance, and which film produces the color balance you find most pleasing. Like to photograph wildlife? Practice on your pets; they are some of the hardest subjects to work effectively – or visit the zoo to begin to form the basis of the wildlife biology and behavior you will need in the field. Want to photograph birds in flight? Practice on the songbirds in your backyard so when that rare opportunity comes on the coast to photograph an osprey dip into the water and snatch a fish you will react without having to take time to think. Macro subjects abound for those interested in working at 1:1. Granted, compared to Rocky Mountains, the southwest desert, or the Oregon coast, Kansas where I spend most of my year lacks dramatic landscapes. Since I opened my eyes to the possibilities close at hand, I find that I shoot just as much, sometimes more, film than I expend on major trips.

For those interested in landscape photography, the backyard challenge is how to express the essence of your habitat, whether field or forest, prairie, or Great Plains. Any neophyte with a simple point and shoot camera can produce a good snapshot in any of the national monuments; it takes hard work to do the same in the Flint Hills of Kansas, but by honing one's skills close to home, great shots at exotic locations will become second nature and this discipline will help you create the stupendous “oh wow” shots that everyone else wishes they'd gotten..

The best time to work in your back yard is every time you have the chance. The back yard is not only the place to learn the basics of camera operation and the ability to see beyond looking, it is the place to try new techniques, to run film and equipment tests, and to look for images that no one else has previously bothered to notice. Watch the progression of seasons, look for the images where you never before saw anything of interest.

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