Church In The Valley, Cortona

The gifts Hipstamatic offers are many, but I have only discovered a few.

What lured me to this fun visual expression is the how light is played throughout its zeros and ones. After and few thousand exposures in Hipstamatic mode, I began to see “Hipstamatic” light. My mind was seeing the Hipstamatic image before I made the exposure… a bit of previsualization.

Ansel Adams taught so many things about photography. Too many to list here. But the most important thing he taught me was to previsualize a photograph before the exposure (see my blueheART STUDIOS FILM PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP BOOK). Previsualization begins with the mastery of the machine (the camera) and focal length of the lens.

I am old. And fortunate. When I started out as a shooter, zoom lenses were not sharp so I did not use them. I used fixed focal length lenses, now referred to as “prime” lenses. Calling a lens, a “prime” lens is just silly. If you have a 50mm lens, and it is your prime lens, and you have a 105mm lens and it is your prime lens, then which one is your prime lens? If you use fixed focal length lenses, you will begin to see in focal length, and if you can see in focal length, you will know where to place your feet… The cheapest zoom lens you own are your feet. Walk forward, zoom in. Walk backward, zoom out. I digress…