The Moment it Clicks - Joe McNally

Well, it finally happened…I got my copy of The Moment it Clicks, by Joe McNally.  Read through the entire book over the course of the weekend – twice.  This guy continually amazes me, not only for what he’s teaching, but his matter-of-fact and down-to-earth approach to instruction.  This book really and truly does live up to its reputation as THE book of the year.  It made me laugh, it made me cry, and everything in between.  I have not been prone to reading much lately that isn’t photography-technical jargon.  What with the TOP Test being a project that is so close to being done, practically everything I am reading lately is technical and quite detailed on the minutia of photography.  Suffice to say, the Joe McNally book gave me a great moment of pause over the course of the weekend.

A couple of things to note about the book – it’s not really instructional, but you will learn a lot if you are attuned to picking up little nuggets or pearls of wisdom between anecdotal narratives.  It does follow an anecdotal line, in that you see an image and text on the facing page – that narrative is either about how that picture was obtained, or some humorous back story or “behind the scenes” in the making of the shot.  Just great stuff, because as photographers, we love to hear others war stories.  Joe McNally does not disappoint.  Finally, on this book, if you happen to read the introduction, you will find that there is an additional chapter available to you.  All you have to do is register at Peachpit, and enter the ISDN # of your book to get the additional read.  Great photos throughout, but I dare say some of the best are in the added digital chapter.

Finally, it also brings me around to the last thing I did this weekend of a McNally nature:  I re-watched his talk over at Google for the umpteenth time.  It is such a great talk, and if you like story tellers, and listening to stories, this is definitely one to bookmark.  I have it bookmarked myself just to listen back on it from time to time for moments when I need a little inspiration or motivation.  Here’s the link to the Google talk.

Yes, it was my weekend with Joe McNally…except he didn’t even know about it!

Be sure to stop back in tomorrow as Photokina will be underway – today is Press Day, so we will likely see some other impressive leaps forward in camera gear and technology during the course of the next few days!

On the big picture:

1. “My philosophy about photography is that it’s a very open-ended profession.”
2. “Human gesture trumps everything”
3. “You have to have fun. If you’re not having fun, your pictures will reflect that.”

On motivation

1. “At the end of the day, you’ve created something that didn’t exist that morning.”
2. “I’m not driven by a particular type of photography…[but] by the love [of photography]“
3. “I have to make a picture that conveys the emotional and visual experience I am having, and if the photograph doesn’t do that, then I’ve failed.”

On technique:

1. “There are no secrets, no mysteries, no dark kind of ‘Keys to the Castle’ or anything…”
2. “It only takes one ‘Awww, shit!” moment to wipe out three ‘atta boys’…”
3. “The migration period [apertures, f-stops, shutter speeds, ISO's, etc.]…taking all the sundry stuff and migrating it from the front of your head to the back of your head…you need to learn that stuff”
4. “Technique is important – mechanical inputs have enormous aesthetic implications. You need to learn them and be fluid with them and it enables you to be able to speak with a louder voice.”

Yeah, it’s over an hour long, but it’s worth the listen…it can remind you of what’s really important about photography, and what doesn’t matter as much as you think it does:

And speaking of remembering what’s important, and what really matters versus what doesn’t matter so much, today you simply must stop over at Scott Eccleston’s blog for Weekly Photography Tips. That, my friends, is what really matters! Anyway, hope everyone enjoyed the weekend. Hope the coming week is just as good and keep those cameras clicking – happy shooting!