TimeLine Media Blog

Checking Your Work

Chimping? That is a term that is associated with digital photography. You take a photo then quickly look at the back of the camera and exclaim “Oo Oo Ah Ah!” like a chimpanzee when you see the results! If you made the switch from shooting analog to digital, this is the first departure in the experiences. Immediately, you have a tangible result from your photography. There is no waiting, no guessing whether or not you captured a usable image.

AMC shows movies on their TV channel that describes behind-the-scenes facts about the film as it is playing. One of our favorites was the 1984 movie, “The Karate Kid”. When watching it on AMC, there is one scene of the boy practicing forms on a boat floating in a small pond as the sunset in front of him. It is an amazing piece of cinematography that they could only shoot twice before the light disappeared. There was no chimping back then – everything was shot on film with no immediate preview of the footage. No way to know if the shot was really made until after the film was developed and viewed later.

Yes, everything may have looked okay with the settings on the camera. For example, the lenses, and the meter readings taken before rolling the cameras, but how could you be sure? Obviously, a large professional film crew should have all their checks in place. But how confident would you be as a lone photographer on an important assignment?

Tysons Corner Center

AJ-Smith-and-the-Apollo-at-Tysons-Corner-Center-©TimeLine-Media

This is the second bit of magic – giving you the confidence that you do have the images that you or your clients absolutely need. When you say the images are “in the can” with digital photography, you have a good feeling about it because of chimping. This frees you to get additional images that you would not take unless you had the time and opportunity to do so after fulfilling all your requirements. During the performances at the Tysons Corner Center Plaza, I have been very lucky to have an all-access pass from behind the stage, to the front of the stage. With the open plaza as the “house” there is are a number of different places you can make images of performers during their concerts.

From the front of the stage, you get the performers with the banners of all the sponsors, and some of the imposing buildings in the back. In the crowd, you get the performers with out of focus crowd in the foreground bringing you into the frame.

But when you get to try some different angles, you may find yourself behind the performers catching just an edge of light from the spotlights at the front of the stage. It is very tricky to correctly meter and focus, but the results produce a much different view than the audience sees. Getting to experiment with this much success is very magical indeed!

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