Photography as Meditation | National Geographic

(serene music)

[Kris] I always have a camera because I know that there's going to be something there to photograph. The perfect shot for me, it comes out of nowhere. I want to see something that I haven't seen before. That tree hasn't been photographed this way before or an angle of this landscape that gives you a different view of it.

[Kevin] I just love to document everything. I love to capture it, and I think it's a good way to look back and say there was a life well lived there. I am Kevin Love. I like to say I'm a basketball player, advocate, philanthropist. My ambitions as a photographer are just to keep getting better every single day. I mean, it's like basketball, right? And I use this quote a little bit as a life hack, is "To be relentlessly curious, without fear of prejudice." And I think my curiosity is really brought out through photography. You know, how you can capture a really beautiful image or something that speaks to somebody in a different way.

I've come to Portland with National Geographic, and I'm going to be photographing and walking around with Kevin Love. He is an avid photographer, as well as an all-star basketball player. We're going to explore. We're going to talk about creativity, and I'm going to give him some tips about how to make the perfect shot.

Kris Graves, I mean, does amazing work. What he's done and what he's shot, it's remarkable. And what he's put together over the course of his career. And yet he's still going, it's amazing. Today I want to learn, first of all, what Kris's process is. I think the editing component for me is something that's solely lacking. What to look for, where to be, so I'm curious to ask these questions and absorb as much as I can.

[Kris] I think that'll be interesting to go to a place that he's been already and show him what I want to put in a frame so people can feel the scene. I can then definitely point Kevin in directions he probably hasn't thought of before.

[Kevin] We got like the perfect light.

[Kris] I know it's coming through.

[Kevin] It's perfect.

[Kris] Trees are like unreal.

[Kevin] Being in Portland, Oregon was a no brainer for me. Being outside and being in the element. The trees have your back here.

I've been coming to Portland since 2016. It's a beautiful town. Within three miles of downtown, you're in the woods.

[Kevin] Portland just has so much culture. So much of the arts, theater, music. I mean, it's beauty surrounding us really at all times. So you have everything basically at your disposal here.

[Kris] So here we're going to do like a vertical portrait. I'm going to photograph you first and give you some pointers. I've been lucky enough to have positions that allow me some creativity with my own artwork. My own art practice is photographing landscapes and portraits. This is a headshot. You want to zoom all the way in for a headshot usually, just because if I'm this close to you, you're going to look like kind of circular. But as far as I get back from you and zoom in, it flattens the field. It flattens your face a little bit more so that you actually are not looking rounded. The second thing is chins up. People need to look proud in photographs.

I mean, there's so much to consider when you're taking a photo, but also understand there's a component of it that's, you know, feel.

Keep the camera above the chin so that people don't have two chins. People don't want two chins.

[Kevin] Okay.

[Kris] It's the best trick for portraits.

So this is above your chin, it's all good. Flowers in the back. (indistinct)

So I can notice that the camera's not fully straight. So I would like get completely level. Check it out. So if you like, I have a level in the camera. So you do, you have this too, but I can see where my middle is so I know I'm below - right, right - and then it goes to the middle.

[Kevin] That looks good. All right, we're good. We're good.

Do you get to photograph during the season or do you usually wait?

So actually, it's funny you asked that because my, my therapist of all people was like, "How are you going to stay creative during the season?" I was like, "Guess I gotta bring my cameras." But you're coming to play in Portland against the Blazers. So like Douglas firs and pine trees, and like, - yeah. - that was such a big part - that makes sense. - of who we are. He would say, "All right, wood." That can mean. That can tables.

Number of things. That can be anything. I mean, it's a good prompt.

I think the process of taking photographs and photography for me is definitely grounding. Something that I do in a lot of ways for therapy and also a way to document things and understand what I was going through through that time.

[Kris] Photography as meditation is pretty much why I do it. I try to focus on what's in front of me. Zone out and see something I've never seen before, because I won't see it again. So I have to make these photographs while I'm here.

What I try to capture? I think nature and landscapes in general are a major component. It's a beautiful process to really take in nature and take in the landscapes that you want to shoot. And for me, I've dealt with acute anxiety my entire life, and have tried to find ways to, you know, express myself or change my relationship with my mental health in a major way. Being outside is a calming place for me. You know, take in whatever I can around me and understand there's a lot of beauty and just feel it.

The land is always kind of extraordinary, which makes it hard to make photographs because everyone can capture what they consider an extraordinary moment. But when I'm here, I'm not thinking about any of that stuff. I'm just here to kind of be free, make the pictures, go back later, see what I got, and then hopefully I got one good thing. So here, what we're going to do is we're going to make a vertical photograph of that waterfall. So we do ISO 50 and F 32 and we're going to have a three-second exposure. I'm going to do a two-second timer,

[Kevin] Yeah.

And then we're gonna click, wait do our three seconds in our head. 1, 2, 3 comes back on screen and now you have moving water. And now we're going to do one with a higher ISO so that we can freeze the motion in the water. Going to lower F-stop a bit so that we know we can get it sharp. Click in that, 1, 2, 3, and then another instant shot. So now we have two shots. You can get your water clean, like sharp, and in motion,

[Kevin] That's beautiful.

Just like that.

[Kevin] I love that. I feel like I can learn so much in 10 minutes just from doing that. Would be amazing if you put it at like a half court. So almost like a guy's running.

Check this out. We'll do another little test here. You want to tell me when that hits zero and I'll start walking.

[Kevin] Okay. All right, go ahead. I mean, I think it's kind of cool.

And that's the power of just being free with it. You can't really tell what you'll get later because it's digital, but that's what we have the computers for. It's good to have this on location. Yeah, I've been using a Dell XPS for at least the last seven years. I've had two already. It's a bright screen. Even in the daytime we can see what we're doing. I mean, which is really quite nice to me.

All right, you told me not to take a picture of that.

[Kevin] Yeah, I wanted to show you when this thing is open. This is like kind of bringing it back to the last century of photography - okay. - in a little bit of a way. This is a four by five inch view camera. Fold down under here. We have our bellows.

[Kevin] Wow.

And that is it.

Now I take the picture.

[Kris] Yeah, as simple as it is.

Visualization is so key. I mean, every place that you go brings another, you know, different set of complications or things that are tough to shoot. And you have to find the right spot.

[Kris] You can see what's happening. It's all upside down.

Every game, every series, everything is going to pose a new challenge. And you can sense when you're in the right place.

See how that focus works?

[Kevin] Boom.

[Kris] Okay, so now we're locked in.

Just in life in general, I don't think it's any different; that level of visualization comes into it in a major way. So I don't think it's any different than photography.

[Kris] So you can see your aperture. That's what your camera's doing automatically. There's only three things cameras do. So you have a sensor. You have an aperture and a shutter. That's what a camera is.

[Kevin] That's right, yep.

Everything with those basics.

[Kevin] You know, we always say art imitates life. I feel like that is pretty spot on and transcends any walk of life or any medium or anything somebody's doing as their work.

Time the exposure. It opens, leave at 30 seconds, and then we close it.

I think there's a lot of parallels. I think basketball is a true art form. It's fluidity. It's almost like watching a ballet in a way, something beautiful. The arts, you're happy watching it unravel right in front of you. And life is that way. It's not a spectator sport, right? You have to go out there. You have to expose yourself to different things and you have to express yourself.

3, 2, 1. You can see everything out there. That's your negative. This is kind the magic of photography, right? You can see exactly what it is. And then we'll put this on a computer later. It's only getting better for creatives because we have so much access to so many programs and ways of thinking on the computer end. This is what it looked like in the field. You can make a curve.

[Kevin] I'm so curious how this is going to turn out.

We are able to do whatever we want because that's a negative and we're photographing a negative, I want it to be a positive.

[Kevin] Right.

And can use your tonker. You want to just invert that curve, right? These days, starting in photography is easier than it has been because I think that the cost has gone down in starting. I mean, if you have a phone and you can't afford a camera, use your phone to make the photograph. If you do have access to a camera, take it out and never put it down.

[Kevin] And you're not expecting

[Kris] That's so sharp that you can like pretty much see that sharpness, right? I mean, look at that. It's like so sharp. It turned out fun. That's fun. Okay, we have the portraits we've made earlier today, are pretty eh. You don't want to be showing this to people really. This is your histogram and it's all along the bottom end of your photograph here. Use the web to learn more about photography. Find artists that you like and follow them. So a lot of research and then going out and making photographs, terrible photographs until you make one good one. You want that to be more even. You can do it here and just expose to the way you want it. And you're getting your curve back. And within a minute, you've gone from a kind of before that looks like that, which I would consider a completely unusable, to an after that looks like that. There's so much out there, but that doesn't mean that there's no need for more. I think that there's a need for as much art in the world as humanly possible. And everybody should be out there making something creative. Creativity has broadened in the last few years. So whatever your thing is, just get into it.