New blogger
March 2nd, 2007
My good friend, Dave Rudin, has started his own blog. His first post is worth reading…and I think you’ll enjoy his first posted photo, even though it does not contain any naked women. I’m sure naked women will be forthcoming…and few people photograph naked women as beautifully as Dave. Go check him out: http://figuresofgrace.blogspot.com/
On the Other Hand…
March 2nd, 2007
In the spirit of dichotomy, yin/yang, good/evil, black/white and all the other culturally biased variations on the same universal truth, today I’ll contradict the last post and explain why I think technical mastery is important for a photographer.
I’ve been tearing the house apart looking for my copy of Mason Williams’ “Flavors,” a book of poetry and essays from 1970. It has a poem that I wanted to include here called “Understanding” or “To Understand” or something like that. I can’t find my copy and it’s too old to be on the web anywhere. If anyone out there reads this and can find the text to that poem, please share it with me and I’ll add it in here.
But, my point is that understanding is important. And understanding is much more than knowing how to get an automatic camera to do its thing.
As I said before, making interesting photographs that have something to say is much more important than being a technical master of the medium. You can take wonderful photos without being a technical master. And you can be a technical master and never take a photo that anyone would want to look at.
But, if you understand, really understand, how photography works it is liberating. Understanding frees your mind and lets you know how to accomplish your goal with a photo. You can set everything on automatic and thrash around until something like what you wanted comes out. Or you can understand how the system works and totally control every aspect of the technical process and then thrash around until something like what you wanted comes out. The later approach may get you there quicker and may get you closer to what you set out to get. And, of course, you can then be smug about it.
I once worked in a photo department where the chief photographer had basically inherited the job. He had been trained on the job by the last chief photographer. All he knew about photography was what the last guy had told him. He didn’t even own a personal camera. When I got there everyone was working with a press camera with a potato masher strobe permanently mounted on the side and a pack film back. How many are old enough to remember pack film backs? 16 shots. Pull a tab after each shot and rotate another sheet of film into position. Develop them in Kodak rubber tanks in rack holders. Flimsy film stock made them hard to handle in the darkroom.
Well, I hadn’t been around too long before I’d submitted a documented suggestion showing the cost savings of switching to 35mm. Jack never gave up his old camera, though. He didn’t understand anything about photography. All he knew was how to operate that old camera. Eventually he had to make a switch because Kodak quit making pack film that would fit those press cameras. We got a Hasselblad. Despite repeated instruction and many, many attempts, Jack never once succeeded in loading a roll of film into the film back correctly.
As a photographer he was a trained pony. He knew a few tricks, but had no idea why he was doing them or how to learn a new trick. Most of us are trained ponies about many things in our lives. My dad was a mechanic all his life. He understands automobiles. He taught me a few tricks, but I am a trained pony when it comes to working on cars. I’ll never understand the way he does.
The more you understand about photography the less surprises you’ll encounter as you work. Some surprises are good and can be worked into a good photo…but the majority just mean you didn’t get what you were after…and if you don’t understand you are not going to know what happened and how to avoid it in the future. Understanding can also help you know what happened when a good surprise comes along and allow you to repeat it if you want. It’s nice to understand.
So, learning about the technical aspects of photography is valuable. I encourage every photographer to put forth some effort in that direction. But it is no replacement for vision. Show me the photos. I don’t really care how much you understand about the medium or what tools you used to capture your photo…as long as you’ve done something interesting.
Here’s a photo of the lovely Joceline from London, England. This was taken in the desert in Southern California a few years ago. Joceline is 6’1” and full of grace.
Let’s get technical
February 27th, 2007
Anyway, what I want to write about is the importance, or lack thereof, of technical mastery in photography. Just how important is it for a photographer to really understand the medium and all the tools involved in it?
Now, I want to begin by making it clear that I consider technical knowledge to be a good thing. It can be very helpful. I found the transition from film to digital very easy because it was just an exchange of tools. The basics of photography are the same with either tool and I do understand the basics of photography.
I’ve talked before about the repeated resistance to any change that I’ve seen among photographers throughout the 40+ years that I’ve been calling myself a photographer. I started out with a manual Nikon F and a hand held meter. I still have my Nikon F and my Gossen Luna Pro. I don’t use them anymore, but they are still in the cabinet at the studio. And I learned things with them that I still use today with my D200.
But, the matrix meter in the D200 is much better at finding close to the right exposure than I am with any hand held meter. All that stuff I learned about exposure over 40 years is programmed into the D200 meter. What I know is when to not believe the meter. But that’s easy now too because I can look at the histogram and see actual math for the exposure I’m getting and I can adjust those numbers to get exactly the exposure I want…any exposure reading with a meter, no matter how good, is an estimate. The histogram is exact math. Why would anyone want to essentially guess when they can have precision?
OK…that’s wandering from my stated theme. Sorry.
Anyone can become a master of the technical aspects of photography. It ain’t rocket science. The medium is pretty well understood and has no real secrets. If any person of average intelligence applies him/herself to learning the technical things involved, they will succeed. And they will be able to produce technically excellent negatives and prints…or digital files.
But that is no guarantee that they will produce any photographs of any value. Great photographs, even good photographs, are not created by being technically proficient. Producing good photographs is, in fact, completely independent of technical ability.
I know a number of excellent photographers who have very little understanding of the working of the medium. They let their automatic cameras provide excellent exposures of their very well seen ideas. They make art. They see. They make photos that I want to look at. Sometimes the photos are technically excellent. Sometimes they aren’t. Some of them work with junk cameras like the Holga and make stunningly beautiful photos. I hate Holgas. They are crap cameras and they offend my technical knowledge of photography. I’d much rather hang a soft lens on a good camera and make soft photos…so I do. I don’t have to worry about where and how to apply duct tape to control the light leaks. But, if you master the application of duct tape to a Holga, have you reached some level of mastery of the medium?
So, those of us who do understand photography tend to want to snob it over our less well educated fellow photographers. But it’s false pride. Knowing how the stuff works can make it a bit easier to get the results we are after…and attaining technical mastery can be a fun pursuit…but it doesn’t get you art…or even interesting or useful photographs.
Now, having said all that, I have to say that there is something wonderful about a technically perfect print from a technically perfect negative made by a photographer who is an artist and has something to say. So, I encourage anyone who is making photographs to study and try to master or at least understand the medium of photography. But I’d rather look at an interesting photo made with an automatic camera by someone who doesn’t know an f/stop from hyperfocal setting than a technical masterpiece with nothing to say.
French PHOTO
February 26th, 2007
Home, snowy home
February 25th, 2007
One more for the road
February 24th, 2007
This will conclude Mindy week. I have many more photos of Mindy that I am very happy with. What you saw here this week is simply what happened to be available on my laptop when I decided to start Mindy week in recognition of her tremendous contribution to my work over the past year which resulted in the photo that was published in the current issue of French PHOTO magazine.
Mindy on the rocks
February 23rd, 2007
Strong Mindy
February 22nd, 2007
Mission Accomplished
February 21st, 2007
Today we drive to Destin for a couple days of relaxation, then we drive back home over the weekend. I don’t know how much access to the internet I’ll have during this time, but I’ll post more Mindy photos when I can.
Today’s Mindy photo is from the shoot we did in an empty house that a friend of mine was fixing up. It was a very hot August day and there were no utilities hooked up in the house when we were there…no water and certainly no air conditioning. It was a very hot shoot…and not in the good way…But Mindy worked hard and you can barely tell the temperature was approaching 100F.
Just wait, Iris…you’ll get your chance to sweat…
Mindy in the pond
February 21st, 2007
This photo is a good example of just how far Mindy is willing to go. Many of the models I’ve worked with can testify that I like photos taken with the model in uncomfortable or dirty spots. It just works for the photos I’m after. I always warn models that if they work with me they will get cold and wet and dirty. Many models say no when I suggest something like this pose, and that’s always ok. But Mindy is up for just about anything that will make a photo. Thanks Mindy. Here’s just one of the many photos that Mindy made possible.
