----- Original Message ----- From: "Rob Studdert" Subject: Re: Digital Photography
> On 3 Feb 2004 at 17:42, Shel Belinkoff wrote: > > > Technical data doesn't make a strong image. > > Nor does the quality of a B&W print. I have seen some very strong images ruined by poor printing. I am of the opinion that technical data is one of the things that intrudes like a bull in a China shop into photography. A photograph is just an image on paper. On it's own, a basely simple object. A flimsy artifact covered with some sort of chemical soup. Does the nature of that soup matter to the photographer? Well yes, of course. Does the photographer really need to know the chemical composition? Not really, though a passing knowledge will probably prove useful. Nothing we are doing with this stuff is really all that complicated. We push a button. Some time later, we have a photograph. It's really pretty easy, no matter what pople like to think. Light reflects off an object, and we have to get the right amount of light to some sort of light gatherer. There are but three controls to do this. And another control to tell the camera when to do it's thing. To make these 3(THREE!!!!) controls work, we are now faced with multiple buttons, little screens and interactive menu tools. We have viewfinders with flashing lights, drums and marching bands, and a few baton twirlers on the more expensive ones. And why do we have this? So we can take 500 images to get one keeper. Of course, to get that one keeper, we have to wade through 499 other pictures. Like this is makes any sense at all. I think what makes more sense is to control ones urge to take 20 pictures where 2 will do. Then, when you go to look at your work at the end of the day, you can sit down, relax, and really look at everything you have done, really do justice to the process, and really learn what works and what doesn't. When you have 499 pictures to look at, the tendency is to look only at what works, and do that in a perfunctory fashion. The tendency is to not learn from your mistakes, just to ignore them. And repeat them ad nauseum. I think if you want to learn how to take pictures, then a digital camera and a few gigs of storage is great. I think if you want to learn how to make photographs, you need to make the time, and take to really look at photographs. Both your own, and those of other artists. I think you need to look at images that both delight and repel, for knowing what doesn't work, or what you don't like, is as important as knowing what works, and what you like. I think you need to build up an "image database" of pictures in your head, not your hard drive. I think you need to spend more time looking at your subject, learning about it, and understanding it. You don't do that by putting a camera between you and what you are looking at. If you are taking more pictures than you can comfortably critique, you should think about taking less pictures, and looking at more. Photography isn't technical data, it is how light reflects off of objects, it is shadows, and colours, and shapes. Knowing what light does is the real mastery of photography. What light does has nothing to do with cameras, really. William Robb
