It's All About The Camera

     ''I really love your pictures. You must have a really good camera'' That is probably one of the most irritating, backhanded compliments a photographer can hear. Yup. It's all about the camera . I'm just the support staff. I just haul the damn thing around. Usually I just respond with a somewhat snide, ''Yeah. I taught it everything it knows.'' 

                                                                                                  

Manitoulin Sunrise
A shot I took on an eighty dollar Kodak digital
camera that I bought on sale at a Canadian Tire store

    You would be hard pressed to find a creative activity that relies  more on  technology than photography or filmmaking. I mean, someone whose favourite pastime is knitting, is capable of creating clothing with nothing more than a couple of long straight needles and some skeins of yarn. I know that I don't have the knowledge or skill set to perform that task.  Perhaps the non photographic crowd can be forgiven for thinking that, in the field of photography, it's the camera that does the lion's share of the work.  

    It was George Eastman, founder of the Eastman Kodak Company who, in 1888, coined the slogan, ''You press the button, we do the rest.'' Thus, photography was simplified for a massive market. That simplification has resulted in a perception of photography as a straightforward process of simply aiming a camera and pressing a button. That perception is valid if the intended result is nothing more than a snapshot for the family photo album. (Does anyone keep a family album anymore? Or do photo collections  exist solely on the hard drives of computers or the memory banks of cell phones?  Perhaps in a future post I'll make a case for printing as the best way to save important Images.) 

   

Snapshot of Greg and me after a sightseeing flight
over Georgian Bay. Matt, the guy who took the picture,
is a very good photographer and is really  really good at
flying airplanes!

    Don't get me wrong. I'm not disparaging the value of the family snapshot. Like most people, I have a lot of photos of family and friends taken during various events and celebrations. They are some of the most important images in my collection. However, I would not put them forward as stellar examples of the photographic craft.  To move beyond the basic snapshot requires some knowledge, a photographic skill set and, yes, ideally, a slightly more sophisticated camera.

 Emphasis more on the knowledge and skill set  than the camera. While working in several camera shops I had customers with top of the line professional series cameras who couldn't take a decent photo if their life depended on it. I also had customers who were doing amazing stuff with nothing more than a basic camera purchased second hand. As in all forms of human creativity, the tool is only as good as the person behind it.

     Ultimately, almost every photograph is a snapshot. Consider the minimal amount of time required to press a shutter button. Consider also that the subsequent exposure of light to film or to an electronic light sensor is usually measured in a fraction of a second. Making a photograph is really just the final act of what is (hopefully) an assiduously applied process. Perhaps my earlier comment about schlepping the camera around is rooted more in reality than it is in sarcasm. Almost every photographer I know owns several camera bags. We're obsessed with camera luggage! You know that you're in a good camera shop when the camera bag section is almost as big as the section for cameras and lenses!  A photographer with any experience knows that much more time is spent carrying the equipment than actually using it. Even a studio photographer is probably going to spend more time setting up lights and backdrops than actually shooting. Photography is really about what the viewer doesn't see. It's about the time spent in the process of getting the shot. 

    Here's an example.

    The picture above is an image that I've seen in my mind hundreds of times. It's an image of one of my kitchen chairs illuminated by the under-cabinet light over the sink in my kitchen. I liked the shadows cast by the dowels of the chair from  the single light source. For quite a while I would see this little scene while passing through the kitchen to the front door of ny scruffy little home. Each time, I told myself, ''I want to photograph that.''  Simple enough, right?

    Okay, to start with, the little light under the kitchen cabinet was not really powerful enough for photographic purposes. However, introducing another light source would reduce the effect of the shadows cast by the chair back. I could open up the lens aperture to gather more light, but that would reduce the depth of field (area of acceptably sharp focus) in the shot. I wanted  both the chair back and the shadows to be reasonably well defined. I could shoot at a high ISO (increase the camera sensor's sensitivity to light) but that would reduce the overall resolution of the shot. Solution? Put the camera on a tripod to steady it and allow the use of a longer shutter speed with the lens stopped down and a low ISO. Problem; Using the tripod with the shot as originally planned, introduced an unwanted shadow into the frame from the sole light source. Solution? Shoot from the opposite side of the chair into the light source. Problem; The kitchen table is in the way. Solution? Reduce the height of the tripod and mount it on the kitchen table. Problem; Can't see the focusing screen of the camera when mounted on the table. Solution? Stand on another kitchen chair to look down into the focusing screen on the camera. Problem; Having the camera and tripod on the table changed the overall framing of the shot. Solution? Take the camera off the tripod and change lenses on the camera. And on it went....

     Kind of a lot to simply make a photograph of some shadows and a kitchen chair. I probably spent the better part of an hour at it. Not to mention some time spent in post processing the image. Overall, I'm not really happy with the shot. I'll probably shoot it again with some minor changes. Yeah, I know. I'm a tad obsessive.  But if I have the knowledge and equipment to make an image in my mind's eye a reality, why not do it? It's the attention to detail that makes the difference between a good photograph and a merely adequate one. But hey, it's all about the camera. Or so I'm told.

My first camera. An Imperial Instant Load 900.
 I bought it with grocery store coupons when I was 9 years old.  

                                                                                                                                                                           ''I really like your pictures. You must have a really good camera.''  ''Yes. I was lucky to get it. Now I'm in the market for a hammer that drives nails straight and a guitar that plays beautiful music.''

        ...more later

    

    

         

    

    

         

Waiting

     We're all waiting.  It's a new year. (relatively)  South of the border, there's a new president in the white house. Vaccines to prevent the spread of the coronavirus have been approved and, albeit with some glitches, are being rolled out and administered. But still, all of us are in some form of lockdown and we're all waiting.                                                                                   

    But maybe it's not so bad. Maybe what we've all needed is  a time out. I'm still in the process of backing up files from my old laptop. In doing so, I've probably deleted more files than I've saved. Do I really need twenty photos of the same sunset? Pick the best one of the group and move on. Am I ever going to use that photo of the flower which is not quite right? Hey, it's a pretty good shot. But by my standards, ''Pretty ain't good enough!''  I mean,  the subject was beautiful but did I do a really good job of capturing its essence? I know that I could probably spend some time in Photoshop or some other post processing program trying to enhance it enough to save it. But to what end? For a handful of ''likes'' on social media? Does a heavily doctored picture really represent who I am or who I aspire to be as a creator of visual images? .........Delete! 

     This exercise of going through old photos has been something of a revelation to me, both as a photographer and as a human being. What is the criteria for saving an image from the past?  Though photography is one of the most immediate forms of human creativity, every picture is an image of the past as soon as the shutter closes and the picture is taken. To my mind, for a photograph to be successful, it has to have historical significance or  have a timeless quality to it.

     Regarding historical significance, almost all pictures of family and friends are saved. Also saved are pictures of community events, images of streetscapes whether local or taken on my travels. Even if the value they possess is questionable now, they might be of interest or have some historical value in the future.

    In regards to the timeless quality, I'm entering an area where the criteria is more subjective. Does the image elicit an emotional response?  Will  it peak the interest of the viewer? In regard to the first two questions is a third one. Does it do it well? Often it's that last question which keeps my cursor hovering over the delete button.                                                                                 

    That immediacy of photography is the craft's greatest strength and also its greatest weakness. In going through the hard drive of my old laptop, the question that keeps coming to mind is ''Why did I take so many shots of such a boring subject?'' The truth of the matter is that the subject wasn't boring. It was  my  approach and technique (or lack thereof) that rendered a boring image. If it is true that  American street photographer Garry Winogrand was right. ''Everything is photographable.''  The better question I should be asking is ''Why did I fail to capture the essence of my subject?'' or ''What could I have done to make the image better?''  Better yet, I should be asking that question while still in the field with the subject right in front of me. It would save me the process of examining and deleting twenty expendable images later.

     So the upshot of this exercise is this. I've got to stop being so lazy when it comes to the editing process. Otherwise my collection of photos becomes just a clutter of lacklustre images with, hopefully, a few gems hidden in the mix. I put out a post a while ago about shooting with intent. https://refractivereasoning.blogspot.com/2019/06/shooting-with-intent.html  I need to start doing that more in my own work, both while out shooting and in the editing process. As New Year's resolutions go, at least photographically, that's a pretty good one.. 

    To quote the great Imogen Cunningham, ''Which of my photographs is my favourite? The one I'm going to take tomorrow.''

            ...more later

    

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