This article was first posted on my old blog three weeks ago.
“Oooh what a lovely photo, you must have a really good camera”
If I had a pound for every time I’ve heard that over the past eight years I would be enjoying a prolonged visit for myself and said equipment to some exotic location.
Imagine standing in front of a Monet or a Rembrandt and saying ‘how lovely, he must have had great brushes’ or better to a top chef ‘ that meal was fantastic, you must have a brilliant oven’. You wouldn’t dream of it but for some reason the camera gets the credit for a photographers work. The scouting for the perfect viewpoint, the choices around lens length, aperture, height from the ground, focal point, assessing tonal contrast, colour temperature and the perfect balance of these. The careful control of depth of field and understanding its effect on exposure time. The skilled use of neutral density filtration to balance light across the image. And then choosing the precise moment to press the shutter and record the scene pre-visualised in our minds eye. Skills developed over many months and years and practised whenever possible, just as a chef would spend thousands of hours in the kitchen developing a fine menu.
Give me the finest ingredients in the best kitchen and I wouldn’t be able to cook like Raymond Blanc. With the best paint brushes in the world I could do little more than doodle and handed my camera most people would produce the same quality of stuff they do now with their built in phone cameras.
Two image below taken within minutes of each other. One with an Ebony 45su Field Camera, 90mm Schneider Super Angulon lens, filters, tripod and Fuji Velvia film, the other with a Ricoh Caplio R4 6mp compact, handheld. The main difference is that one can be printed 8×6″ before the quality drops away while the other can go to 48×60″ and fill a sizeable wall space. My detailed research, reconnaissance, assessment of the prevailing weather conditions etc put me in the right place at the right time with the right skills to make these images work.
Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s all about educating the public to realise that there is a whole lot more to making a photograph than simply being out with a camera and capturing a moment. I don’t expect the average man in the street to understand the thought, craft and skill involved in making consistantly good images but I hear the same comment from photographers too, most recently two days ago following the launch of this site.
Hello Richard,
I have been quietly – almost clandestinely – following your blog for a while now and following your heartfelt cry on Landscape GB I thought I would come out of the shadows and post a reply. Not only do we have fantastic cameras when the pictures come out well, but we are not very god photographers when they don’t. Justice? Not in the photographic world
Great articles and posts and superb photography – please keep both coming! Rgds., Adam
Hi Richard–Well said! I completely agree with you on this. I am not a professional photographer, but it’s my favorite occupation when I’m not working. I haven’t been at it very long and I have so much to learn…but even I’ve heard this comment several times on some of my better images.
This article could be the speech i give to my friends, prospective customers, family , and not a small amount of potential photographers when they ask me the same question… I usually start with…”first, you get up at 4am… (thats when you usually lose most of them)… and you walk five miles…”..
It made me smile to see your analogies , that I will now use, to an artist and a chef…
My belief is that you make an image on the previous visit… I often think, ‘this would be excellent in this light… or that weather’, and the seed is sown, planted in the brain for the ‘perfect’ (optimal) conditions for that all to come together, weather, light and, of course… time off work…
Thanks David and Pam,
I believe that the vast majority of people (including those with digital slrs since they have become affordable) don’t realise the importance of pre-visualisation. For the most part their photography is reactionary and this is why it often lacks strong composition. Relying instead on the impact provided by strong light and colour but as a consequence mostly failing to provide lasting appeal to the viewer. I often make successful photographs on my first visit to a location but these images still require pre-visualisation because the composition has to come first. Having fully set up I wait for my ideal light to arrive, meter the scene as quickly as I can and filter accordingly. Of course the weather rarely plays ball and I have learned to adapt over the years and to go and look for something else instead(detail studies, coffee and cake etc) making a mental note to return for my initial idea at a future date.
I think might sum up the frustration: http://www.whattheduck.net/strip/95
Love it. Thanks for the link
I like this article, I feel your pain too – it’s obviously always the camera that does the work…
Alain Briot talks about the same thing in one of his books – ending descriptions of one of his pictures with the following –
“The light and shadow situation happens only at a specific time of the year. I planned to be there on that day, and the only thing that could have prevented me from capturing the scene were clouds obscuring the sun. Clouds there were but they parted just in time for the sun to shine at sunset and cast the shadows I wanted to capture. I used an excellent lens.”