I've been reading photography blogs lately... a lot of them. Some are purely technical, mostly concerning equipment reviews or photography techniques. Others are from professional photographers (those making money in the medium), and still others are about travel and what to photograph while you are there. All of these hold an interest for me for various reasons. I like travel. I like equipment. I like technique. But what has really interested me lately is why we photograph the things we do.
I tend to categorize photographers in one of four ways, and one can very well be any of these at a given time:
After writing this and reviewing my categories, I realized the differences are all about control, not about who is better or more qualified or makes money or, quite frankly, any other irrelevant hierarchy that attempts to "rate" the value of the photographer. There is no right or wrong path. As photographers, we capture that one moment that makes a difference, that makes a statement visually and emotionally. There may be issues with controlling the environment and the amount of preparation changes from one type of photographer to another, but in the end, it’s all about communication. While the casual photographer may not realize it, they are creating the images that people will see most often, now and in the future. With the advent of social media, we are inundated with these kinds of images and the story of our lives will most probably be seen through these lenses. Only time will tell. And there’s nothing wrong with this, taking a snapshot, grabbing the camera phone and quickly recording what is there... some amazing shots can result. This kind of photography gives a hint of an emotion, a record of a place once experienced. It isn't created to be judged on the basis of composition or lighting style, but to show you've done something and it has been recorded. I suppose people want to get “likes” on social media posts, and there is a judgement of a sort there, but for the most part we just want to record our experiences in some way, to somehow experience the moment again, and we can do that very easily now that digital cameras are everywhere. I do it all the time whenever I travel with my family. I want to remember a place and a quick shot is all I really need. Sometimes amazing shots result, but for the most part, these images are just for me to remember my experience. I'm not trying to communicate anything else to anyone else. It just makes a difference to me. I guess you could call it a “communication to self” for future reference. In a studio, the photographer is concerned with posing a model or placing objects for best effect, of lighting to reflect the mood and environment they wish to communicate. They must understand their equipment and control the environment. This takes time and patience as well as planning for just the right mood, just the right effect. The studio environment only has what the photographer brings to it, and their knowledge and attention to detail create a statement, manipulate emotions, produce a vision, seemingly from nothing. What they photograph is dependent on what subject they bring into the studio, whether a model or product or snowflake. They construct what amounts to a communication of hyper-reality, difficult to distinguish from what is apparently real, through make-up, posing, and lighting. That is their art and craft, their reason to create. In environmental photography, you often have to scout an area and see where the light falls, wait for the right time or the right season to get the shadows and the color just right. It is difficult to modify light out in the field and if you do, it has to look like you didn’t. You don’t have the luxury of studio controls... you can’t tell the sun to move a few inches to the right please! Your days may start early and end late, and you can never predict the weather or the circumstances. This takes patience and understanding, and sometimes, a little luck. The photographers vision is highly dependent on the environment they find themselves in, but also on their knowledge of that environment and how it can be photographed. Like a studio photographer, they must bring with them anything used to make the image as well as their technical expertise to control the seemingly uncontrollable. It is this sense of wonder, this non-predictability that drives their creation. Event photographers have a whole allotment of issues to deal with. They are usually outdoors like their landscape counterparts, so all those issues arise. They also have to be personable in order to communicate with their subjects who may or may not be in the mood to be photographed. They may have to deal with specific image requirements expected of them, especially if this is a paying job. They have to be constantly on the lookout for place and position, lighting and shadow, angles and activity. One wrong choice and you have a missed opportunity. If everything falls into place, in that one fleeting moment, magic happens. Their driving force is the rush of movement, the engagement of being there, capturing the mood of a time and place. Whatever personal circumstances brought us to the photographic medium, the reason we remain seems straightforward... a need to communicate our vision, to ourselves and to others. We may be in it for the money, but let’s face it... there are easier ways to make money. We may photograph to capture a moment in our lives, but the image is only a memory, the moment has past. We may want to communicate the wonders of the world, but the photograph is at best a copy, an interpretation of that wonder. With these seeming limitations, why do we photograph the things we do? I would propose that every artist, regardless of medium, has an inner drive to communicate, and the process we choose, the style we develop, and even the limits we place on ourselves, mold that communication for the world to see and experience through our art. Our medium explains the world and helps us to understand it through our photographic process. Maybe every artist is just seeking for an answer, even if unsure of the question. And maybe that is the magic of it all... I certainly hope that it is.
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I've had a couple of posts that deal with what art might be and why I create black and white images. This got me thinking about why I chose photography as my medium, as opposed to architecture or painting or underwater basketweaving or any number of other ways to express oneself. To begin with, I was going to be an architect. This was back in the days of mechanical pencils and vellum, rulers, triangles and drafting compasses. There was no software to plan with and certainly no personal computers to work on. Talk about old school. I loved the mechanics, but there was always something missing, or better put, there was something missing in me. I just could not grasp how to communicate what was in me with the tools at hand. There are many who can and have, but unfortunately, it wasn't for me. So I moved on and dabbled in paint, in graphic arts, in charcoal, in fibers, in metal work, but each had its drawbacks. Although I didn't realize it then, my way of communication was more immediate, more connected to what was in front of me at the moment than what was in my head. I had someone tell me recently that there are two kinds of people... those that are goal driven and those that are resource driven. I am most definitely the latter. Those that are goal driven know where they want to go and plan accordingly. Resource driven individuals don't really worry so much about where they are going... they are very comfortable whenever they get there. If they aren't, they find the resources at that time to move on. That is me in a nutshell, and that is my photography. I don't know what I am going to photograph, the inspiration happens wherever I am. Do I always succeed? Most certainly not, but I've never known a photographer who succeeds 100 percent of the time either. I make images the way I make images. It is what it is. Photography to me is a way to capture a moment, not literally, but interpreted through my thoughts and vision. This is the way I communicate. It is my interpretation of the world that creates the art through the photographic medium. I could not do this with architectural drawings, with painting, or other types of artwork. They slowed me down in a studio or the medium was a slow process in and of itself. I kept losing my way, and they didn't fit me or the way I worked. Photography was different. Shooting with a camera made me go out and find what was there, and once there, I had to interpret what I saw in the moment. I had to wait for the right moment, and once it arrived had to make the image or it would be gone. It was engaging like no other medium was and it fit my restless personality. Once I discovered photography, I began making images to capture the moment, but soon realized there was no such thing as photographing reality. Everything is an interpretation, even images that look like records of events are interpreted. My favorite photographers were the ones that made me realize what they shot was their vision even though everything was supposed to be captured in the moment. Take a look at Ansel Adams' "Mount Williamson - Clearing Storm". Amazing rock formations and heavenly light... it must have been a sight. But turn 180 degrees and you would have seen the Japanese 'War Relocation Center', full of dust and wooden structures that the Japanese Americans who were sent there had to live in. The clearing storm was real, but its photographic interpretation was no more reality that any two dimensional could be real. So what does this mean? Photography, regardless of what one may think, is never "real". It is always an interpretation of what the photographer sees, and this interpretation doesn't capture the moment so much as it captures the experience of the moment. When I photograph, I am trying to capture my experiences through the images that I take. When I transform the image with software, I am putting my vision into the work to evoke what I saw and felt at the time. When I go out and photograph, the process of taking a photo allows me to slow down a bit and appreciate the view, something hard for me to do. I am easily distracted, always jumping from thought to thought, like a bee hopping from flower to flower and never resting. I am able to be in the moment when I am creating a photograph, something I could never master with other media. I enjoy all art, but photography holds a special place, especially black and white images. Now that I have embraced the digital world, I can take my time working with my images in the comfort of my home, no longer chained to a specialized darkroom with little time to do what I love. With digital, there is the added advantage of easily exploring color image making to see where it takes me without breaking the bank. I can explore feeling and expression, playing with light in ways before unreachable due to monetary matters. This freedom of exploration is why I must photograph, why this specific way of communication fits the way I work and who I am. No other medium will do. I was talking to a friend of mine who sells cameras at a local camera store (yes, they still exist!). He was commenting on how film was making a comeback and they had been selling quite a few film cameras of late. I'm not sure why, but if true, it's nice to think a new generation of film and chemistry photographers is finding the joys of film, even if I have taken the digital road.
I began thinking about articles and posts I've been reading describing a new interest in old processes. Although they love film for many reasons, many also feel this type of photography is somehow more important than digital photography. They praise the traditional because it is "art", somehow more significant than anything digital could possibly create. For many years, I shot film and printed black & white in a darkroom - and I loved it. It was satisfying and it was an important way to communicate how I saw the world. But for many, photography was not art. It was either too 'technical' or too easily 'reproduced', which made it anything but art. Now of course, digital has become king of the photography world, while film and chemistry have taken a back seat... except for one place. The art world has elevated traditional photography to the high arts. It is argued that digital photography can't be art as it is too 'technical' and too easily 'reproduced'... wait... What? This attitude has been around for as long as I can remember, and doesn't limit itself to photography. Metalwork, sculpture and fiber arts have all been questioned as to their validity as art. The arguments were always the same and had no more validity then as those same arguments do now. All art has some kind of technical expertise needed. For instance, painters need to understand the mixing of colors and determine what brush to use for a specific effect while working in clay, stone or wood will change the look and texture of a sculpture. Choosing the materials one uses, using a style to evoke a specific emotion, and understanding the medium one works in are all important steps in communication through art. But these steps are not the art itself. Art has nothing to do with the medium you choose. Photography is no different as a medium. Using film and chemicals instead of sensors and software does not make you an artist. These choices are not what makes art. Art has to do with your vision, not your equipment. We, as photographers, have to look at light, interpret what we see, and then make decisions, either with chemistry or with computers, so we will go beyond just recording what we looked at. We must create something that evokes emotion, something that makes a viewer pause and think, that captures a moment in time that will never be quite the same again. If I can press a button and make the same print again and again, how is this different from the mass production of any image? The art is in the capture of light, the choices one makes in the creation of the image and in the emotional impact our work instills in the viewer. So let's stop mistaking the medium with the art and start talking about expression, about emotion, about experiences. That is art. Last time I wrote about the main camera I use when I go out and shoot. Let's see what lens I chose to go with that camera and why. Because of monetary constraints and with the realization that digital imaging is a new experience for me (coming from the film and darkroom world), I did not want to invest in numerous lenses and find out that the entire venture into digital just wasn't for me. After years with film cameras and finally having to sell them off at a loss, I was somewhat wary of moving too fast into a new world. Well, that and I'm cheap. I am sure I will expand my lens choices at some point, but for now I had to decide what kind of lens would offer me the greatest flexibility for the way I tend to make images. I shoot landscapes, which lends itself to a wider view, but also enjoy what my wife kindly refers to as my penchant to shoot dead birds and cracks in walls. What can I say... I'm an artiste. :-) At one point in history, I was forced to shoot prime lenses, which meant carrying two or three lenses with me wherever I went. At the time, zoom lens technology did not have a great zoom range nor did they result in very high quality either with edge sharpness or color shifts. A zoom lens was a bad investment and you got little return on that investment, other than the obvious advantage of only carrying one lens with you. This has changed dramatically in the intervening years. Edge sharpness is superb, the lens quality results in high color reproduction, and they have amazing ranges that far exceed the zoom range of the lenses of old. Since I was spending the money on the X-T1, it was natural to review the lenses Fuji had available. Everything I read, and have read since, has convinced me of the high quality that Fuji invests in their equipment and lenses in particular. I saw no reason to search for third party lenses when theirs was so well made. That said, although they sold a zoom lens with the body as a kit at a reasonable price, it did not have the one thing that I treasure most - a lens that does not change aperture as you zoom. It has always been frustrating having to deal with changing exposures and depth of field as I zoomed from wide fields of view to narrow ones, and I was willing to spend a little extra to avoid these issues. I was fortunate enough to find a sale on both the body and a lens, most probably in preparation for the upcoming X-T2 (although that took a while to actually appear, so maybe I was just lucky). At the time, the lens I was interested in had been selling for around $1300 to $1800 (can't quite remember the exact price), and they were offering it at $900. How could I refuse such a generous offer? The lens in question is the Fujinon XF 16-55mm f/2.8. Like I said, it has an f/stop across its zoom range, but it also has great edge to edge sharpness, which I find critically important. It is also water resistant, which couples well with the X-T1 and my need to shoot outdoors regardless of how wet it is. But my favorite feature, the one thing that makes this old photographer really happy, is its dedicated aperture ring. It took me years to find lenses for digital cameras that had this, and to be truthful, this is what attracted me to the Fuji system in the first place. As I said in an earlier post, I have issues with control dials on the backs of digital cameras and I find it so much easier to control f/stops when they are on the lens. Will I purchase other lenses in future? That depends on how I shoot. The one thing about a zoom lens is... it's big. I find it somewhat incongruous that I have reduced the size of my camera body, but increased the size of my lens. It isn't necessarily unwieldy, but it isn't inconspicuous either. I am concerned this combination may distract me from shooting. This may sound strange, but I sincerely believe your equipment affects how you see and what you end up shooting. Something small and easy to shoot lends itself to quick shooting, while larger equipment slows you down. Slowing down can be good, allowing analysis of composition and thought, but it also can lead to missed shots and opportunities. Whenever deciding on purchasing equipment, always keep that in mind. I am toying with the idea of a smaller prime lens, like the XF 14mm f/2.8 R or even in looking at another body to go with that reduction in size, something like the X-Pro2. But that is something to think about in the future. For now, I'm happy with what I've chosen. Thought I would talk a little bit about what equipment I use and why. You may think I'm doing this to sing the praises of the my stuff and to try to convince you to use it too, but it just isn't so, for many reasons. One, who am I? I don't shoot professionally anymore, and don't use my equipment until it dies from wear and tear, so there is no reason to suggest my view is somehow more informed or my experience so vast that I have more authority over other photographers out there. Two, the type of photography I prefer may not be the type you prefer, and the equipment I choose for those reasons may not be the best for your needs. Three, how I am built (more on that later) and how I approach photography is a big part of the equipment choices I make, and you will need to find equipment that adapts best to the way you shoot. If there is one takeaway from the above, it's that you shouldn't base your equipment purchases on someone else's reviews. Your needs are not necessarily their needs and their conclusions won't necessarily be the conclusions you arrive at either. So... DON'T DO WHAT I DO! Okay... now to the equipment. I'm breaking this post into many... Camera body, Lens, and so on, just for ease of reading. This first one, as you can see by the title, is about the camera body I chose that best suited my individual needs. Your mileage may vary. Camera Body Back in the ancient days of photography, where film was king and chemistry was smelly, I used a Nikon FM2 and later a Hasselblad CF. In other words, I learned photography the old fashioned way... in the dark. Apertures were on lenses, shutter speeds didn't have half or third clicks to them, and I was very happy. Then things changed. For whatever reason, when digital came along, there were some heavy equipment redesigns happening. Camera bodies became bigger and bulkier, wheels and dials started appearing in all kinds of places, and I was not happy. One of my main concerns when choosing equipment is how I am built physically. My right hand thumb doesn't hold on to things well (born that way) so the ergonomic designs were not so ergonomic for me. I simply could not hold the cameras steady and always felt I was about to drop them onto something hard and unforgiving. The control dials on the back of the camera were impossible for me to move without moving the body away from my eyes, disrupting my image making. The entire process became frustrating to the point that I was not enjoying shooting anymore. Digital was not really where I wanted it to be anyway, so I got out of photography for a long while. For years I searched for a body that hearkened back to the designs of old. Then in 2016 I found the camera of my dreams... the Fujifilm X-T1 (I get a kick how they say Fujifilm... what film? It's digital. But I digress...). This was the first digital camera I found that didn't have an obsessive need for size (it's mirrorless, so that saves a lot of space), and f/stops were on the lens that I could actually control with my left hand while adjusting shutter speeds on the top of the body with my right. I finally had a camera that I could work with again. Because it is mirrorless, I am able to carry a lighter system and still get the quality I desire. I'm not getting any younger and I like the idea of carrying around less weight. Yes, I know there are those that believe larger sensors are going to give them much higher quality, and I can't dispute the math, but I have never felt the need to print poster sized images (20x20 was about the max I ever did with my old Hassy) and I rarely if ever crop much, so the smaller sensor works perfectly for me. I just can't find any information that definitively shows that the smaller sensor loses so much detail that it is easily discernible in any reasonably sized print. There are those that will magnify their computer files 1600 percent or more and say "see... See... SEE???", and if your output requires you to make insanely large images, Fuji has a new camera you may be interested in (GFX 50S). For me and the work I do, give me the lighter body weight the APS-C size affords. Beyond that, the camera has a retro kind of feel to it that I gravitate towards naturally. It's easy to hold, easy to use, and the quality of the images are phenomenal. I am sure there are many digital cameras with similar specs to them, so don't run out and buy the X-T1 just on my say so alone. If you need to know the exact specs, click HERE. FYI... Fuji has come out with a new model (X-T2) that has even more great features, but I really see no need to update quite yet. Maybe when they come out with the X-T4 or 5 or Alpha Bravo or whatever. If you are interested in one or the other, I have to say I like what they did with the newer model, but it will cost you. I shoot a lot of landscape type shots and the smaller sensor lends itself to greater depth of field than larger sensors would, so this works very much in my favor. I have never leaned towards that dreamy out of focus look, so sharpness is something I value. You may prefer a larger sensor and even have the resources to splurge on Fuji's new GFX 50S camera, but for me, I'm happy where I'm at. Beyond that, the X-T1 has a lot of presets if you shoot JPEG based on the old Fuji films (Provia, Astia, and so on). I shoot RAW images and don't really shoot for color since I convert most everything to black and white, but I am interested in experimenting with this to see what kind of color results I get. Presets based on their film types makes sense to me... I know what those films used to look like, so I can relate. Picture styles named "landscape", "portrait", "faithful", or "vivid" don't mean a thing to me. Film I understand. "Faithful", not so much. The quality of the images has blown me away. I am quite happy with my choice of camera company. Since I bought the camera, I think I have had four different updates to their software (still can't wrap my head around needing software in the camera... my age is showing!), all free of charge and all improving what I find is an already excellent system. And no, I am not getting paid by Fuji... I am quite sure they have no idea who I am much less have any inclination to pay me a dime! I do have to say Fuji is quite proud of their system, and price accordingly. I was fortunate in getting the camera and lens I did at a very low price of $999 each, a sale I have not seen since. At the time, the body was running $1599 and the lens I chose was around $1800, so under a grand was a comparative steal. Even with the release of the X-T2, the current price of the X-T1 is still $1200... yikes! Again, don't go right out and buy the X-T1 or X-T2 just on what I've written. Go out and do your own research and make an informed decision based on your needs, not mine! |
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