In the last post, I posed the question "If you accept that technical information and a photographers feelings offer little useful information, how can viewing images help you become a better photographer?" The short answer is... it can't.
Let me explain. For information to have any validity, you must have something to base the information on. We don't live in a vacuum, and how we view the world determines what we will accept in that world. The old cliche "I may not know much about art, but I know what I like" only means you are limiting your appreciation to what you know and missing the potential benefits of expanding your photographic range. Viewing a photograph with such limitations will also limit what you can learn from viewing the photograph in the first place. Valid information is not gained just by viewing an image, nor by just studying the jargon and mechanics of photography. These may be useful elements, but are still only part of the answer. Unfortunately, it is as far as many people get, and they miss the rich experiences they could have cultivated if they had gone just a little farther. Case in point... when I was first dragged to museums in my youth, I was bored out of my mind and couldn't wait to get out of there. I had no knowledge of the history of the artist or their times, I had no background understanding of the meaning conveyed by a style or medium of art, and I couldn't appreciate the work involved in the creation of the pieces on display. In essence, I had nothing to base the museum and art experience on. I was like a rocket with fuel but no guidance system, with energy to understand what I already knew but no guidance to appreciate that which I did not. Without at least some understanding of what we are looking at, we run the risk of missing the meaning altogether. The same can be said for studying camera specs and technical information. If this is all you focus on while viewing a photograph, you are a guidance system, full of knowledge, but with no rocket to take you anywhere, and you come away with nothing truly meaningful. The technical aspects may be needed, but they didn't create the image. The image the photographer wanted to create determined the technical needs, not the other way around. Ultimately, creating a photograph requires making choices, and these choices come from two places... knowledge and experience. Knowledge As I said in the previous post, I make choices before I even leave the house, which determines what direction I will follow in my photographic journey. Those choices determine what subject matter I tend to photograph. Yes, you could say a portrait photographer has to make choices based on what is needed to create a portrait, but I would say that choice was made when they chose portraiture as their career, long before the subject was chosen. To be successful, they needed to learn all there was to learn about portraiture, the equipment used, posing and lighting, and so on. In other words, they had to gain knowledge in order to begin creating portraits. Experience It is important to learn the mechanics of photography, and by all means do so. Look up the specs of the camera you are using, read about the different aspect ratios, the sensor sizes, the lenses in a system and how their apertures affect an image. But don't stop there. If you want to understand the visual effects your camera and lens combination will give you, you need to go out and actually take photographs with your own equipment. Understanding the mechanics is all fine and good, but experience with those mechanics will bring your photography to the next level. Deep understanding of the mechanics of photography allows you to focus on the creation of an image. Once you start capturing images, however successful or failed the attempts may be, you have gained the experience needed to understand more than just the mechanics behind a photograph. In turn, these experiences help you shape your choices when creating images, which leads you to more experiences and greater understanding of photography as a whole. With this level of understanding, you can come away with an appreciation of all aspects of a photograph. When viewing another photographers image, you can now gain insights to your own creative process, be it mechanical aspects or experiences you communicate through your photographs. You grow and become better at your craft and in the creation of images that convey significant, meaningful communication.
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