Saw a post on social media the other day about film and digital photography. It posed a question that I think about often. Essentially, it asked if film photography made you a better photographer. The basic idea was film made you slow down because you had a limited number of shots per roll and it took a lot of time to develop and then print images, which in turn made you think and become a stronger photographer.
At first, this seemed reasonable to me. I mean, I had many students who really had to stop and think when they used film, and thinking is good, right? So, case closed. Film is better. End of discussion. Or is it? Back in the days when film was photography and digital was some weird thing they spent millions on to make really bad special effects, I shot 36 exposure 35mm film. As time progressed, I moved to 12 exposure medium format, and yes, this slowed me down and made me really think. The film was more expensive and I got fewer shots per roll, so it stood to reason I had to make every shot count. After a time, I realized I got one really good shot per roll (that means 1 in 36 when I shot 35mm and 1 in 12 when I moved to medium format). With less shots on a roll, I had to slow down and really experience the moment. I had to be better at what I did because I couldn’t afford to be sloppy. So, case closed. Film is better. End of discussion. Or is it? When I was first learning to create images, I had no idea what I was doing. I had to gain experience, and film made me work at it, so it was a great learning experience. I couldn't be sloppy and really had to focus on image making. But to be honest, it also was very limiting. I was constantly worried that my images would be ruined in processing. I didn't want to experiment with different angles and different lighting conditions because I only had so much money I could spend on film and chemistry. I became stingy with my image making, and that lead to stagnation and frustration. When digital came around, I was free to shoot a thousand shots, changing angles, spending time with one subject, experimenting with all kinds of lighting conditions. So, case closed. Digital is better. End of discussion. Or is it? Digital meant I never had to worry about losing a shot or running out of exposures, But that also made me sloppy. I new I could easily delete any image, I could snap away and get something usable, and my images suffered accordingly. I became a vacation snap shot shooter... less interested in making a statement and more interested in just recording whatever was in front of me. The reality was, I wasn't using digital to its full potential. I had to relearn the art of photography using new tools that changed the way I created images. And that was my failing, not the failing of digital imaging. With digital, I can now afford to take every angle of view, change lenses, experiment with ISO, shutter, and aperture, all without feeling limited. But I have to actually do this, not just shoot away in hopes that something will happen. That's the biggest issue I have with digital photography. It's very ease of use makes it too easy to stop caring about creating images. Those of us who learned with film must relearn image making when turning to digital. It's not the same thing. So, case closed. Digital is better. I mean, film is better. No wait, something is better, isn't it? Not really. Film is film and digital is digital. Both can be magnificent in their own right, but both have their limitations too. I can get students to really think with film, but it takes up so much time. On the other hand, I keep having to get students back on track with digital, but the potential is there to experiment without fear. When you first learn photography, you are sloppy, wanting to take images right away and see what you have. You don't have the experience to realize the pitfalls of being sloppy, so digital photography can become a hindrance. You need to learn control, and film gives you that, but it also limits your experimentation and creativity, the very thing digital image making provides. If you can’t take control of the experience, you’re like a rocket with no guidance system — all power but no direction. Film makes you slow down, and slowing down gives you a great guidance system, but, at least for me, I feel I'm missing out somehow. I just can't do everything I want to try to do. Digital gives me the power to experiment and helps me feel like I'm not missing a great shot somewhere, but it doesn't provide the best guidance system when doing so. I need to make that happen. In the end, you need experience. Experience is what guides us to be better photographers... not film, not digital, not cameras or lenses or darkrooms or software or whatever else we come across. With experience, we create our guidance system, ant that is what improves our photography. So, film is better and digital is better... but experience is best. Case closed.
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In the last post, I wrote about having difficulty being present during my film and chemistry days. This happened because my mind was always living in the darkroom instead of the present moment. In this post, I'm interested in discussing what I'm calling "experiential" photography, the idea that you need to be present at the time you are actually creating images in the field, and by doing so, you gain a greater understanding of your surroundings and your photographic work.
My immersion into experiential photography has blossomed in the past year, all because of digital imaging. In this digital era, we no longer have to devote most of our photographic time to processing film and printing images. We no longer have to focus on the work ahead in the darkroom, and that releases us from obsessing over development and procedure (in other words... being somewhere else!). The digital camera has allowed us the freedom to consider expression in the field. This is its strength... the idea that expression is the journey, not the process. Chemical photography is process intensive. Mixing chemistry, worrying about temperatures and times, setting up the darkroom, printing images, making choices about film stock, paper bases, types of darkroom equipment... all of these factors must be in alignment with each other or the entire operation can fail. And it takes time, most of which doesn't involve the actual capture of images! You can argue you are creating the image in the darkroom, but that is my point... you don't create it when you actually take the image. It's all darkroom based, not experienced based. Digital is different. You tend to focus on what is going on right now instead of what is going to need to be done later. You are engaged in the immediate capture of your image, not in the work that is to come later. You will have to edit the image on the computer at some point, but this work seems to have a distance from the actual capture of the image. It somehow feels less burdensome, less time consuming, less hassle. Mixing chemistry, developing film, waiting for it to dry, setting up the trays full of chemicals... it just takes inordinate amounts of time, and as I get older, it is all the more tedious. Computer editing has freed me from all that prep time. I still have to get the images onto the computer, but that's nothing compared to the prep time setting up a darkroom. I have to color balance, crop, align, and make a dozen other choices, but again, nothing compared to spending hours in a darkroom to get that one "right" print. I hear fellow darkroom photographers cringing at my words, but honestly, it's a new day. I don't disparage any who can stand for hours on end creating masterpieces... I'm just ready to do it sitting down. Yet there is more to it other than the physical demands, the time involved, or the processes that must be overcome. The digital world has opened up my eyes to a far greater range of possibilities in the field as I capture images. There is a sense of belonging to the time that I am shooting, a connection with the experience. These are things that got left behind, or at the very least, became minimized, in my film days. There was just too much to do after the image was captured on film to get a final print. My brain was focused on the "after moment", not the present moment. Don't get me wrong... digital imaging is no easy task, and it creates its own set of issues. To create something meaningful has become in some ways a greater challenge than it has ever been. We now have to compete with thousands of images in forums, digital media, and throughout the internet, all posted on a daily basis! The shear amount of images creates a background noise that is difficult to overcome, with artists and creators who would never have gotten a chance to show their work, displaying images that are easily recognized in a matter of seconds. The strength of some of this work is uplifting, but also daunting... how do you compete with such talent? The reality is, you don't. Photography, at least for me, is about self-exploration, not competition. It is about communicating thoughts and ideas through images and exploring the possibilities inherent within the photographic process. Digital imaging has allowed me to be engaged in that creation, which is the whole point. If you get bogged down with the process alone, your experience is about that process, not about interpreting the experience you're trying to capture using that process. There are many images where creation in the darkroom is the whole point... just look at the work of Jerry Uelsmann. For those who find interpretations are best made in a darkroom... great! This is not a competition. One isn't better or more meaningful than the other. Let me remind you of what I said in a previous post... Photography is not about being digital... or about being chemical... or about one being better or more traditional or more real or whatever other inane argument you may see online. I can appreciate film and chemistry for what it is without feeling like I've sold out or abandoned "real" photography. If we want to get down to it, photography started out with daguerreotypes -- positive images on metal. So film negatives aren't real by that standard at all! So there you have it... experience, engagement, exchange of information. Photography in a nutshell. And always remember... there isn't a "real" photography. There's just photography. In the film days, I had no idea what I had captured until it was processed, so whatever I ended up with was something"I meant to do". That's in quotes because it really wasn't so. Whatever the result, I told myself it was the way I wanted the exposure to look. If the image was slightly underexposed, it was because of the light quality at the time, or the image needed to be underexposed to create an atmosphere. If it was overexposed, I convinced myself I had so much film density to work with!
The more I think about it, the more I have come to believe I was fooling myself. I was fixing errors in the darkroom because of how I shot the image on film. Sure, I love the work I did and I am satisfied I accomplished what I wanted to at the time, but my time was spent in the darkroom, understanding every aspect of an image from an 'after I shot it' perspective. When I was out capturing images, I understood light and how it affected a scene, I saw shadows and the play of light, but my mind was on how I was going to interpret that scene in the darkroom, not on appreciating what I was viewing and interpreting in the field. Since my mind was somewhere else, I photographed with the understanding I would change it later. Nothing wrong with interpretation of course... we do it all the time. But I think I might have lost the opportunity to interpret a scene at the moment of taking the photograph. Instead of appreciating a scene just for the scene itself, I was altering it in my mind, although I don't think I realized that at the time. I became disconnected from what was around me so I could interpret it later in the darkroom. I wasn't living in the moment, or better put, I was altering the moment to be exclusively a photographic one, not an experiential one. I've seen online discussions about how we alter our experiences because of our photographic practice. Many believe they need to convince you to leave your camera at home to appreciate an experience. I can't fault them for saying this... they miss out on the experience of just being there because they focus on the photographic process instead of the journey of photographic communication and interpretation. If that is how you are, then I agree... leave that burdensome box at home! That said... to be present in the moment and to also interpret that moment with my camera is as close to paradise as I'll ever experience in this world. The camera is my way of experiencing something greater than myself, something special and unique. If anything, photography has given me an insight about the world, one that helps me appreciate my experiences. I cannot count the times I have traveled without a camera and completely ignored the world around me. I was too busy doing whatever I was doing and getting to wherever I was going. I didn't take the time to slow down and appreciate the magic around me. The camera forces me into the experience, not away from it, and the process of creating an image makes me appreciate these experiences all the more. I've been thinking a lot about digital imaging these days and how it compares with the chemistry days of photography. Anyone who has read my journal posts (is anyone reading them?) know I lost heart for a long time when digital took over the photography world. That experience changed me in a lot of ways, not always for the better. But with the passage of time, and a lot of soul searching, I have found digital imaging to be a wonderful way to communicate my vision and thoughts photographically.
It may not appear so, but the way we work with digital images has a lot in common with how we used to work with film. There are the technical aspects of course, shutter speeds and apertures still control the amount of light and the effect one gets in an image... it's just on an electronic sensor instead of a silver film base. We still use light-tight boxes (cameras) and optical focus devices (lenses) to capture the scene, and we still need to somehow develop these images to view them. Of course, we don't need to stand in a darkened room smelling chemicals and getting stained clothes as we process film or create prints, but we are still "developing" when we color balance or edit our images with computer software. There is one great difference I have found that is beneficial to the photographic process, at least for me. Without the burden of spending countless hours processing film and printing in the darkroom, I find myself more focused on the thinking behind capturing and creating an image at the actual time of creation... in the field. This may seem counter intuitive to those that believe the image is created in the darkroom or on the computer as it seems reasonable to believe the more time spent editing, the more you are interpreting an image. Although I agree that does happen, I don't believe ALL creation comes from this post processing phase. Regardless of how long you take or your expertise in the editing process, the foundations of what you have to work with are set when you capture the image on film or with sensor, and the more you have to work with, the greater the result can be. Photography is not about being digital... or about being chemical... or about one being better or more traditional or more real or whatever other inane argument you may see online. I can appreciate film and chemistry for what it is without feeling like I've sold out or abandoned "real" photography. If we want to get down to it, photography started out with daguerreotypes -- positive images on metal. So film negatives aren't real by that standard at all! If anything, photography is about communication and about interpreting. It's about feeling, about emotion, about understanding, not chemistry and sensors. 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! You have to ask yourself, what is photography? If it isn't the equipment, if it isn't the technology or the digital manipulation, what is it? Since the beginning days of photography, we have recorded the light, or to put it another way, we have recorded how we see light and its effects on our surroundings. In this way, we communicate not only what we are looking at, but what we see and how it feels. When we take a photograph, we are creating an image by recording light (and its conjoined twin shadow). The way light falls on an object, the shadows it creates, make a two dimensional image seem like it has texture, that it has depth, that it has substance. How we position ourselves in relation to this light creates the forms we see, can give us a sense of movement, of direction. We can lead a viewers eye by the way we place lines and shape, how we manipulate both positive and negative space in an image, and in that way we form the moods and interpretations of what we have photographed. We go beyond simple recording of a subject, endeavoring to place more into our images by how we record and interpret a scene. All of this is through the control of light. Without light, we don't have a photograph. Photography, after all, means light drawing. If we strip away the technology and our notions of what we think we are supposed to be doing, we are left with light as the image making component. We do have to think about shutter speeds and exposures, apertures and depth of field, all the technical bits, but in the end, all we really have is light. And if we can train ourselves to actually "see" light, not just accept it as an illumination, to actually see how it falls on an object, how it shapes it, forms it, and in so doing, how it moves us, we can be truly successful in our photographic image making. But to see light is incredibly difficult. That can't be true, can it? What I mean by "see light" is not just to "look" at light, but to actually see what it is doing to a scene. A cloudy diffuse light illuminates in a very different way than does the sharp contrast of full sun. The colors of a sunrise are very different from those at high noon, or those in the rain. Seasons can change the way light hits an object or the colors you see, and the lights direction changes how a shadow falls on the ground to form shapes and negative space. We are in essence blind to light because it is everywhere and we take it for granted, thinking of it only as a thing that illuminates what we are looking at. We have to train ourselves not just to look at a scene, but to see how light has helped us interpret what is there. Light is everything. It is shape and form and texture. It is color or the lack thereof. It makes things smooth and soft or sharp and harsh. Once we begin to really see this, once we begin this process of seeing and not just looking, we begin to get a feel for the light and how it changes everything. Back in the late 1800s, the painter Claude Monet created a series of paintings of the Rouen Cathedral in France. He painted it at different times of the day, at different times of the year. Each painting, always from the same perspective, is very different from the next because Monet wasn't painting the Rouen Cathedral at all. He was painting light. He captured the colors, the textures, the atmosphere present in that scene because he saw light instead of taking it for granted as an illumination source. The effects of the light were what was important, and that is what makes these paintings what they are... the capture of light in all its variety. When we photograph, we are doing the same thing, and in my view, even more so. – Our paint is not made up of an emulsion of minerals, but is the light itself. – Our palette is formed not by mixing colors, but by the shapes, textures, forms and colors light creates in a scene. – Each decision we make, each angle we choose to shoot from, each time we point our lens, changes how light affects what we see. As did Monet, when we take a photograph, we have to do more than just look at a scene. We must see it as light, and then choose how we are to interpret that light through our photographic practice. In this way, we go beyond recording. We create something new, something greater than before. We imbue perceptions, reactions, the sensations of light and feeling. In a way, we capture the light, a moment in time that will never be the same again, and bring it to life through the lens of our view. I came into lynda.com training just to pass the time, with some small hope of a better understanding of digital processes. I wasn't expecting much of anything, and most certainly wasn't expecting to be inspired by what I found online. I was sure the most effective courses, if there were any, would be about the technical aspects of digital equipment or the digital manipulation of images.
But what I found was a mind full of preconceived ideas – ideas of what digital was and of how inferior it had to be to what I once loved. Photography for me was chemistry and film, taking up long hours in a darkroom processing light sensitive paper to get the images I sought. I could not conceive of a photographic image made outside of these parameters... of these constraints. I had to let go of my negative conceptions of the digital world, but I had spent so much time thinking photography was dead, that it had changed so much, that it just wasn't "real" photography anymore. This must have been how the first daguerreotypists felt as their techniques were being replaced by glass plate negatives... damn I'm old. But once I let go and just went with the flow, I found myself becoming interested, then intrigued, and then inspired by what I saw and what I was learning. The funny thing is, what was inspiring me most weren't the technical aspects at all. Now don't get me wrong... these lessons were invaluable. I saw what was possible digitally and I learned all about the new technology available to the modern photographer. My new camera, the Fujifilm X-T1 had f/stops on the lens and a shutter speed dial just like my old film cameras did. Adobe Lightroom manipulated a digital image much like filters and darkrooms allowed me to do long ago. But these lessons were the things you had to know to manipulate images in a digital world. They weren't photography per se. They were the tools used with photography, the stuff you needed to make images. What really inspired me was something far more fundamental and far more essential. It was the courses on the photographic experience, those photographic concepts I already knew about, but which had gone by the wayside after so many years without, that truly made me reevaluate, made me think, made me excited to see photography as I once did when I first started. The simple acknowledgement of what photography is, its composition, its view of the world, its most basic qualities, made me realize what I had lost and what I could gain again. Getting back to basics, to the core of what something is – this is what inspires us most. All the technical advances, all the tools and flashy equipment... these are just window dressing, a way to get us interested. But in the end, without the understanding of why we do what we do, it's just that... window dressing, with no real substance. You've heard people use the idiom "I've seen the light!", and usually they mean something like "I finally understand", or, "I see it clearly now". But what does that have to do with photography? Well, pretty much everything.
After many years learning and using film photography as my medium, everything changed to digital, and I pretty much got out of taking photos for money or for myself. Oh, I had the mandatory PHD camera (press here dummy!), surviving on vacation snaps, for what they were worth, but stopped working on my personal image making altogether. Times had changed, I had moved on (or so I thought), and life progressed as it does. Recently I have found myself with some time on my hands and with access to lynda.com training, which is a wondrous combination for someone in my situation. Searching for interesting topics, I found a series on the "Foundations of Photography", and thought it might be good for refreshed look on how to explain basic photo concepts, or at least good for a laugh. After just a few minutes I realized how much more it was. I began about my photo work, what I wasn't doing with it, and wondering why I had stopped in the first place. Digital imaging has progressed so much over the last few decades as to be unrecognizable to that monstrous thing that replaced my precious film and chemistry so long ago. The advent of Lightroom and its powerful tools for manipulating a photographic image (so much like the old darkroom days), the technology that has far surpassed its primitive beginnings (remember $1000 two megapixel cameras?), and the joy of seeing new digital cameras based on old designs (with actual shutter speed dials on the body and apertures on the lenses!) have made this curmudgeon want to start photography all over again with fresh eyes and new inspirations. So I have now voraciously sucked up a couple of dozen lynda.com courses, from the very basics of composition and digital equipment use to understanding the intricacies of Lightroom and Photoshop. Each and every one of these videos has had something to say, some kind of insight or new perspective to teach. The most amazing thing about all of this? What I thought was going to happen... didn't. |
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