How to improve our images

Moderator: if you feel the need to move this post, please go ahead.

I just don't know where to post it except here.

 

I found this link on a very equipment oriented site

 

http://www.cameraquest.com/improve.htm

 

I found it very funny and nicely written.

 

But then I started to think about Ansel Adams and John Schaefer

books. They made me understand that the world of photography was not

only made of snapshots. How photojournalism profoudly affected the

way people imagined war in the mid-1800s, how the first landscape

photographers enabled people to satisfy their curiosity about the

world:

 

"The achievment of the early landscape photographers seem the more

remarkable when you consider the condition under which they were

forced to work. In addition to cameras and lenses, a portable

darkroom tent also had to be carried into the field. It usually

required sevral animals to transport all the equipment. Glass plates

were prepared on site, exposed, and immediately developed. If the

negative was satisfactory, the glass plate had to be dried and

wrapped securely for the long trip home; breakage was a constant

danger. Yet out of this era came images that have never been

surpassed" J. Schaefer, Basic techniques of photography, page 15.

 

Well my point here is that maybe we should slow down a little, take

more time, (disable all the automations as Stephen Gandy says), feel

the life around us... before tripping the shutter (BTW digital

cameras don't help since it does not cost anything, no film, no

development, to take a picture anymore). Our pictures should

improve.

 

Just a thought.

 

Cheers.

 

P.S. The chapter ﾓThe Language of Photographyﾔ of Basic Thechiques

of Photography, Book 1, and ﾓThe Expressive Photographic Printﾔ of

Basic Thechiques of Photography, Book 2 from P. Schaefer are worth

reading to me.

When there were fewer photographers about, they had, for want of a better word, more exposure. The fact that, by nature of the effort involved to obtain photos, they had to be far more didicated as photographers probably helped ensure that those of lesser talent fell by the wayside.

 

With the proliferation of cheap afforable technology, and the massive 'flood' of photography bombarded at us from all angles, we are probably less likely to be aware of those whose work is of comparable quality to 'the pioneers', but I would hazard that there is probably more good photography occurring now than then, purely because of those numbers - of course there is also far more poor photography too. Woods for the trees kind of situation.

I think the key is to give some thought to your photography. The forerunner of mindless autofocus was mindless fixed focus. If you take a person that has always used a fixed-focus (oops, "focus free") camera and give them an autofocus autoexposure camera, they'll probably have better shots than ever before. Surely not as good as they COULD be, but those autofocus features don't hold them back- it's the lack of thought in the first place. So sure, someone that wants to improve their photography should learn all about focusing and exposure, manual and auto, but just sticking to manual everything won't do the trick by itself.

There's a tendency in small, self-selecting groups to consider themselves an elite and to come to believe that their views have greater validity than those of the majority. This is certainly true when it comes to photography. It may be humiliating that Uncle Jack's digital pictures are more highly esteemed than your artistic efforts with a manual [insert name of camera here] but it may just be that Uncle Jack's snapshots are more relevant to the viewers than your artistic [select type of photography here]. Personally, I'm really impressed with many of the pictures I see from casual snapshotters. The content is the thing and modern technology is giving more people than ever the chance to make images of the things they're interested in.<div></div>

Although I don't believe in the blast-away-and-hope-something-works approach to

photography, I don't think slowing down and abandoning technology is necessarily the

answer, either.

 

For me, photography has some parallels to golf. When the club feels great in my hands

and everything is right in my head, things start to soar. It's a rhythm thing.

I think new technology helps to make better photos. I bought lots of old film cameras and lenses thinking I would improve by learning from what has come before, but really what I needed to work on (and still do) is the content and the motivation of a photo.

The technology is no longer my concern, but to use what you can use is a good idea, methinks. Generally, digital is cheaper and therefore frees me up to express what I need to explore. Slowing down is a very good idea though, I will try it.

 

Cheers.

When shooting medium format transparencies that cost nearly $2 each for the film and developing, you can be sure I'm very careful when I click the shutter -- maybe too careful sometimes.

 

If digital could equal the quality of image I get, I'd happily make the switch, not considering the investment in bodies and lenses I'd lose. However, until that day comes, the discipline imposed by cost considerations has made me, I think, a better photographer by keeping the question, "why am I making this picture?" in mind. Admittedly, this approach keeps me from doing a lot experimentation that might just yield a serendipity or two. But, it fits in well with my habit of pre-visualization and so I guess I'm stuck with it for a while.

Dick

 

'When shooting medium format transparencies that cost nearly $2 each for the film and developing, you can be sure I'm very careful when I click the shutter -- maybe too careful sometimes.'

 

The frame price will never ever improve your picts, no matter how high or low it is. Mass shooting will also leave one's main empty if it was with single shooting. I have 36 frames for months in my camera so what is the price. But 'nearly' each frame is GOOD.

 

I think that secret of improvment is in talent and hard work away from equipment. If photography is practeced as filling time after regular work, it will always be that and never ever more. It is possible to get fortune shoot but to be more succesful relates to consistency of everything connecting with photography.

 

I love my cameras, lenses, ..., but in producing any of my picture I can say that technology work (or involvment) is about 0.1 percent of time summ spent on making photograph.

"I think that secret of improvment is in talent and hard work away from equipment. "

 

I wasn't suggesting, Daniel, that there was necessarily a correlation between the cost per frame and the quality of the output, but rather that it tends to make me more discriminating when I make the exposure. That in itself, I feel, does lead to a higher percentage of good shots.

 

I don't think your statement was meant to exclude the "nuts and bolts" of photography, was it? I agree with what you suggest as far as concentrating our development on the aesthetic aspects of the art, rather than the mechanics. However the two are so closely integrated that we always have to keep both in mind or one of them will suffer. Artistic talent without competent execution will be "love's labor lost."