is it hard to develop the aristic side of photography now?

<p>It used to be you picked up you camera put it to your eye the viewfinder turned the lens into focus. The viewfinder showed you pretty much what was going to be on the film. You then used a couple different methods of determining the proper exposure based on the way you wanted the scene to look. And at the instant you pressed the shutter button you captured the scene.<br>

Now there are so many choices so many settings so many different ways to mess up or shoot the scene differently. Not to mention if it's messed up looking (exposure, composition, etc) you just keep turning dials and pushing buttons and the shutter until you either get what you thought you wanted the scene changed or you get bored and move on to the next.</p>

<p>YES I am over dramatizing to make a point. Beside the growing train of thought that you can buy your way into good photo's I see fewer and fewer people who could even explain how aperture shutter speed and Iso setting interact to create a proper exposure. Yet those same people have a Professional level camera and professional level lenses.</p>

<p>Does this strike anyone else as an odd turn of events?</p>

<p>I'm not saying the unbelievable photo's can't be taken with a camera with 47 AF points 87 different spot meter reading averaged by a computer with ten times the power the commuters that sent man to the moon had that it can take 20 min of reading the manual to try to figure out why this or that light/LED/LCD of Icon is flashing in the middle of the viewfinder.<br>

All one has to do it take a look through the galleries here on photo.net to know that amazing photography exists.</p>

<p>I just find myself more and more wondering where the art went. The art of judging a scene or seeing the finished print (without 2 hours of fiddling with PS) before the shutter button is tripped.<br>

Maybe I have answered to many questions that could have been answered with the Line "read the manual"<br>

OK silly Sunday morning rant over.</p>

<p>The real job of a camera is to keep out of the way between your artistic vision and the final print. If it can do that through automation, that's good. There's really no need for an artist to know what an aperture is.</p>

<p>Of course photography is a technical pursuit for some, rather than just an artistic endevor, but for the pure artist, high powered automated cameras are a plus, as long as they keep out of the way. Set it to auto everything and shoot.</p>

<p>I'm a technical guy, so I set it to Av and center AF point most of the time!</p>

<p>Good vision will beat technical expertise almost all the time.</p>

<p>I would say no. The cameras have taken care of so much of the technical side of photography that the photographer can concentrate on the artistic. The quick review (call it "chimping" if you must) gives you feedback on exposure and focus. You're certainly free to set the camera to manual focus and manual exposure, I do that quite frequently.<br>

Yes, there remains the issue that the exposure comp you set for one shot gets accidently carried over to the next. That does require some attention.<br>

"...the commuters that sent man to the moon..." By paying their taxes?</p>

<blockquote>

<p><strong>I just find myself more and more wondering where the art went. The art of judging a scene or seeing the finished print (without 2 hours of fiddling with PS) before the shutter button is tripped.</strong></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Art has evolved and exists even stronger. Art is still an aesthetic product (albeit the majority being non realistic) resulting from intentionally arranging components to affect the senses or emotions.<br>

<br /> Art is still evaluated based on it's degree of character regardless if it is straight out of the camera or manipulated in Photoshop (or it's equivalent).</p>

<p> </p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Yes, there remains the issue that the exposure comp you set for one shot gets accidently carried over to the next. That does require some attention.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That's why RAW was invented, so you could screw up your exposure and white balance and still get usable images...</p>

<p>Hey Mark,<br>

Settle down . . .<br>

I do know where you are coming from however . . .<br>

When I made the transition from film to digital and since, I don't feel that I am in control as much as I was with film, although I am still doing basically the same thing. I also have to admit that the "high" or "low" of getting the developed film back is just not the same!</p>

<p>Back in the mid-70's I sold some of my photography, but then I had a couple of things going for me. One, I was into underwater photography and not many were into that yet! Two, I was in the military which afforded me the opportunity for the "location" and the "tax free & discounted" photography equipment. My first SLR was a Canon AT-1 then followed by a couple of Nikono's II's and III's, AE-1, and A-1. My underwater housing was workable with the Canon "A" series.<br>

Anyway, as of lately, I really don't expect to ever sell anything again, but I do still find "personal satisfaction" in the photo's that I feel are worthy of keeping.<br>

Back in the day . . . I thought I was doing good keeping maybe 1 slide out of the 36 exposure roll! Today . . . I may keep one of 200 exposures/images. I guess they could all be "keepers" with enough "post processing." I try to stay as "vintage" as I can and do not do much "post processing." I still like the "You get what you shot!"</p>

<p>Just hang in there with this digital stuff, your previous experiences and knowledge puts you ahead of the masses!</p>

<p>I really need to read my own stuff sometimes "arsitic" ? gee's</p>

<p>"Arsitic" might well be an appropriate term in some contexts. I like it...could be a useful term meaning something that aspires to be art but fails miserably? Being British possibly makes it easier to understand in that context.</p>

<p>Hey Mark - the artistry ain't gone nowhere...it just became less technically necessary to develop an understanding of the process, and still get a good picture. Yes the user manuals try to be everything to everybody and end up being filled with gobbledegook which few users bother to read from cover to cover. And we all know that the better the camera, the better the picture, right? So the Iphone crowd, still flush with cash, more highly educated (ie they've seen art books and stunning photographs), and with spare time on their hands gobble up the newest and greatest and think it will improve their artistic inner demon. Well, the truth is, that it just might, in the sense that they can now use tools (perhaps inartfully) for which they don't have to receive much special training...certainly not an apprenticeship, to take better pictures than they could with an old Brownie Hawkeye. In my book, that is an improvement, although not necessarily one I want to really view. They can choose settings like "portrait, scene, sports" etc which incorporate features we used to have to consciously think about. Do I use this stuff, generally no, I typically am using manual settings be it with digital or film cameras. But that's me. Those heathen with little knowledge and a ton of push button choices, may well outdo me creatively with their vision...so I don't get carried away with worrying about what they choose to buy or how they choose to use it. Artistic achievement is in the eye of the beholder and just because somebody does things differently from me, doesn't necessarily diminish that achievement. Have a nice cup of tea, settle down with the Sunday paper, and enjoy the day, if for no other reason than you woke up to see it :-)</p>

<p>Lets face it, very few of us have any artistic ability. More of us are shooting now with the advent of digital. In the old days, many would give it up as they never really understood the basics. There is also another side. It is easier to be a Donovan or Adams these days. Photoshop can transform anything.</p>

<p>Although I'm coming in late here, all I can say is that I don't believe the initial premise is true. Look at the history of the 'snap shot' and the mass of people who left it to Kodak to "do the rest". Aside from a slight increase in the ease of being a complete duffer and still getting something in the image, I can't see that the vast majority of people approach photography differently than they did 20 or 60 or 80 years ago.</p>

<p>And, for what it's worth, it was not arsitic, but aristic.</p>

<p>I disagree with the statements made in the first paragraph; not much has changed with the transition from film to digital cameras. Exactly one digital-related parameter was added - white balance. With film, the choice was rather limited - it was either daylight or tungsten and you could fiddle around with some filters if you had to deal with different lighting. When shooting JPEG you have choices like contrast, saturation, etc - nothing different when picking one film over another (Velvia for nuclear colors or Agfa RSX for more pastel color rendition); except that you can now change this any time you want and not only after 36 exposures. Shooting RAW allows you to make many choices after the fact - not a bad thing IMHO. Metering hasn't become any more complicated than it was 30 years ago - cameras finally provide options to deal with almost every possible scenario. The camera and lens are just a tool - and that tool has become a lot more versatile over time. I wouldn't mind if there were 20 more AF areas in my D300 - heck, the entire viewfinder could be covered with them as it makes things easier for me. And I can view results immediately, and take corrective action before it is too late.<br>

Unless one was developing and printing film oneself, one had to rely on a good lab to get the results one envisioned. Doing it yourself in the darkroom required quite a bit of time and knowledge about the techniques involved as well as which paper to use to create the desired end result. I feel now that I am in better control of the final result than I ever was with film. In fact, digital allowed me to free myself from the limitations that I now realize film imposed on me. I am having more fun with photography and the digital darkroom than I ever had in the old days; and I can achieve a match between what I have on the screen with what I envision in my head far more easily. With the transition to digital, my photography changed from "taking pictures" to "making images". I am not saying that I could not have achieved the same thing while staying with film - but it would have required me to have my own darkroom so that I could be in control of the entire image creation process; and I find the digital darkroom is easier to work with than the traditional one.</p>

<p><strong>Bob Atkins </strong>states:</p>

<p> </p>

<p >The real job of a camera is to keep out of the way between your artistic vision and the final print. If it can do that through automation, that's good. There's really no need for an artist to know what an aperture is.</p>

<p >Of course photography is a technical pursuit for some, rather than just an artistic endevor, but for the pure artist, high powered automated cameras are a plus, as long as they keep out of the way. Set it to auto everything and shoot.</p>

I absolutely disagree.

When a photographer relies on automation instead of understanding, then how can she achieve her vision? It is very important to know the effect of choosing the correct f/stop has on a photograph. When the camera measures exposure, say at 125 at f/16, that is only one of many possible shutter speed/f/stop settings that will give "proper" exposure. The photograph taken at f/1.4 will be very different. How does a camera, no matter how sophisticated its electronics, know if you want only the persons eyes in focus instead of the entire face. By setting the camera to auto everything, the artistic choices are left to an engineer in Japan and not the artist.

 

 

Cameras should not get in the way of the photographer. But they are essential tools which the photographer uses to create compelling images. The photographer should have the skills necessary to use that tool to make the photograph come out as the artist wants. Many times that skill involves ignoring the automation found in many modern film or digital cameras.

 

<p>It really was always like this. The only difference is that only really serious enthusiasts would have set up a darkroom and used it. Even then, it would have had to be fairly affluent enthusiasts to have a colour photo-finishing equipment.</p>

<p>Now, everybody has photo editing software. It's the equivalent of everybody in a 1965 having had a full-blown colour darkroom and using it for every picture. But there's nothing to stop anyone from setting up their camera the way they want to use it, and leaving it there. You can pretty closely simulate the slide shooting experience that way, while still benefiting from variable ISO, and the ability to adjust contrast, sharpness, colour saturation, plus other things like white balance... for every individual shot. But you don't have to. You can set in-camera contrast, sharpness and other colour choices to what you like, and then just leave it there. The other things can just be left to the auto setting, and even I often find it easier to use the camera in manual, centre-weighted exposure, rather to figure out all those auto and scene modes.</p>

<p>I often use raw files when I know I will want it in black and white, or I have some other specific reason. But I still visualize what I'm after before I take the shots, and since I really hate photo editing, I only do the relatively simple things I would have done in my darkroom years ago. There's really no reason to go beyond that if our interest is in photography as opposed to computer imaging, and there's no reason to mess with raws at all if you are a careful pre-shooter and in the past, you might have shot slides anyway.</p>

<p>The photo media industry has always encouraged maximum complexity.</p>

<p>Nothing has changed intrinsically in photography with the introduction of digital imaging. Any camera used to suit a photographer's intentions will work. Walker Evans: "The secret of photography is, the camera takes on the character and personality of the handler. The mind works on the machine--through it rather." </p>

<blockquote>

<p>When a photographer relies on automation instead of understanding, then how can she achieve her vision?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Some understanding helps, but I know of one pretty famous female photographer who (back in the days of film) always gave her cameras to assistant to load the film because she could never get the hang of it.</p>

<p>All you need to know is that a larger aperture gives you a smaller depth of field. There's really not much more you need to know unless you're shooting in a studio where you have to know something about flash. The camera will take care of metering, shutter speed selection, ISO selection, focus etc. Art is about pointing the camera at the right subject and deciding when to press the shutter.</p>

<p>We may like to make it all about the technology but really it isn't. Some understanding helps at times but it's really not essential. Ask any pinhole camera or Holga shooter.</p>

<p>I agree with Dieter. My N90s film camera has as many exposure modes as my D200 DSLR. It wasn't digital image sensors that made fully automatic photography possible. (It was digital chips controlling the exposure and focus.)</p>

<p>There are two different issues here. One is learning the craft of photography. The best way to learn how to control the parameters of picture taking is to use a completely manual camera (or use a digital camera in full manual mode). The very best way is to use a view camera. If you can calculate the bellows draw and the hyperfocal distance while controlling the swings and tilts and aperture to get the desired depth of field, then you know something about the craft of photography. </p>

<p>The other issue is developing an artistic eye. This is where digital offers a real advantage. According to some experts, it takes 10,000 hours of practice in any endeavor to become a real expert. (see "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell.) With film, only a professional can afford this much practice. (10,000 hours is 5 years of 40 hour weeks.) It would be easy to spend $100,000 on this much practice. With digital, $5000 of gear (or less) will provide the necessary tools.</p>

<p>Personally, I've been an amateur photographer for 50 years. My skills have improved more in the last 4 years since switching largely to digital that in any other time period. Digital wasn't the only contributor. Now that we are empty nesters, I have more time to practice. </p>

<p>The bottom line for me has always been the bottom line, the cost per frame. This is the creativity vs dollars that we all face in our photo endeavors. Money is always the limiting factor in photographic arts. If you can't afford a camera, you can't be a photographer.</p>

<p> I have a good eye. But I've always had to over shoot to get what I wanted. There was always a clear disconnect between my viewfinder, and what came back on film. So it cost me plenty to over shoot with film.As most of us do, I always "bracket" with different camera angles, lenses, exposures,etc. Some of it usually works, and some of it doesn't. This experimenting is basically free with digital gear. This is very liberating to a life long film shooter.</p>

<p>Now days I leave the house with a 2gig card, that will hold 1,000 exposures on my 6 MP camera! I get giddy with excitement thinking about it.</p>

<p>In my Kodachrome years, the 1970's. Every time I hit that shutter, it cost 25c per slide for film and processing. And I had to take meticulous notes to be able to repeat what worked.</p>

<p>So in my humble opinion the artistic side is there to be developed with newly found minimal expense and fuss. Progress in some cases works. Although I do wish Kodak would re-start production of both Kodachrome and (ASA 32) Panatomic-X.</p>

<p> It's always been easier to call a photograph "art" than to call it "strong image." </p>

<p> </p>

<p>We're going to do a "disposable camera" picture thread next weekend over in Film and Processing forum. Maybe you'd like that. Idea is everyone uses pretty much the same featureless camera, and you put up the best photo of your batch.</p>

<p>"Ubi Sunt," as my Lit professors used to say. </p>

<p>Hey, back when I was lifting that camera to my eye, I think someone else was using a $25,000 rig with a gi-normous 8X10 or larger view camera and about 26 lamps to photograph Playboy centerfolds. </p>

<p>There may not have been any good ol' days. Just drive on with your photos. I have confidence in you.</p>

<p>I'm looking forward to the on-time-use camera event. I know I'm picking at nits here, but there is no such thing as a disposable camera. If you dispose of it, you will never see you pictures. The lab doesn't dispose of it either. They are constantly recycled. It has been several years since new one-time-use camera bodies have been made. </p>

<p>Shoot on manual.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=4296659">John O'Keefe-Odom</a> I have already won one internet contest restricted to an under $10.00 retail single use camera. So I pretty much got that experiance covered but thanks for the invite.</p>

<p>I read a lot of these posts and it occures to me a lot of you in my opinion are confusing knowledge of the technical with what I was trying to talk about the Artistic part of photography. The knowing when the light will cast shadows just right to dramatize the otherwise dull looking cement collumns outside the sports area. Or knowing how to capture the perfect water drop coming off a ice covered flower. Or how to take a 40 year old mom and make her look like a movie star with nothing but some careful lighting and the right turn of the head.<br>

It is that part of the photographic process I think that having 7 pages of menues and 27 different control wheels and more choices then you and your assitant can keep track of.<br>

Even with my Canon S3-IS that I use to document some of my other hobbies with I find myself loosing track of which setting is where.<br>

And yes Bob I agree RAW is the way to fix memory loss (to sum degree LOL) but I still see people standing at the edge of the thing they want to capture and instead they are fiddling with their camera.<br>

Maybe I just think to much.</p>

 

<p>Mark,<br>

I think I see where you are coming from: too much technical details and choice (i.e. tweaking of the camera) getting in the way of the shot.</p>

<p>However, I claim a different and possibly highly evil viewpoint: That ppl actually don't care about improving their shots. Maybe it's just me being cynical, but all too often I talk to photographers more concerned about cameras than the shot. How many photogs have you met that actually understand exposure? Or even use something other than P mode? Or talked something more than technical issues? (I know I'm guilty of loving the technical aspect waay too much)</p>

<p>I've met far too many, and oftentimes they just seem to think acquiring a L lens will make their images amazing (sigh) or "I leave everything to the camera" (gah!). That said, I've met a rare few that do try to improve their eye, yet not keen on technical details. There's also the artist bunch that have no idea how to use a camera, but always produce lovely images straight out of camera. Gotta give 'em that :)</p>

<p>Alvin</p>

<p>Mark, what you describe is craft and not art (I'm not sure why you capitalize "Artistic").</p>