The hardest and easiest form of photography

Just out interest, what do you think is the hardest or the easiest form of

photography?

 

I am just a amateur photographer. I find that I enjoy landscape photography but

then, its the type that I cannot photograph every w'end because I have to travel

out and for the real stuff it involved hiking and camping in tents or huts and a

lot of excercise and living away from civilisation without a hot shower or a

proper meal. One may hiked up that mountain and the good light didn't come and

that food is running out so they walk back down and plan to hike the same

mountain the next month again.

 

Having looked at some of the others photography at my club, I find that most

members are walk and about photography and travel photography walk and the about

that may not be in the golden hour but just the typical afternoon. For

landscapes they tended to photograph beside a road side than going into the

national parks even for a day trip.

 

I find that macro photography is perhaps one of the easier form of photography.

Once you decided on a subject, the subject is just so small, one can

photograph outside handhold or with tripod depending on the magnification being

sought in daylight or diffused light or in a dark room with flash and studio

lighting and color background paper and the water dropper for that kinda effect.

One can use the water bottle and fake water drops.

 

One that is harder but not as hard as landscape photography is maybe portrait

photography because you are not dictated by mother nature since you can modify

the lights.

 

 

Of course above all the photographer needs the interest with that form of

photography.

 

 

What do you think?

The hardest type must be the one you don't enjoy doing.

The difficulty doesn't lay with the genre, it lays with the expectations and execution.

The easiest is the human nude. The subject is intrinsically intersting to 98% of adults.

 

The hardest is still life and business: making visually boring stuff look interesting.

The hardest? Photojournalism. Difficult to make good photos when people are shooting at you and blowing up stuff around you.

 

The easiest? Photojournalism. Especially grip-'n'-grins. When people aren't shooting at you and blowing up stuff around you the subject matter is just there. Aim, focus, meter, compose, expose, done.

Lex,

I think you have that backwards.

It easy to make a good photo when people are shooting each other.

It's much harder to make a good photo when people are behaving themselves.

Every form of photography has the hardest part and the easiest part. If you look at the

positive side of landscape photography you get to go hiking, fresh air and great exercise. You

get to enjoy nature. You get to get away from civilization. What a wonderful thing to do. Then

all you have to do is make some images on the way. If the light is not good you can make an

image of the not so good light. What is there is no light? Put the camera on a tripod and open

the shutter for a long time.

 

It is all in your imagination. Go forth and create!

Street is the hardest. A really good street shot is a rarity. Some street shooters have to settle for just a small number of great pictures for their entire careers, if any. It requires so much and is invalid if it is set up. For me portraits are the easiest because I have done so many, and the subject cooperates, rather than hiding, running or threatening you as do street subjects. Shooting the nude is not easy because it is difficult to come up with something original and exciting (visually exciting).

Well, maybe they do threaten you. I just remembered two portrait subjects who pulled guns during their sittings.

And a professional wrestler who threatened to turn my car over (I don't have a car).

A man's got to know his limitations. - Harry Callahan "Magnum Force"

 

I have no talent for nature, and landscapes, so give me people, sports, portraits or a police

action. I couldn't shoot a nature seen if my life depended on it.<div></div>

Everyone's different, so what's hard for me is easy for you etc.

Easiest. Landscape/seascape with sunset. Yawn.

 

Hardest. Self portrait that I like.

Easiest -- photographing unposed kittens and puppies. Anything they do is cute. That's why many consider such photos uninteresting. Requires little of the photographer. Not exactly rocket science.

 

Most difficult -- astrophotography on the Hubble. Even getting the camera there is exactly rocket science (rocket engineering, actually.) Holding the camera steady is more rocket engineering. The difficulties are ... what's the word ... astronomical!

 

And then, should you have to change lenses ...

Interesting question - but I do think that it's relative. Everyone will have (and does) have a different answer.

 

Ellis: "The easiest is the human nude. The subject is intrinsically intersting to 98% of adults. The hardest is still life and business: making visually boring stuff look interesting."

 

1. Yeah, but if you don't do a good nude you embarrass yourself, the subject and the viewer!

 

2. I disagree, but only because I worship detail (in crude terms, I'm a fetishist). I can get almost the same enjoyment from a good stock catalogue (e.g. The Image Bank) full of corporate/business/still life as I can from a book full of HCB's or Gene Smith's street shots. The very challenge of doing a good still life is enjoyable in itself - and the results can be amazing for even mundane objects.

Photography is easiest when the photographer is presented with subject matter that they find interesting or exotic. Photography is hardest when the photographer is dealing with subject matter they find boring or mundane. Of course the same subject matter that is exotic to one photographer may be mundane to the next.

I'm going to sound rather intellectually smug here but all forms of photography are difficult if you aim to do them well. However, for a real white-knuckle ride, portraiture is the front-runner, for the reasons given by Andre.

Chris, you're right as far as everything is hard and takes a lot of work (apart from talent) if you want to excel at it. For the rest however I think Bruce is right. Street is still the hardest and probably the most underestimated. You've got to have a brain capable of working on warp speed for more than short bursts, you've got to be blinding fast and patient at the same time, able to take a lot of abuse if not downright aggression and to top it off it's not very attractive from a commercial point of view and not well regarded upon by most peers (although I have no complaints myself)

Futhermore its by definition working in a very unctrolled environment.

 

Compare that to for instance working in controlled studio lighting with some great models (which I've also done a short time) and you know how I feel about it.

 

In the end however it's just a matter of perspective. If you're able to do what you love to do, as I am, nothing is that hard.

I'm going to have to agree that the hardest type of photography is the kind you don't want to be shooting. To make matters worse one could also be not getting paid to shoot it.

 

As far as the easiest, I am going to have to say almost any work that self-references as "Lomo". To me cross processing at a lab isn't so much the work of the photographer, but a choice by the photographer. The work is by the lab tech. Of course this is a generalization, but I imagine you get the gist.