Holy Order of Minimalism when shooting casually

[Mike Shimwell]

Originally posted by Ken Tanaka here

--- taking-off to broader philosophy ......
I am absolutely convinced that the self-consciousness associated with experience and gear wealth is often very deleterious to instinctive creativity and image reflexes, particularly for casual personal work. Internet photo sites tend to stoke this effect by hosting breeding grounds of gear lust and perpetuation of aesthetic clichés and silly digital technique.

I know that the more gear I schlep the worse my casual photography tends to be. I've become very self-aware of this phenomenon and, despite having an embarrassingly enormous inventory of camera gear, I've converted to the Holy Order of Minimalism when shooting casually.

Your back-story on this image being captured with a "borrowed Nikon FM" as "a complete novice" offers yet another testimony to my theory of the inversely proportional relationship between gear/experience and quality of results. Of course it's a pretty leaky theory that would never earn a doctorate. Experience with a camera, particularly with a particular camera, and having good aesthetic sense certainly does have great benefit. But there is much to be said for just returning to capturing what you see rather than worrying about creating aww-worthy images.
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I thought this comment is useful enough and important enough to bear bringing to the front of a thread. I've been there, and I am sure that I am not alone, and also have an embarrasing wealth of camera kit. And yet, I have also converted to Ken's Holy Order - perhaps spontaneously - and tend to carry the simplest kit I can these days. Yes, I miss some picture oportunities, but I gain others. In fact trying to work out what lens to use, or how to frame cleverly etc becames a great hindrance. There are a couple of points that ken makes that I think are really valuable and worthy ofsome consideration:

- 'worrying about creating aww-worthy images' - the internet is a breeding ground for the sort of self important approach that seeks to make, always, the most awesome or amazing images. To the extent that it doesn't matter what you do, the final image is all. I believe this is highly questionable and that one of the keys to photography, and its power and language, is not about the awesome images, but the everyday record what you see work. Yes, even the snapshots that recall a child's smile lighting up their face. Don't try to live up to other peoples expectations!!

- 'Experience with a camera, particularly with a particular camera, and having good aesthetic sense certainly does have great benefit. But there is much to be said for just returning to capturing what you see' - We are surrounded by so much that is worth looking at. I wonder if the continuous desire to create the awesome means we miss the interest and poetry in the everyday. I posted a quote from Todd Papageorge (below) that expressed this much better than I can, but photography's language is not that of creation but that of selecting. Whilst manipulation is certainly not just a digital domain, there is much about the digital world (not just photography) that seems to be seeking to make something, virtually, better than reality

- 'I know that the more gear I schlep the worse my casual photography tends to be.' Yes!

- 'Internet photo sites tend to stoke this effect by hosting breeding grounds of gear lust and perpetuation of aesthetic clichés and silly digital technique' Yes, most of the sites that are well known feed on creating gear lust in their viewers and accolytes (the latter description is sometimes applicable if you read the forums). This completely distracts from the task at hand. If something doesn't work then, fo course, change it. but, the nature of the digital beast is that it creates a lust for things that are not helpful and don't add anything of value. Again, this is symptomatic of the digital economy and may hold a few lessons as to some of the reasons for the current economic crisis.

Ken, thanks for your carefully crafted and valuable comment.

Mike



Edited to add Todd Papagoerge's quote:


I think now that, in general—and this includes a lot of what I see in Chelsea even more than what I see from students at Yale—there’s a failure to understand how much richer in surprise and creative possibility the world is for photographers in comparison to their imagination. This is an understanding that an earlier generation of students, and photographers, accepted as a first principle. Now ideas are paramount, and the computer and Photoshop are seen as the engines to stage and digitally coax those ideas into a physical form—typically a very large form. This process is synthetic, and the results, for me, are often emotionally synthetic too.

…

Sure, things have to change, but photography-as-illustration, even sublime illustration, seems to me an uninteresting direction for the medium to be tracking now, particularly at such a difficult time in the general American culture. All in all, I think that there’s as much real discovery and excitement in the digital videos that my students at Yale are making as there is in the still photography I see either there or in New York, perhaps because the video camera, like the 35 mm camera 30 years ago, can be carried everywhere, and locks onto the shifting contradictions and beauties of the world more directly and unselfconsciously than many photographers now seem to feel still photography can, or should, do.

Tod Papageorge, Bomb Magazine

[Rachel Foster]

This is a very timely and appreciated discussion. I recently posted some photos of mine that I know are good--not "aww worthy" but good--on another photo forum as a test. This forum allows anonymous ratings by numbers only. The photos were rated very badly. The thing is I now know enough to appreciate how worthless these ratings are. How many new photographers have twisted themselves inside out and gone astray trying to please such anonymous bashers? or anonymous "wows" by people who don't know a thing about photography or art?

These photo fora should come with warning labels!

[Asher Kelman]

My sudden impulses have produced worthier images than my studied and planned shoots. however, the keep rate of my casual shooting is far lower than my planned work. If I take pictures in the studio I expect that 1-2 in 5 will be worth delivering. For casual work it's only 1 in 100-500 but then it's much more powerful. In the studio, it's the picture taken, "just over there, turn now move towards me yes, snap and far better than all the planned images.

Being "formal" closes many doors of creativity.

Asher

As for creating pictures by building them in photoshop or the wet darkroom that's what the greats did but they already were well on their way to what they intended in the first place.

[Nigel Allan]

Originally Posted by Asher Kelman

My sudden impulses have produced worthier images than my studied and planned shoots. however, the keep rate of my casual shooting is far lower than my planned work. If I take pictures in the studio I expect that 1-2 in 5 will be worth delivering. For casual work it's only 1 in 100-500 but then it's much more powerful. In the studio, it's the picture taken, "just over there, turn now move towards me yes, snap and far better than all the planned images.

Being "formal" closes many doors of creativity.

Asher

As for creating pictures by building them in photoshop or the wet darkroom that's what the greats did but they already were well on their way to what they intended in the first place.

I understand the sentiment, Asher, but I doubt you have a 1 in 100-500 strike rate for keepers. I am sure your strike rate is much better than this unless you are firing off at random at 5FPS in a scattergun approach

[Asher Kelman]

Originally Posted by Nigel Allan

I understand the sentiment, Asher, but I doubt you have a 1 in 100-500 strike rate for keepers. I am sure your strike rate is much better than this unless you are firing off at random at 5FPS in a scattergun approach

Yes, but that's the feeling of not always doing stellar work one would like to save.In the streets, one has a total freedom to sample and learn about everything. Then something remarkable comes along. Could be a shadow or some paint spilled or a new muse appearing.

Asher

[Mike Shimwell]

I think we should perhaps separate the idea of casual from unimportant photography.

Asher is right, walking around we have the opportunity to sample much, and much may not be worth saving, but I think there is a case for making pictures that are not always 'stellar' . Apart from anything else we will be more likely to be ready when the 'stellar' moment presents itself. In this context the moment is given and not created as it would be in the studio.

There is another thread running at the moment where being familiar with your equipment is part of the theme, so that you learn to frame in the lens' 'space'. Ken recently suggested shooting with only disposable cameras for a couple of months as a way of improving your photography - again a simplifying of kit to allow you to conventrate on seeing and then to photograph what you see.

I have a lot of equipment that doesn't get much use because I actually like taking pictures with just one lens at a time and this usually a 35 or a 50. It doesn't really matter what camera I'm using (there, I've admitted it).

Mike