Technique vs. Inspiration - Page 3

Maris Rusis · #21 July 11th, 2008, 08:57 PM

A few days ago I watched a tourist in the Noosa National Park use a camera in a way that seemed to be all inspiration and no technique. The scene was a rocky headland with breaking waves. The camera, a little "bar-o-soap" shaped digital was very busy...click, chimp, delete, click, chimp, delete, click, chimp, ...oh, oh, keep this one...click, chimp, ....and so on.

Instead of using a camera and all the other technology to make a desired picture the approach here was to desire a picture that the technology coughed up. If more pictures are required then spin the visual roulette wheel some more and pick out the nice ones as they go past.

At minimum, digital picture production needs no craft; just a camera with a "capture" button, a screen to chimp, a "delete" button, and occasionally a "save" button.

Gary Ayala · #22 July 11th, 2008, 09:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by doug anderson

Gary: I like this photo a lot.

D

Thanks Doug ... thought it was sorta in the same genra as the image you posted.

Gary

Asher Kelman · #23 July 11th, 2008, 10:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maris Rusis

A few days ago I watched a tourist in the Noosa National Park use a camera in a way that seemed to be all inspiration and no technique. The scene was a rocky headland with breaking waves. The camera, a little "bar-o-soap" shaped digital was very busy...click, chimp, delete, click, chimp, delete, click, chimp, ...oh, oh, keep this one...click, chimp, ....and so on.

Hi Maris,

Allow me to try a contrary point of view.

We haven't seen the result of this way of working, for surely the tourist was putting a lot of effort into the picture making. When I'm doing a portrait against a backlit sky at sunset, I'll adjust the exposure, manually of course and shoot until I'm happy with the balance between the sky and the face. Then I'll take my picture. I do this seamlessly, almost like taking a fountain pen out of my pocket, unscrewing the cap and starting to write.

So, for my standpoint, I see nothing wrong in experimenting and the tourist learning the scene. After all, Ansel did it for sure, but in his head. Today lesser souls have an LCD for review. If the work is stellar at the end, then it's fine by me!

Of course, with experience, the tourist will look at the sky, the clouds and the spray from the water and the length of the shadows and decide to wait for 20 minutes and then it will be ready to take that picture in one go. (Hopefully in that experimenting, the tourist has now decided on the perspective and position from which the picture will be made. Spending time before the exposure and repeating is perfectly fine is this leads to a better match between what the photographer wants and the final result.

With a large format camera one really does that, every time we change the height of the camera from the ground, alter focus, tilt or swing the front standard a tad. We look at the ground glass fro each minor adjustment. That, after all seems very much like modern electronic "chimping" but with a beautiful large image against a ground glass screen with framing lines to boot.

I am probably allowing your tourist too much credit and yes, you are probably correct in that the tourist did not know how to get it right.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maris Rusis

Instead of using a camera and all the other technology to make a desired picture the approach here was to desire a picture that the technology coughed up. If more pictures are required then spin the visual roulette wheel some more and pick out the nice ones as they go past.

I do not doubt that A.A. would have taken many more pictures than now if he could have a 50MP Hasselblad Digital back. There's no reason to think that his method of working would not evolve to take advantage of guiltless experimentation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maris Rusis

At minimum, digital picture production needs no craft; just a camera with a "capture" button, a screen to chimp, a "delete" button, and occasionally a "save" button.

All the creative needs of photography given above still apply. The subject has to be hunted and decided on, what has to be included and excluded worked out. Then one has to devise and agree on a set of relationships between the placement of the object by moving around and up and down to get the right overlays and appearance of each part of every item to be included. Then the light has to be correct which might mean coming back in the evening or at dawn or at noon and bringing a scrim and a reflector. Digital allows one to plan a picture and then come back and make the shot. If this involves deleting 1000 shots to get exactly the picture that expresses what one desires, then why should we knock it?

Asher

Asher Kelman · #24 July 11th, 2008, 10:42 PM

Another thought,

With film, one has to budget one's impulses so the logical side of one's brain needs to be alert and one's guide. Film is very demanding and definite. It's go or no go! You either love the setup and "commit" or come back another day.

With digital, however, there is no precious resource to conserve. One can keep sampling the subject, like lovers saying "I love you!", "but I love you!" "And I love you even more!", all night.

It's not a very good use of time, but love after all is an addiction and so is chimping!

Asher

Gary Ayala · #25 July 11th, 2008, 10:45 PM

Asher-

To counter your point ... well ... lets just say a different perspective. I was shooting President Ford ... my first presidental assignment. We, the press, were all lined up across the room, every time Ford flinched, we'd all rattle off about a half dozen frames, motors in high gear. All of us, except one guy ... the guy from Time-Life, the guy with a tripod.

For every roll we'd use, he would only snap two or three shots. I closely watched his technique and soon came to realize that every single shot he took was a winner. Additionally, I thought, man what huge brass ones and supreme confidence he has to self-limit his frames to a mere handful.

He made such an impression and contrast to the rest of us that I still clearly remember him to this day.

Gary

PS- Film was plentiful and free.
G

Jim Galli · #26 July 12th, 2008, 12:07 PM

Gary, the photo was mine, not Doug's, fwiw.

I'm firmly entrenched in both camps. I have a Nikon D200 and I really love that camera. It's like when Chevrolet finally got around to putting their 427 in the Corvette. I forget which author (getting to be a HELL of a long time ago) but I remember him saying, I'm finally impressed. I've had a whole series of digital cameras from first generation Olympus 1.4mp D600 to the present D200. I'm finally impressed. But my right brain doesn't have to work very hard with that camera. Unlike our tourist above, I'll set it up for whatever it is I'm doing, it has every adjustment I need handy up top, no menu's needed 95% of the time, that done, I point it and shoot it and get hundreds of perfect pictures with no further thought. If I were at Santa Anita I'd probably choose continuous auto focus and 5 frames per second and get 300 of those perfect shots of horse and rider. Hey, it is fun. And they're all more perfect than anything anyone could have done no matter how good he was 20 years ago. I'm sorry, I'm too old school, too entrenched to call that craft. The only difference between me and the vacation shooter at this point is I've got a better camera and I know how to set it up. Big deal. Takes seconds. Does that really separate me from him. I kind of doubt it.

Gary Ayala · #27 July 12th, 2008, 01:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim Galli

Gary, the photo was mine, not Doug's, fwiw.

I'm firmly entrenched in both camps. I have a Nikon D200 and I really love that camera. It's like when Chevrolet finally got around to putting their 427 in the Corvette. I forget which author (getting to be a HELL of a long time ago) but I remember him saying, I'm finally impressed. I've had a whole series of digital cameras from first generation Olympus 1.4mp D600 to the present D200. I'm finally impressed. But my right brain doesn't have to work very hard with that camera. Unlike our tourist above, I'll set it up for whatever it is I'm doing, it has every adjustment I need handy up top, no menu's needed 95% of the time, that done, I point it and shoot it and get hundreds of perfect pictures with no further thought. If I were at Santa Anita I'd probably choose continuous auto focus and 5 frames per second and get 300 of those perfect shots of horse and rider. Hey, it is fun. And they're all more perfect than anything anyone could have done no matter how good he was 20 years ago. I'm sorry, I'm too old school, too entrenched to call that craft. The only difference between me and the vacation shooter at this point is I've got a better camera and I know how to set it up. Big deal. Takes seconds. Does that really separate me from him. I kind of doubt it.

Firstly ... Hey Jim sweet image. :)

Responding to the rest of the post. Generally, I find that better equipment makes it easier to get the exceptional photo ... whether that be 20 years ago or yesterday. I also find that newer/better equipment can duplicate old equipment ... but often old equipment cannot duplicate new equipment.

Finally, I completely disagree with your generalization that a photo taken 20 years ago cannot equal a photo using present equipment. In fact I'll take that one step further I'll go back 30 years ago ...

A somewhat random sampling.

Gary

Jim Galli · #28 July 12th, 2008, 02:13 PM

GREAT stuff Gary. MMMMmmmmmmmmmmm. Grain. I like. Done with todays cameras most of these would be much stiffer. I know we're getting into an area here similar to weirdo's talking about how mellow tube amps are compared to modern digital sound yadda yadda yadda. Sorry, I'm one of those weirdo's. My point above is that sometimes better isn't necessarily better. Every one of your film pics seems more mellow to me. I feel like I just flipped open Life magazine circa 1974.