There's Nothing New in Photography!

Hello readers and channel subscribers! I am hearing this lament more and more lately and thought it appropriate to address it.

What Does This Mean?

The lament is incredibly vague. Does it mean that there is nothing new in equipment? Does it mean that there is nothing new in the practice of the craft? Does it mean that the lamenter is in a rut? Does it mean that the practice of photography, vastly different from taking pictures, has lost its value in the practitioner?

Yeah, I don’t know either.

The Equipment Question

There really has been nothing new in photography since the move from film to digital. Certainly there is an endless stream of announcements from makers of photographic equipment, but does this mean anything really for the practice of photography? Is the newest camera better than the one it just replaced, which replaced one from just a year before?

Of course not. Photographic equipment is a toolset. You choose the tools that suit your requirements, but none of these tools will make you a better photographer. Maybe lizard eye focus will reduce your out focus images of lizards, but that doesn’t make you better. In fact, I will go so far to say that if you cannot figure out where to focus and need to depend on the tool to do so, you might want to sell the camera and get yourself a box of crayons, but not the 64 colour box because that could introduce option paralysis for you. There will always be a new gadget or gewgaw. None of them will make you a better photographer. One may help you accomplish a particular desire more quickly, but they are just recorders that only record what you give them.

The Craft Question

The craft of photography is not a destination, it is a journey and is only as challenging and innovative as you make it. If all that you do is the same thing all the time, you may see minor improvements, or more numerically accurate, minor devolution. Pursing any craft is work and volume is not the metric, quality and satisfaction area. If you have 300,000 images in your Lightroom Library for example, how many, REALLY, are photographs that matter and how many are just pictures memorializing a time or event, that not even you take the time to look at? Burst mode, as an example is the enemy of craft because like pre-shot recording, it takes you out of the process. By using these tools you trade skill for hope. Hope is never a plan, and never a repeatable and establishable skill. If you go out with actual intent to make images, press the shutter 20 times and only find one worth keeping, that is a powerful lesson. That is not craft, that is waste. No great furniture maker or cabinet maker built a thousand cupboards in the hope of getting one that was right. They may have made 10 or 12 on the path to honing the practice for that particular piece, but most did not even make that many.

The Rut Question

Every artist of any practice gets in a rut. Some do so many times, and there may be a scientific correlation by how hard the creative pushes himself or herself and the frequency of rut occurrence. Ruts are not bad things, they serve as a warning that you are not interested in continuing to do what you have been doing. Humans may dislike the idea of change, but emotionally NEED change to continue to be thoughtful creatures.

If you are in a rut, embrace it, and examine it. This will help you find a different path to embark upon. The path may not work, but standing still doesn’t break a rut either.

The Value Question

I have the benefit of having been around for a while, and I have seen the disillusionment around photography on many occasions. It is repetitive, although not so predictable as the sun spot cycle. (Eleven years if you care). I can objectively say that disillusionment appears within a short period of a levelling of the ability of any person to take a picture. Let’s be clear that I am saying that taking a picture is not the same as making a photograph. It never has been and never will be, despite marketing efforts and courseware that promises that the first is the second.

Photography is the art and science of capturing light and a compelling subject. I encourage taking pictures of a small child blowing out the candles on a birthday cake. This is a powerful memory and whether that dies on a hard disk, is stored with 10,000 other pictures in a camera roll on a phone, or printed and framed for display in the home, the taking is important. But it is not making a photograph. I am never advocating the stoppage of taking pictures. Whether it is an old Kodak Brownie, a 127 film camera, a 126 film camera, a 110 camera, a Kodak Disc camera, an AF point and shoot or your thousand dollar plus camera taking family pictures, matters not. Those are important pictures. They also tend to get buried in a deluge of useless crap that is irrelevant as soon as the shutter closes. Malignant narcissism does not even produce decent pictures.

If you cannot control the exposure, if you cannot control the angle of view, if you cannot control the depth of field, if you cannot define the point of focus and you don’t do these things, then you are NOT making a photograph. That’s ok, but it’s not a photograph. Photography, like painting, or writing music, or poetry is a creative process and the closer you get to depending on the shutter press, the further you get from photography.

And quickly on the other concept of value, which is the value of the photograph, the only person who can define the value of your photograph is you. Anything else is an opinion and worth only what you allocate to it. A comment like “nice capture” while sounding polite is completely inane and has no meaning at all.

My Challenge to You

Look over the photos that you believe are actual photographs where you applied your MIND to the crafting. Find what you do most regularly. This is your comfort zone. Now pick any genre, type, style that is OUTSIDE your comfort zone. Decide how you will approach this uncomfortable space. Decide where you will approach it. Pick ONE angle of view only. Now plan a time and go do it. You are allowed 20 exposures only. No more. Do not make photographs of anything else while on this challenge.

When you come home, bring them into whatever tool you use to finish your images. Do the absolute MINIMUM in post processing. Post processing is very powerful and is too often used to mask or redirect from the failure to make a good photograph in camera. Some people hate post processing, and for those folks, not post-processing is very simple, and very hard for those who spend no time in planning the photograph and more than 5 minutes finishing one in post, presuming no presets are used.

Wrapping Up

Smartphones are the snapshot cameras of today, and there has never been a better and more efficient tool. Most all of us have them, but it is immensely difficult to make a photograph with one. Most of the controls are unavailable. Micro sensors mean limited to zero control of focus and as apertures are fixed, you have very limited control of depth of field. Love your smartphone, but do not operate under the illusion that you can pursue the craft of photography with one. Taking a class in iPhone Photography is a waste of your time and your money, because you cannot do photography with an iPhone (or whatever phone). You can absolutely use it for snapshots as it is perfect for the task. It takes pictures and processes them without your engagement at all beyond clicking the shutter.

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