picture window # 22 ~ he is, quite simply, wrong
Tuesday, June 2, 2009 at 09:42AM 
Exit ~ Binghamton Regency Hotel - Binghamton, NY • click to embiggenBlake Andrews left this comment on hardscapes # 4:
I can only speak from my own experience. My ability to see photographically was greatly helped when I began using a simple rangefinder with fixed 35 mm lens. Based on my personal experience, I would agree with Mike in advocating this as the best tool for learning photographic seeing.
Lest it be thought that I have an issue with 1 camera, 1 lens, 1 media approach to seeing, let me set the record straight - I do not.
In fact, virtually all of my digital-domain ku and my pre-digital film pictures were/are created with a single camera, a single lens, and a single media. To be precise, all of my personal work, film-era wise, was created with an 8×10 view camera, a 10-inch Kodak Commercial Ektar lens, and Kodak Type L 8×10 sheet film. My digital-domain gear is a classic 35mm-style body (2), a short (2-1) WA zoom (22-44mm 35mm equiv.) or a fixed focal length (21mm 35mm equiv.) WA lens (depending on which camera body is used), and RAW image capture.
For those who like to nitpick, re: the short WA zoom is not a "single" lens - 90% of my ku are created at or very near the 22mm end of the zoom range because I use my feet, not the zoom, to get closer to my subjects. And, my RAW processing is always based on the "same" parameters - normal / neutral color, contrast, and saturation which is about as close as you can get to a single "standard" film stock in the digital domain.
It should also be noted that I have on many occasions, both on The Landscapist and in the real world, advocated the 1 camera, 1 lens, 1 media approach to picturing as a cure•all-for-what-ails-you for those afflicted with Gear Disease. What I have not done re: that notion is to advocate its implementation as a method for learning what to see or even how to see.
I stand resolutely foursquare in my belief that, when it comes to making good pictures - that is to say, pictures wherein content (both pictured and implied), discovering your passion for what to picture is the whole truth and nothing but the truth. No camera or picturing methodology can do that for you.
Simply put, personal vision is the horse that drives the cart. Find your passion for what to picture and the technique to do so will follow in its hoof beats. It really is that simple.
And here's what the "teachers" don't want you to know - you can do it all, all by your lonesome.
In fact, without a doubt, you are the only one who can discover your passion for what to picture. That assumes, of course, that you are not a Spo'da (what I spo'da do massa?) and that you can actually think for yourself.
As for the gear / technique / technicals, here's a news flash - it ain't rocket science folks. Not by a long shot. It's as simple as you want to make it. To wit, you do not need to know everything there is to know on the subject.
What you need to know is exactly what you need to know in order to do in order to do what you want to do. No more, no less. How do you know what you need to know? Figure out what you want to picture first and the answer will be incredibly obvious.
How do you learn how to do it? The answer is very simple - experiment with the tools and techniques at your disposal. Got questions? One-word answer - Google. Two-word answer - google it. Multi-word answer - google it and then just do it. For the old-timey advocates in the crowd, it goes like this - One-word answer - books. Two-word answer - read books. Multi-word answer - read books and then just do it. And then there's always the modern way to do it - use Google to find books.
The key word in all of this is "simple". Keep it all as simple as possible.
If you have a dslr, buy a soldering iron and solder the mode selector dial to "M" (manual). Pick an ISO and set it. Select "Daylight" WB and set it. Select RAW as the file type and set it. Then, turn off the Info Screen and leave it off (for a year?). Then, start making pictures. And, if you really want to simulate the old-timey way of doing things, never engage in the practice of chimping.
Next, go into the darkroom (a photo editing software of your choosing), turn down the lights (the idea of working in the digital darkroom using only traditional darkroom "safe"lights is not as goofy as it might sound), and process your pictures. And, despite what most people think, this is where it gets incredibly easy and simple because, unlike film processing, you can never permanently screw it up.
Once you process film, you have to live with what you've got - there is no going back. In the digital darkroom, if you "screw it up", you can always start again and try something completely different. Unless you're a digital dumbass and overwrite the original RAW file, the original is always there for you to process again, and again, and again and .... until you've got it right. And chances are very good that once you have it "right", you've "discovered" how to do it and for, the most part, you will continue to use that how to do it as your "standard" processing.
Now, all of that said, here's where I think Johnson has it wrong, or, if you prefer, has it right only as far as he goes. The simple process of picturing and processing that I have just described is the digital domain process equivalent of exactly the same process that he has suggested in the old-timey domain. And, despite his seemingly apparent sentimental attachment to old-timey methodology, no matter which domain you choose, the idea is exactly the same - set it and forget it. Minimize the gear / technicals and get on with the process of exploring your passion.
And, duh - there is a difference in the physical / tactile experiences between digital and analog picturing, more so in the darkroom experience than the camera experience (given the set-it-and-forget-it, no-chimping-allowed method). But, IMO, the mental exercise / disicpline involved with either domain is nearly identical.
However, IMO and that of many others, How you do it can only be "discovered" after you "discover" What you want to do.
In closing, consider this:
The traditional difficulty of balancing the mechanical with the imaginative schools of photography still operates. In schools of photography meaningful art education is often lacking and on the strength of their technical ability alone students, deprived of a richer artistic training, are sent forth inculcated with the belief that they are creative photographers and artists. It is yet a fact that today, as in the past, the most inspiring and provocative works in photography come as much (and probably more) from those who are in the first place artists. - Aaron Scharf
Reader Comments (2)
It is sad that the only way to have a large public is to fool their expressive needs feeding em with bowls of useless technicalities. I'm not blaming Mike Johnston for this but I think that in the long this will hurt him too in credibility terms (as much as it happened to the various similarly oriented photography magazines). From the last year TOP progressively became a kind of Outdoor Photographer online.
Several years ago I used to introduce school kids to photography simply using a photocopier, make them paint their slides on transparent film or build pinhole cameras. Once the had a clear idea of what they wanted (and as you know kids can have clearer ideas than adults) there was no obstacle able to stop them.
Balance; thinking and feeling, technology and artistry--each of us has our own precise balance point and no one formula works best for everyone. Some accomplished photographers/artist have found their passion and artistry in today's technology.
I personally certainly need to simplify, but I don't think I'll be throwing the baby out with the bath water.
--Enjoyed reading your post--