Tag: Photographer

Is there a difference between creating art and taking pictures? In my way of thinking absolutely! While the concept of what is art is subjective there are commonalities we all have that make something art. Merriam-Webster defines art as: “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination, especially in the production of aesthetic objects”. Let me repeat that for the people in the back, “the conscious use of skill AND creative imagination, especially in the production of aesthetic objects”.

The reason this topic comes up again with me is that, once again, I saw a huge debate in a photography forum that started with the topic of sky replacements in Photoshop. The person who started this conversation dislikes the sky replacement and said that essentially if you used such a thing you no longer had a photograph but “digital art”. YAWN! Here we go again. This topic has been debated ad nauseam. If you don’t like a tool don’t use it! It is really that simple. At the same time, don’t belittle the work of another.

One of the things I thought about while reading this dissensus was, that it must be great to be able to stay at a location or revisit it often enough and on a moment’s notice to get a photograph of said subject with a sky that perfectly matches your vision. We’re not all on assignment from National Geographic that we get paid to sit and wait for weeks, or even months to be able to get that one particular moment in time. Hells bells, for that matter I don’t even give care if it is total fantasy.

If you ever walk around an art museum, you know the place with paintings, sculptures, and often photographs, you will probably find art that isn’t quite to your liking. That is fine. If every piece of a photograph I use is a photograph, then it is a photograph.

I’m not creating snap-shot photography. I work to create artful photographs. If that means I have to use multiple tools, including sky replacement in Photoshop so be it. Create your work your way.

Oh, by the way, just so that you know, I didn’t engage in this dissensus, aside from reading bit and pieces. It isn’t worth my time. I would rather be creating and debating a dead topic.

I recently bought a Kodak DC120 Zoom. The camera contained a 10 MB compact flash card. Yes, 10 megabytes. The camera stored the files in a .kdc format. Apparently, this format was older than a newer version of Kodak Easy Share format so I didn’t have any programs that would read the files. I did find an online site that will convert the files to a modern format.

This all leads me to wonder, how long in the future will our digital files no longer be supported? The jpg format has been around since 1992 and is still a standard file format, although more and more often we are told to use the png file format due to its lossless compression. It’s interesting to consider, at least to me. Will anyone even want our digital files far into the future?

One solution would be to make prints, but if you’re like me I have boxes of old prints and negatives that I rarely, and I mean rarely get into. Will all our work be lost? For me, it is something to think about.

If you follow practically any photography forum you will often see conversations about photographic gear. Often the conversation is about the latest and greatest gear available or about upgrading gear. Photography has always been about gear to some extent. Let’s face it, you have to have a camera of some sort, but it seems as if photography has become more and more about a race for gear. My newest camera body is now 8 years old. My next most used camera body is 11 years old. They both still perform well. I have yet to find something that these cameras don’t have that holds me back.

I think photographic gear is awesome. I love looking at photographic gear. I love looking at quality photographs more though. I often believe people are searching for a way to make their photography better without having to work and learn. If I buy this new thing my photography will be better.

To me, it is about learning, experimenting, seeing, envisioning, and then somewhat about gear. Don’t let the quest for gear cloud your growth as an artist.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen this debate and mostly because I don’t frequent forums where the topic comes up often, but all photography is real photography. It makes no difference what type of camera was used or whether it was on film or digital. Let’s face it, at one-time glass plates or a thin piece of metal were used as the media to record the image.

Current smartphones have cameras that are quite capable. It’s just a matter of learning how to control the features of the camera. The smartphone camera uses virtually the same technology as a dedicated digital camera.

I would venture to guess that most of us have a smartphone with a camera. I know there are times, as in many times, that my smartphone is the only device that I have to use to take a photograph. My iPhone X has a 12-megapixel sensor. I may not be able to make large prints from an image but it is quite capable.

I don’t intend to give up using my dedicated Nikon digital SLR cameras any time soon, but I do believe it is time to stop the debate about smartphone photography not being “real photography”. Learn to use all your gear, which includes your smartphone camera because sometimes it may be all you have to capture a marvelous scene.

A few years ago another photographer said to me, “It’s easy to take a pretty picture of a flower, it’s already pretty.” I’m not sure I would go quite that far, but it has some truth as I think back on the statement. Are we just about making pretty pictures of pretty subjects? I certainly hope not.

I’m not sure what the plant is in the featured photograph, but it isn’t pretty by most flower standards. I saw this plant wandering along a trail in the Flint Hills last September. Many of the plants in the Flints Hills look rugged like this. The open prairie is a harsh environment for plants, I’d guess. I was drawn to this because it was rugged-looking and had many textures.

I’ve heard photographers talk about going out on a photographic excursion. They are waiting for the perfect light, the golden hour, or the blue hour. They are looking for pretty subjects, in pretty light, on a pretty day. I try to not limit myself to just those subjects and just those hours. I often work to make a decent photograph of the mundane. Making decent photographic art with a mundane subject in mundane lighting on a mundane day is much more challenging. Can’t we find beauty and art in the mundane? I think so. Don’t limit yourself to only pretty subjects, in pretty light, on a pretty day. Look for interesting ways to capture the mundane.

Yesterday, I wrote about a post on a social media site stating how much gear matters. Originally, I didn’t even look at the person who wrote the post photographs, but eventually, I couldn’t help myself. I looked and I must say I wasn’t impressed. In my way of thinking, if you’re going to go out in the world and boast about how quality gear makes a difference you should have top-quality work.

We should let our work represent our skills, not our gear. Our photography gear serves merely as tools. We don’t need an expensive camera and lens to create quality work. What we do need is know-how.

I’ve set up a challenge for myself this weekend. I’m going to take my 16-year-old Nikon D80 and my $100 (I think it was $90 when I bought it in 2006) 50mm f/1.8 lens and create some quality photographs just to demonstrate to myself that it isn’t about gear but about results. Hopefully, I will be able to share the results with you all.

I don’t intend this to be a rant but rather a challenge to us to let our work speak for us rather than our tools. The tools we use are just that, tools. Our skill, our vision, and our resulting art are what matter.

Don’t let gear hold you back. I’ve seen high-quality photographs and videos shot with an iPhone.