A photography lesson from a person who is not passionate about photography. . .

[Melvin]

"Beginner's Mind"--a concept in Zen Buddhism, where the subject has no preconceptions, expectations or bad habits, but is enthusiastic and engaged. Its antithesis in photography is GAS, GAS being a manifestation of the anxiety produced by the gradual loss of "Beginner's Mind".

 

[Ducky]

. . . but passionate about the subject.


But the biggest thing she is learning is story telling. She is not passionate about photography, but she loves our children who are young. She is trying to chronicle events and milestones in their live to scrapbook them. She is so passionate about them, that she shoots a lot, tries different angles, all with the same lens. And . . . . She is getting really good. She is able to make a simple event look beautiful. She is able to capture the emotion and story.

I think most of us, at some point, get a gear-head approach and obsess over stuff. The camera can be technically satisfying but to tell a story transcends all that and the camera is merely a sketch pad. Forgeting the technical stuff, I mean really forgeting it, and useing the camera to tell a story is what this lady does. Good for her.

 

[maddoc]

In the beginning it is about photography, after some time it becomes "camera-hobby", sometimes photography becomes important again (seldom) ... 🙄

 

[sanmich]

What??

How could she possibly shoot good pictures without knowing about focus shift, creamy Bokeh, rendition, 3d, and all the dictionary??😛

That's a cool story.
I'm sorry to shake your world, but your wife IS passionate about photography. She is not about gear. Most women can't see the beauty in the small toys that we, men, appreciate (cameras, watches, pens, leatherman, you name it). They are simply more grown up than we are...

I guess your wife is not even feeling the need to spend hours on forums like RFF 😀

 

[fefe]

My girlfriend found another interresting way of taking pictures. She has a much better eye than me, but doesn't really want to learn or spend the time. So whenever she wants me to take a particular picture she pulls her point and shoot outside of the pocket and let me take the same picture as her with my Leica 🙂.
The next step was that she stopped carrying her point and shoot and has just been showing to me with her hands what she expects to be in the picture.

As a result I take better pictures, and she's happy because her memories get captured properly without her having to bother to do it.

 

[navilluspm]

Thanks for all the replies, and I liked the story about your girl friend, Chris.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Thanks for all the replies, and I liked the story about your girl friend, Chris.

Thanks 🙂 I thought it was a good story, we've had a lot of fun photographing together

 

[aniMal]

Great story - and I can very much relate to it...

Reminds me that I should check this section more often - and keep selling the gear that I dont need...

 

[peripatetic]

My wife has the exceedingly irritating habit that when she takes 10 pictures on a day I take 100 she probably has 7 of the 10 best.

She is very strong visually, thoroughly uninterested technically. She did actually work as a print and photo journalist in her younger days and could easily have been a photojournalist IMO, and was encouraged to pursue it by some PJs she knew at the time, but it wasn't her thing. *shrug*

But we both enjoy documenting our lives and particularly our daughters' lives as they grow.

I work hard to be a pretty good photographer, if she had wanted to she could probably have been a great photographer; probably still could for that matter.

 

[navilluspm]

Thank you for the story, perpatetic.

My wife, just today, told me that she is really liking the Rebel I gave to her, and is starting to get into it. I showed her how to do custom white balance, and now she is reading the manual and took it one step further: fine tuning custom white balance, which even I didn't know about! She also is looking at pictures in a scrapbook magazine and the "technical details" of the photos. She is asking me the relationship between aperture, shutterspeed and ISO.

And, the news of all news is this: she said that she might want a news lens before our trip to visit the family next summer. She wants something wider, but is torn between another prime, or the inexpensive zoom lens with IS.

By giving her the Rebel XTi, I think I've created a photographer ;-) I just hope that she does not fall into the trap of worrying too much about technical stuff. She is great at capturing the momment, but when looking at scrapbooking magazines, she starts to think he pictures are not up to par. I think they are. Here is an example:

This picture was taken expressly for the person who gave the stuffed animal for my children. It was to thank them. Trust me, this kiss was not long. She got the moment!

 

[swoop]

Sally Mann?

 

[Merkin]

when I first started in to photography when I was a kid, my father handed me a pentax k1000 and a ricoh 50mm f1.7 lens. He wouldn't let me use any other gear until I could take good photos with what I had. When the day finally arrived that I got a canon eos with a 28-200 zoom lens, the quality of my pictures went in the toilet, and took a long time to get better, because I became too preoccupied with all of the choices I had. Once I realized this, i went back to primes, and I rarely get very far away from 43mm. That 50mm f1.8 canon lens is amazing for the price, in fact, it is the lens i have on my eos today. If I were in the position today that my father was when I was a kid, i would do it no differently. I would hand a new photographer a fully manual film camera with a 35 to 50 mm prime lens, and make sure they have the basics down before they move on to anything else. Even though everyone loves new gear (I know I do), it is far more important to be familiar with the gear you have, and to concentrate more on the composition than the tools.

my advice to the op is that when your wife is ready for a new lens, don't get her a zoom, get her another nice prime, perhaps an 85mm portrait lens. Zooms tend to make people (in my experience, myself included) lazy.