Gabriel M.A.
My Red Dot Glows For You
If only that were the case.
Just notice how much time it's spent by some setting others "straight".
We could use a little whiskey, some cigars, maybe some Oporto, and just sit, chill, and shoot away.
I think I just found my photo philosophy!
sepiareverb
genius and moron
Chris101
summicronia
Well, hollowed out cigars...If only that were the case.
Just notice how much time it's spent by some setting others "straight".
We could use a little whiskey, some cigars, maybe some Oporto, and just sit, chill, and shoot away.
I think I just found my photo philosophy!
I used to be all up on drug terminology, but until I looked up whippet in the urban dictionary, I thought they were dogs.
Thanks!
Richard G
Veteran
Greek: Oxus = sharp; moros = stupid -- oxymoron, opposites joined. What are we about, taking photographs? Trying to make sense, and warding off death. Notturtle has a point that the endless facility with the 35 v 50 perspective might not actually lead anywhere. One of the first threads I read here was on the art of photography. The upshot was that no-one would be producing art and not realizing it: the engagement is the thing, but whether the motivation for that engagement can be written out is another thing. Sometimes it can.
Those "ren faire" photos are probably the most frightening thing I've seen in a long time.
What the photos say to me is "pack it up, the USA is devolving into a corporate managed pen for Morlocks".
Given that premise, they are excellent documentary photos, sort of like evidence photos at a murder trial.
What the photos say to me is "pack it up, the USA is devolving into a corporate managed pen for Morlocks".
Given that premise, they are excellent documentary photos, sort of like evidence photos at a murder trial.
bmattock
Veteran
Leighgion
Bovine Overseer
Want to say a word about taking thousands of photographs, as there appears to be a current of thinly veiled to naked scorn at the very idea of it. I feel this is unjustified and a peculiar failure of imagination at the different situations photography covers.
On normal days, I'm not inclined to shoot piles of exposures regardless of what camera I have, but there is one situation in my life which demands it.
My teenage niece plays soccer.
Now some might immediately respond that a good sports photographer wouldn't need to machine gun the soccer pitch to get a couple keepers. Hang on, the situation isn't that simple.
While I expect photographing the soccer games started out for everybody as mostly a case of getting some shots of your kid/closest relative, the reality of the time we live in (and that these girls grew up in) quickly made the end of season (digital) slide show not merely a logical and popular entertainment for end of the season party, but one which the the girls have grown to expect.
Now, not only is a digital slide show a very different beast from a traditional one, a digital slide show for a soccer team of teenage girls has its own specific demands. You want action of course, but humor is also favored and you want to be fair and include enough shots of every one of the girls so as not to appear to be playing favorites.
The last slide show I helped out with included nearly 300 shots to cover about 20 minutes of run time. Anything less than 15 minutes doesn't parse well with the audience and the duration of each shot can't stretch too long or it feels like you're stalling.
There's 10 runners on the field at a time plus the goalie, but that's not an entire team. I haven't counted, but I believe there's an average of near 20 players in total.
There's only about 12 actual reliable games per season. Championship games are unreliable, as the team may not make it far and even the main season tends to include a couple indoor games, which make sports photography much more difficult in the poor light.
All those factors added up basically force you to shoot at least a thousand shots over the year or you won't have a chance of covering all those bases and having enough material to pick through by the end of the year for a slide show. Hundreds of shots per game is really the more realistic number (and what I've done in practice) if you want to apply some standards to the final selection and not just grab every even vaguely passable shot.
Photographing high school-level soccer may not qualify as high art the majority of the time (and probably fits well into Rich's "craftsman" category) but it bears remembering that photography is a utilitarian thing as well as an artistic medium. It doesn't have to be art to be worth doing and sometimes the job honestly calls on you to use those monstrous memory cards to do it right.
back alley
IMAGES
now THAT'S funny!
bmattock
Veteran
I agree with you. Furthermore, one is faced with what appears to be an important decision to make if one is not graced with the ability to always get the shot where the eyes are all open, no one is fidgeting, everyone's clothing not in disarray, no grimaces, etc, one either has to machine-gun or one has to accept that a number of excellent shots will be missed.
Machine-gunning is no guarantee that the great shots will be hit, but it represents a chance that they will. Simply accepting that one is not quite capable of always nailing the perfect shot in an action sequence is, to me, anathema.
Perhaps it is more pure. Perhaps it is more artistic. Perhaps it is truer of spirit - to simply issue that oh-so-gallic shrug and say "Oh well, I guess I am not good enough to do it on my own, and I refuse to resort to artificial assistance."
I have found 'run-n-gun' to be extremely useful to me in a number of circumstances. Very often I pick a shot out the middle of ten consecutive frames and I find I like it very much. Can I congratulate myself, since I did not take that EXACT shot, but instead merely triggered the sequence that captured it? I suppose not. But the goal was to get a good shot and here I have done that - and this is wrong how?
I see it very much as a tool to be used in appropriate circumstances, just like auto-focus, auto-exposure, various programs, post-processing, and so one. I don't always do it, but I have no problem doing it. Why not? I have room on my digital memory cards, I have battery power. Whom am I harming?
And yet, as you said, the disdain bordering on fanaticism from some. Well, whatever. I really don't care if they disapprove, with their effete noses tilted daintily in the air. In fact, I find it a tad amusing. Not that I mind sticking a thumb in their eyes from time to time. They'd miss the shot and feel noble about it because they did not 'cheat' to get it. I'd get the shot and feel great about the shot, because the shot is what matters.
Tell me about the gallery where the only photos hanging on the walls were shots that were not taken because the photographer refused to compromise his noble anti-machinegun sensibility!
What matters is results. Take lots of photos. One gets better by practicing. Even if the photos themselves don't improve instantly, one's mind-machine interface does - the camera becomes an extension of one's self.
DougFord
on the good foot
Didn’t R. Frank take something like 28000 shots in less than a year, during his trip across America? As a part time hobbyist, I won’t take that many pics in my life time. And what of the SI swim suit photogs that shoot tens of thousands of shots? Scale is used for various purposes in photography, whether it’s a chosen focal length or the number of pics taken etc, what of it? One more shot or a hundred more, if the situation allows, it’s your call. The job is done when the photog in question sez the job is done.
Spider67
Well-known
....I am getting a bit astonished by the wildly antagonistic feelings against the renaissance fairs. So a couple of people like to meet and have a good time ......yielding outdated gear?
The only people doing similar things that freak me out are WW II reenactors who continually like to impersonate SS troops and have more than historic interest in the Wehrmacht....but they also would deserve to be documented photographically.
Seems that sometimes "philosophy" is misunderstood as some kind of mushy, kitschy talk ....Do we have to introduce some kind of secret handshake or to write a CoC for the merry order of RFFers? Seems as if some of us sometimes have a subconscious need to belong to a certain group be it "artist", "professional" , "gearhead", "Leica Samurai" or "vitriolic outsider"(btw what happened to Valdemar?). To which group do I belong, well makes me thgink that buying an olive R2 might have been also somelonging to join the club.....
The only people doing similar things that freak me out are WW II reenactors who continually like to impersonate SS troops and have more than historic interest in the Wehrmacht....but they also would deserve to be documented photographically.
Seems that sometimes "philosophy" is misunderstood as some kind of mushy, kitschy talk ....Do we have to introduce some kind of secret handshake or to write a CoC for the merry order of RFFers? Seems as if some of us sometimes have a subconscious need to belong to a certain group be it "artist", "professional" , "gearhead", "Leica Samurai" or "vitriolic outsider"(btw what happened to Valdemar?). To which group do I belong, well makes me thgink that buying an olive R2 might have been also somelonging to join the club.....
Kevin
Rainbow Bridge
This is the purpose of this forum - to exchange thoughts and experiences dealing with rangefinder cameras.
As far as philosophy is concerned, you'll find that here too but the primary focus is on the craft itself.
Jason808
Established
xayraa33
rangefinder user and fancier
antiquark
Derek Ross
No one discusses spirit photography on this site much
I am a great proponent of photographing spirits...
dfoo
Well-known
You realize that you are goading him, and being childish to boot. Just because he doesn't agree with you, does not mean he is wrong.
Leighgion
Bovine Overseer
I forgot to mention that even at my niece's games, I don't really end up leveraging continuous shooting mode more than two or three times for a three shot burst. I still end up with hundreds of shots. They may just been teenagers, but there's still plenty going on over the course of a game and even when the ball isn't active, I'm trying to get candid shots. Last game I was at, my sister actually had specific candids she wanted me to help her cover.
It'd certainly be a very efficient and environmentally friendly gallery. Tuck right into your pocket.
Al Kaplan
Veteran
So Robert Frank shot 28,000 shots in a year? Whoopy-do. Most of us would consider that low to moderate shooting, a tad over two rolls a day. Thirty-six exposure rolls? Two rolls a day? OMG! That's 26,280 shots already. Do the math. It amazes me that he didn't shoot three rolls some days.
DougFord
on the good foot
i bet ya if frank would have brought a stuffed monkey along with him on his trip, that he would'a shot 4, no make that 5 rolls a day, easy.
notturtle
Well-known
The OP was not a criticism of the forum - I too have spent a LOT of time talking kit - just a question relating to the apparent absence of the philosophical component of photography in general. I made specific reference to the almost total absence of the subject when it comes to the many writings, blogs, in books etc about 'improving yourself as a photographer.' These always talk of technique, skills, kit etc but very little (if ever) about why a person takes photographs and where they want their photography to go. Sure, for lots of people it is a very casual thing which is only ever to be fun and will never be weighed down by too much thought, but for others it is something that is important to them as a creative outlet. This thread was very much about the second.
It should be clear that this post was never a criticism of those who like to snap their kids, or prefer collecting to shooting. For those who are serious about their photography as a creative outlet or form of expression, it is perhaps quite tricky to find acknowledgment let alone discussion of the more philosophical aspects. Once again, this is not a blame game, problem with the forum or anything but a personal perception/observation.
I think that once you have decent basic skills nailed down 'developing yourself' can very quickly come down to where your head points you and why, because further honing of your skills, whether they are to do with brush development (because you shoot 10x8) or how to carry your kit (because maybe you love the street) in some way connect to what your photography is about. Once you have the finer aspects of technique nailed for your chose path, can 'improving yourself' be about anything other than ideas and intentions (once again, assuming a person takes the creative/expressive aspect seriously)?
Its almost as if that point of origin, which is unique for us all, is rarely discussed. Is it because for the earnest creative types it is personal, embarrassing, or down to confidence for those who are not already distinguished? Perhaps it is difficult to express strong personal philosophy opinions unless you have the clout of an established reputation to give credibility to your views & motivations? Would the same words from a big name, like Salgado, CB or AA, just sound pretentious when coming from an unestablished person who may or may not ever be 'acknowledged'?
This is not, or should not be, about turned up noses looking down on those who work very casually or aim to have a hoot and nothing more. Equally, one would hope that it is not about bashing those who have a specific philosophy that is important to them. And I am not talking about whether to machine gun or not. That is arguably a technique, with the photographic intention and desired results being the bit I originally posted about.
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