Does Camera Choice Affect Aesthetics?

[robertdfeinman]

This month's Pop Photo has the usual feature of magazines from 25 and 50 years ago. I noticed one of the images was a portrait taken with a Rollei TLR.

I'm pretty sure that I used my differently than I use eye level cameras. These days eye level cameras are about the only style left (especially if you include the digital squinting at the screen variety).

I know that I definitely "see" differently when I go out with my swinglens panoramic camera. I just notice scenes that wouldn't work in any other format, but this is a bit extreme.

So, my question is do you see differently when you use a different style of camera and do you think that the universality of eye-level cameras has limited the types of images being made?

I'm not concerned with the usual issues of square vs rectangular or B&W vs color, but the idea that one choses scenes or frames them in a certain way because the camera one is holding affects one's aesthetic choices.

 

[Bryce]

It has never been easier to take non eye level images than now, with P & S cameras having done away with the traditional viewfinder. They are really quite handy in that way!
So can you tell in the images made with these 'live view' cameras?

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Robert,

I cannot see how it can be otherwise. First there are physical constraints -- tripod/no tripod, eye-level/chest level, fast sequence/changing darkslide, format shape, lens speed, availability of materials -- and second there is the 'baggage' the camera comes with: pretending to be Cartier-Bresson vs. pretending to be Ansel Adams.

Having said this, there is also plenty of scope for taking similar pics with different formats -- Alpa and Leica spring to mind for me -- or different styles with the same format: my hand-held Polaroid 4x5s were very different from the tripod-mounted shots with the same camera.

Cheers,

R.

 

[MickH]

I know just the sort of shot you mean SM 😀

 

[Peter_Jones]

I agree it is inevitable. But most photos are snapshots taken at eye level. Which results in boring landscapes, generations of alien looking babies with big heads because the adult shooting them couldn't be bothered to sit on the floor, and pets with no legs shot straight down from the top, looking wistfully at the photographer, hopeful that they might one day recover their legs.

The TLR at least lowered the perspective a bit, returning proper proportion to kids heads as they reached about 11 years of age, and pet dogs finally did recover at least their front legs.

What the future may hold is hard to say.

That post made me laugh out loud, cheered me up no end 😀

 

[tripod]

If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Sure, different camera types encourage different styles of vision.

 

[craygc]

If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Funny... this is the very comment I heard in a technical enterprise unified communications workshop today with reference to Cisco :bang:

 

[giellaleafapmu]

I'm pretty sure that I used my differently than I use eye level cameras. These days eye level cameras are about the only style left (especially if you include the digital squinting at the screen variety).

Live view make you have now more options than ever. Also, models without the feature usually accept angle finders.

GLF

 

[Bertram2]

T

So, my question is do you see differently when you use a different style of camera and do you think that the universality of eye-level cameras has limited the types of images being made?
.

No. because a photog who earns that name does not look through his finder to search the photo.
He makes the photo without the camera first and then he makes the camera see what HE has seen. Anticipation.

If the camera affects aesthetics something runs very very wrong.

bertram

 

[georgef]

If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

First time I have seen this quote!😀 😀
With your permission, I am going to use it to death and thanks for the laugh tears!

 

[Bas]

No. because a photog who earns that name does not look through his finder to search the photo.
He makes the photo without the camera first and then he makes the camera see what HE has seen. Anticipation.

If the camera affects aesthetics something runs very very wrong.

bertram

Well... I have to say that when I look at a scene, I can't perfectly see it as if I would see it through a viewfinder. I see the scene, and it calls my attention. Then I try to find a good angle. But the final composition happens when I look through the VF (or screen, camera depending name here).

If what you say is true, everyone should be able to take the desired picture despite the camera used, and in my humble experience and my mates, this doesn't happen always like this.

My friends who love to take these post-modern macro pictures of objects like a doll, etc. (I specify this to distinguish these pictures from other kinds of macro images, like scientific work), love digicams cause the feel they can make a better composition by having the scene projected in the screen of their digicams.

Those shooting landscapes prefer 4x5 format at least.

Those who make street, rangefinders, because the rangefinder viewfinder helps them to see the whole scene, compose faster and more accurately. Specially rangefinders with 1:1 magnification or closer to that (they hate my Leica IIIc tunnel-vision viewfinder).

Finally, all around photographers mastered the use of through the lens view, read it reflex cameras. They have learned their limits and possibilities -as all previously quoted photogs did. But certainly their pictures are not the same when they switch cameras. Even my friends can tell me when I used my reflex and when a digicam (though they can't tell differences between my Zorki 4 and my reflex hehe).

Of course, to all of them and to me, it took a while to master their/our tools, and finally kept what gave best results and with what felt most comfortable.

I do agree with you that you see the picture in your eyes and not through the finder. However, I believe that when you take the camera to your eyes, it does affect aesthethics of the image, what I'm not sure is the level of this.

I like to think about it more or less as when you change your focal length to some you are not pretty much used to. I know this is kind of taking it to the extremes, however switching the camera to a different format with different relations between sides, or switching to a camera where the way you compose is much different, in my humbe opinion affects aesthethics.

Though you can "paint" in photoshop, I'm sure that if a painter uses photoshop would not reach the same results using a computer than if he uses a normal brush, oils and a normal canvas ;-)

If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

That made me laugh. Good one there man.

Best,
Bas.

 

[bojan]

The camera is more than a tool ... it is a statement of expressive intentions: look! I am toting a rangefinder ... I am going to do some street photography or candids ... I have a scale meter Minox or Rollei so that ... I'm into galleries and museums, etc.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

What the future may hold is hard to say.

It's all gloom. Gloom! Gloooom!

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

The camera is more than a tool ... it is a statement of expressive intentions: look! I am toting a rangefinder ... I am going to do some street photography or candids ... I have a scale meter Minox or Rollei so that ... I'm into galleries and museums, etc.

frankly... 🙄

 

[FallisPhoto]

This month's Pop Photo has the usual feature of magazines from 25 and 50 years ago. I noticed one of the images was a portrait taken with a Rollei TLR.

I'm pretty sure that I used my differently than I use eye level cameras. These days eye level cameras are about the only style left (especially if you include the digital squinting at the screen variety).

I know that I definitely "see" differently when I go out with my swinglens panoramic camera. I just notice scenes that wouldn't work in any other format, but this is a bit extreme.

So, my question is do you see differently when you use a different style of camera and do you think that the universality of eye-level cameras has limited the types of images being made?

I'm not concerned with the usual issues of square vs rectangular or B&W vs color, but the idea that one choses scenes or frames them in a certain way because the camera one is holding affects one's aesthetic choices.

Sure. When I use a view camera, I see upside down and backward.

 

[bojan]

frankly... 🙄

I second that!

 

[Bertram2]

The camera is more than a tool ... it is a statement of expressive intentions: look! I am toting a rangefinder ... I am going to do some street photography or candids ... I have a scale meter Minox or Rollei so that ... I'm into galleries and museums, etc.

Oh, great , we have satirists here !! 😀 😀

 

[Bas]

Our next generations of Jerry Seinfelds 😀

 

[Bertram2]

everyone should be able to take the desired picture despite the camera used,
Bas.

Yes. He should. Tho the camera can make it more or less easy for him, he should be able to do so.

At least with all those halfways versatile cameras we normally use.
Excluded are all cases of obvious severe limitation relative to the job. Neither pinhole nor 8X11" is suited for street at night.

If we assume that cameras influence our aesthetics we open a backdoor for all that silly gasbag propaganda.

Because if we accept that cameras influence our aesthetics, we are only one step away from believing that only a special kind of camera can make a real good photo of a certain photographical category.

As an example: "For really good street shots you need a RF"

And that is straight nonsense of course, which leads us directly into that hunting the Golden Bullet story, by buying and selling cameras periodically, hoping all the time we will find the tool, which gives us finally the intended results we still can't achieve.

Therfore again a categorical "NO!" is my answer to the question of this thread.

 

[Bas]

If we assume that cameras influence our aesthetics we open a backdoor for all that silly gasbag propaganda.

Because if we accept that cameras influence our aesthetics, we are only one step away from believing that only a special kind of camera can make a real good photo of a certain photographical category.

As an example: "For really good street shots you need a RF"

And that is straight nonsense of course, which leads us directly into that hunting the Golden Bullet story, by buying and selling cameras periodically, hoping all the time we will find the tool, which gives us finally the intended results we still can't achieve.

Therfore again a categorical "NO!" is my answer to the question of this thread.

Bertram2, please, quote my whole post, or at least entire sentences... the extract you quoted indeed is the contrary of what I'm saying.

This was the whole phrase:

If what you say is true, everyone should be able to take the desired picture despite the camera used, and in my humble experience and my mates, this doesn't happen always like this.

Now, let's go.

Aesthethics is not a paralellism of good or bad.

Aesthethics, for me, is a subjective topic. By saying "aesthethics", I understand that I am entering into the fields of oneself understanding and tastes, and not necessarily a judgment of good or bad. I can judge someone else picture from the technical point of view, but such an adjective as "good" or "bad" beyond the technical position is a subjective judgement, not an objective one.

Where I say it does influence aesthethics, I mean that the weapon of choice infuences the final image. Not a value judgment of good or bad, which is the judgement you are implying in the word aesthethics.

Excellent street photographies have been taken with all kinds of cameras (John Brownlow is a good example, Robert Doisneu a master that didn't use a Leica).

Aeshtethics, from my point of view, is not a synonym of good or bad. You should use the camera which with you feel more comfortable, but my humble opinion is that the final image will be influenced by the camera.

Best,
Bas.