Sparrow
Veteran
I know what you mean, Automation was the correct word at one time but it’s shifted meaning, I think deliberate has to have a conscious decision making process as its core meaning to be a valid word.bmattock said:
The Modern Camera and the Dilution of Effort.
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dazedgonebye
Veteran
I have to take an exception as to whether “deliberation” is a must, even for landscape photography.
The speed at which a person works is dictated not only by the subject, but by the person’s disposition and internal processes. Just because it may work for one person to tote 40 lbs of gear and spend 30 minutes in contemplation, does not mean that it will work for others.
My time is limited and I tend to shoot pretty quickly. I’m usually familiar with the ground and the possibilities at any given location, but still, as I move I see a different landscape. The view is only as static as I am.
Walking through my desert landscape, I’m constantly composing and constantly considering the possibilities. When I see what I want to see, I put the camera to my eye, compose in more detail and fire. I will then shift my viewpoint very slightly and fire again. This is often followed by shifting from landscape to portrait orientation, recomposing and firing yet again. Spending 3 minutes in a single spot would be very long indeed.
Photography is an exploration of thousands of ways of seeing the same place…at least that’s what it is for me because that’s the way my mind works.
If I spend 1 hour and come away with one exceptional shot, what difference does it make that I spent that time moving rather than in deliberation? It’s not like I strapped the camera to a donkey’s backside and set it to go off at random intervals (though that might be interesting). The creative process is still intentional, even if not deliberate.
The speed at which a person works is dictated not only by the subject, but by the person’s disposition and internal processes. Just because it may work for one person to tote 40 lbs of gear and spend 30 minutes in contemplation, does not mean that it will work for others.
My time is limited and I tend to shoot pretty quickly. I’m usually familiar with the ground and the possibilities at any given location, but still, as I move I see a different landscape. The view is only as static as I am.
Walking through my desert landscape, I’m constantly composing and constantly considering the possibilities. When I see what I want to see, I put the camera to my eye, compose in more detail and fire. I will then shift my viewpoint very slightly and fire again. This is often followed by shifting from landscape to portrait orientation, recomposing and firing yet again. Spending 3 minutes in a single spot would be very long indeed.
Photography is an exploration of thousands of ways of seeing the same place…at least that’s what it is for me because that’s the way my mind works.
If I spend 1 hour and come away with one exceptional shot, what difference does it make that I spent that time moving rather than in deliberation? It’s not like I strapped the camera to a donkey’s backside and set it to go off at random intervals (though that might be interesting). The creative process is still intentional, even if not deliberate.
jan normandale
Film is the other way
give monkeys cameras and see what they come up with....
bmattock
Veteran
jan normandale said:
Photos of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.
Andy K
Well-known
Sounds to me like most of those disagreeing did not read as far as this:
"Okay, there are times when you need to take a lot of images in a very short amount of time. Fires, parades, and weddings come to mind"
Gosh. What a surprise. 🙄
"Okay, there are times when you need to take a lot of images in a very short amount of time. Fires, parades, and weddings come to mind"
bmattock said:
Gosh. What a surprise. 🙄
R
RML
Guest
bmattock said:
They could do worse. 🙂
dazedgonebye
Veteran
Andy K said:
My point was that even static subjects can be captured with a dynamic process. Like all other aspects of any creative process, I don't believe we can draw conclusions for what will work for others.
Sparrow
Veteran
Steve, what you describe is just as deliberate as the description in the essay, and just as valid, I point a shoot landscape that’s probably less valid because I don’t care that much for landscape
Sparrow
Veteran
Now what type of camera should we use??????...........JOKEjan normandale said:
amateriat
We're all light!
From my copy of David Vestal's The Craft of Photography (1975):
As the technology advances, the craft recedes. Manufacturers and processing services take over more and more of the work and the picture decisions, while photographers get lazier and less competent. While technology holds out to us more possibilites than photographers have ever known, we use them less and less resourcefully. We have, on the whole, no idea how much we could achieve, and it doesn't occur to us to find out by trying. Too often we are content with sloppy, mediocre work. The one thing we've gained is spontaneity – useless without perception.
I've grokked these words, big-time, for the last few decades. But then...
A little story by David Burnett, as told to Frank Van Riper (2004):
"One of my favorite stories is about [the late] Frank Cancellare, the curmudgeonly gifted UPI photographer who, after the agencies switched from Speed Graphics to 35mm, kept in [his] head the way [he] had worked for 20 years. Cancie, getting off a Presidential plane unloaded his 20-exposure roll from his Nikon, looked for the UPI courier in the crowd, tossed him the film and said 'Print 'em both, kid.'"
- Barrett
As the technology advances, the craft recedes. Manufacturers and processing services take over more and more of the work and the picture decisions, while photographers get lazier and less competent. While technology holds out to us more possibilites than photographers have ever known, we use them less and less resourcefully. We have, on the whole, no idea how much we could achieve, and it doesn't occur to us to find out by trying. Too often we are content with sloppy, mediocre work. The one thing we've gained is spontaneity – useless without perception.
I've grokked these words, big-time, for the last few decades. But then...
A little story by David Burnett, as told to Frank Van Riper (2004):
"One of my favorite stories is about [the late] Frank Cancellare, the curmudgeonly gifted UPI photographer who, after the agencies switched from Speed Graphics to 35mm, kept in [his] head the way [he] had worked for 20 years. Cancie, getting off a Presidential plane unloaded his 20-exposure roll from his Nikon, looked for the UPI courier in the crowd, tossed him the film and said 'Print 'em both, kid.'"
- Barrett
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bmattock
Veteran
Andy K said:
I read it. The entire (short) article.
At first blush, I didn't agree that those three ("Fires, parades, and weddings") were the only examples of exceptions.
Then, upon further reflection, I realized that the author meant there could be other examples besides those listed.
Finally, I concluded that upon reflection, I could think of very few examples where there was not a 'speed' exception. A 'rule' comprised of nothing but exceptions is no rule.
I then posted that I did not agree with the article and my reasons why.
I stand by my answer. "There are times" turns out to be just about everything; hence, the thrust of the article is unproven, and I reject it as false.
Your post and included link invited me to read and comment. I read, I considered, I commented. I can't help it that I read very quickly and am very intelligent.
Best Regards,
Bill Mattocks
Sparrow
Veteran
amateriat said:
Yes I agree, who decides on the cut-off point?
John Camp
Well-known
Intelligent, I thought, but yet, just another 'method' that works for some people and circumstances and not others. I agree with Bill that there are so many exceptions that there is no rule; but I also tend to agree that most people who post on the Internet just bang away without much thought for composition, or their compositions are cliches (naked women in creeks or old buildings, aspens in sunlight, cracks in granite in b&w.) They **should** think about it more.
On a different forum, Sean Reid talks about taking street photographs where the "action" is completely spontaneous and accidental, but the "set-up" is carefully thought out, and functions almost like a big sheet backdrop paper in a studio. He's doing both at the same time...
Even in landscape, you have all kinds of (possibly apocryphal) stories of Ansel Adams scambling to save the masterpiece on his last sheet of film in the day's last light; and Galen Rowell said that the most famous shot he ever took (the rainbow over the monastery in Tibet) he got only by sprinting across a field to get the monastery framed behind the rainbow...
I think that the best landscapes are taken by people who have spent a lot of time in that landscape and have thought about it and experienced it, so when the magic moment comes, they recognize what's happening and where exactly the best potential is at, so that, in effect, you've spent a lot of time preparing to do something really quickly. The worst landscapes, IMHO, are taken by people who just visited Blahnikstan (or wherever) for the first and last time in their life...
I spent several years studying Shotokan karate and one of the major points of the training was to make the same movements over and over again, thousands of times, very precisely, but more and more quickly, so that if you were ever compelled to fight somebody, there'd be no thinking involved: you would be so habituated to the possibilities that the reaction would be thoroughly automatic but at the same time, intensely trained. The same concept would be applicable to the best photogaphy, I think.
JC
On a different forum, Sean Reid talks about taking street photographs where the "action" is completely spontaneous and accidental, but the "set-up" is carefully thought out, and functions almost like a big sheet backdrop paper in a studio. He's doing both at the same time...
Even in landscape, you have all kinds of (possibly apocryphal) stories of Ansel Adams scambling to save the masterpiece on his last sheet of film in the day's last light; and Galen Rowell said that the most famous shot he ever took (the rainbow over the monastery in Tibet) he got only by sprinting across a field to get the monastery framed behind the rainbow...
I think that the best landscapes are taken by people who have spent a lot of time in that landscape and have thought about it and experienced it, so when the magic moment comes, they recognize what's happening and where exactly the best potential is at, so that, in effect, you've spent a lot of time preparing to do something really quickly. The worst landscapes, IMHO, are taken by people who just visited Blahnikstan (or wherever) for the first and last time in their life...
I spent several years studying Shotokan karate and one of the major points of the training was to make the same movements over and over again, thousands of times, very precisely, but more and more quickly, so that if you were ever compelled to fight somebody, there'd be no thinking involved: you would be so habituated to the possibilities that the reaction would be thoroughly automatic but at the same time, intensely trained. The same concept would be applicable to the best photogaphy, I think.
JC
Toby
On the alert
Photography is like jazz you learn your craft and then you learn to improvise. In street photography I often work towards a good picture by taking some crappy ones. I feel I have to warm up and can only do this by shooting. I have no control over my subject so must capture moments as they are presentend to me -if I hesitate they are gone. As I work my perception of subect improves but some of my best pictures have been taken subconsiously. Just a feeling that "something is happening" and a press of the shutter. That's the scary thing about photography - I don't even know how I got some of my best pictures, all I did is put myself in a place where I thought good pictures might come to me.
dazedgonebye
Veteran
People value what comes from pain and suffering. If you do not suffer enough (carry enough gear and stand in place for long enough) then you're work is not art, it's simply luck and circumstance. 🙄
The mind works on many levels. If slow and deliberate works for you, wonderful. If free flowing and fast works, just as wonderful. I see no loss if one method is prefered over the other.
The mind works on many levels. If slow and deliberate works for you, wonderful. If free flowing and fast works, just as wonderful. I see no loss if one method is prefered over the other.
Toby said:
R
rpsawin
Guest
I think this advice needs to be weighed in terms of your own shooting style. If you could benefit from thinking things through than do it. If it cramps your style then don't do it. I saw nothing in the article establishing the contents as absolute.
Personally, I think there is something to be gained by pausing, scouting a location, lining up shots and thinking about the subject and how you want to approach it.....if the circumstances allow for it.
See how any advice fits your style and adapt.
Bob
Personally, I think there is something to be gained by pausing, scouting a location, lining up shots and thinking about the subject and how you want to approach it.....if the circumstances allow for it.
See how any advice fits your style and adapt.
Bob
lushd
Donald
I like to think carefully about my photography and plan ahead. Once I am shooting it feels quite instinctive and fast because I am well prepared.
Andy K
Well-known
bmattock said:
Yes it was quite short, but then some people feel no need to pad out everything they write with unnecessary waffle.
bmattock
Veteran
Andy K said:
Yes, they stick to random insults in place of facts. I've heard of such folks. Good thing we have none of them here.
Best Regards,
Bill Mattocks
Andy K
Well-known
bmattock said:
I see no insults in this thread.
I also do not see where the author speaks of hard and fast rules. They basically say 'think' or to use another word 'deliberate' before tripping the shutter.
You said "I did not find myself in agreement with the author" and in your very next sentence you say "I would agree that deliberation is a good thing in general terms." You either agree or disagree Bill. Which is it? The whole essay is about deliberation, thinking about what you want to convey in your photograph before tripping the shutter, instead of just snapping away in the hope of eventually getting something worthwhile.
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