The virus and photography: give up your camera!

[RichC]

I was remembered this old thread of mine. Take photographs while avoiding the virus by giving up your camera - works even for street photography!

My thread attracted strong views - most negative. Some years have passed but I haven't changed my mind: you can be a photographer without a camera. Are people now more accepting?

So, become a photographer by staying at home and not using your camera... see my old thread "I’m a photographer ... what’s a camera?".

 

[bullterrier]

what shall I accept?my camera??with the Irony??? and all its difficult too know what you mean

 

[Michael Markey]

Thank you for the memories Rich.
Nice to read some of Stewart`s old posts again .

I still need a camera though ….. oh and I still like cameras as "things" , although it`s a like not a need. 🙂

 

[bullterrier]

ahh the title was somewhat misleading its about another virus called GAS (gear addict syndrome)

must admit I have that too,specially when a new camera is smaller and better..

I spend sometime reading reviews,looking at brickwalls but mostly I am out shooting..

 

[Pál_K]

For the last 8 weeks I've been out using my Leica R8, Contax IIIa, Polaroid 1200, and a Pentax K10D that a friend sold to me for $10 (a great camera). On a few occasions I've been to a few semi-remote areas within 50 miles from my house.

Despite the closing of restaurants and other "non-essential" businesses, people have been walking their dogs in the neighborhood, walking out with family, going to the waterfront, lakes, rivers, parks, and hiking (because it's possible to do that and stay apart from others). Virus or not, usually I walk a mile or two anyway photographing trees and plants. Lately, I've seen others out with cameras, but did not get close enough to see what kind of cameras they were.

This type of daily activity is the least risk - I'm not within 10 feet of anyone.

The riskiest place to go is the market, less than a mile from my house: even within 20 minutes of closing time, there are plenty of people (usually under 50 years old) walking around in groups without masks or just standing in the aisle together, staring at their phones.

The number of new virus cases here is declining: down to 1%; with deaths under 1%.

 

[RichC]

OP here...

I'm happy to call myself a photographer, and don't always use a camera. A project I'm finishing off uses "found" snaps of war in Finland from the 1940s that I've collected. Roughs of part of it below - the two top rows are photos I took myself in Finland, the bottom row photos are not by me but WW2 snapshots by anonymous photographers.

 

[bullterrier]

Richard Prince

 

[p.giannakis]

So, become a photographer by staying at home and not using your camera...

I am spending more time at home taking pictures of the kids nowadays. I am sure my kids will appreciate it in the future.

The lockdown forced me to go back to old films and re-examine them. I found pictures that I used to consider insignificant back then, now the time has given a different quality to them (at least in my mind).
Maybe it will be some sort of a project for me to revisit old pictures and see how the passing of time has changed the way I feel about them.

 

[icebear]

Yeah, well corona times are boring and old threats can be dug up to chew on again😉
From your own thread starter 2012:

QUOTE[by Rich C 12-20-2012: ... I disagree. (A)You can be a brilliant photographer yet know nothing about cameras; indeed, (B)you can be a photographer without using a camera.]

My 2 cents during these times:
A) yes, right .. as long as the exposure yields a usable image
B) no, ... no camera - > no image

Photograph means writing with light. If there is no captured result, the image is just in your memory and you can't show it to anyone. If you tell others about it you are a story teller. If you write about it you are an author. If you paint your memories of that image, you are a painter. If you use other people's photographs you are a thief, or a fake artist with a good lawyer.

Without a camera (light capuring device of any kind) you are everything else BUT a photographer. 😎

 

[Ko.Fe.]

No camera, no photography. It is not negative, it is cold fact.

If you are at home, even if alone, as long as you are not in institution, where are plenty of things to photograph and learn about light indoors. I oredred visoflex 🙂
If your world is shrinking you have to get closer.

I had mobility limiting health factor once. Same seasons from winter to spring. Back then I used macro lens. It opened next to universe to me. And helped to stay fit.

 

[Rob-F]

I thought you were going to say to use our iPhones.

I plan to photograph mainly my rose garden this year.

 

[RichC]

No camera, no photography. It is not negative, it is cold fact.

Movie directors - film-makers - get others to operate the camera. Some directors know nothing about cameras! If it's OK for those who make moving images not to use a camera but still be considered the creator of the shots, surely that's true also for still images, i.e. photography?

The renowned photographer Gregory Crewdson works like a movie director and doesn't take his own photos - he pays someone to actually press the shutter for him!

The British photographer John Stezaker doesn't own a camera but creates collages from cut-up postcards and other found photos. He won one of the world's highest photography awards in 2012, the Deutsche Börse Award, sponsored by the UK's Photographers' Gallery - the world's first and foremost public photography museum. The gallery has also exhibited Gregory Crewdson.

Clearly, the photography world doesn't think a photographer needs a camera... that consensus surely trumps our personal view.

 

[charjohncarter]

I don't know if David Hockney is in your bracket of no cameras, but he certainly isn't a gear person. One of his pieces was shown at the Oakland (CA) Museum of Yosemite Valley made of disposable camera snaps in a collage.

Also, I remember a feature on a NY photographer that only used a Brownie Hawkeye Flash: pretty low coefficient of gearness.

 

[Larry Cloetta]

Movie directors - film-makers - get others to operate the camera. Some directors know nothing about cameras! If it's OK for those who make moving images not to use a camera but still be considered the creator of the shots, surely that's true also for still images, i.e. photography?

The renowned photographer Gregory Crewdson works like a movie director and doesn't take his own photos - he pays someone to actually press the shutter for him!

The British photographer John Stezaker doesn't own a camera but creates collages from cut-up postcards and other found photos. He won one of the world's highest photography awards in 2012, the Deutsche Börse Award, sponsored by the UK's Photographers' Gallery - the world's first and foremost public photography museum. The gallery has also exhibited Gregory Crewdson.

Clearly, the photography world doesn't think a photographer needs a camera... that consensus surely trumps our personal view.

Stanley Kubrick could not be reached for comment.

 

[LCSmith]

OP here...

I'm happy to call myself a photographer, and don't always use a camera. A project I'm finishing off uses "found" snaps of war in Finland from the 1940s that I've collected. Roughs of part of it below - the two top rows are photos I took myself in Finland, the bottom row photos are not be me but WW2 snapshots by anonymous photographers.

And yet, you take pictures of pictures. Whatever the "object" of a photographic process may be, the photographic process remains even if it is another picture. The "camera" that I use to scan my negatives is my scanner. I am taking pictures of a negative and manipulating the digital picture. Here I am a kind of double photographer, first making a negative and then making a picture of the negative.

I remember a photography guru talking about something like seven exposures in the photographic process. It is an interesting concept. First the exposure of the subject to our eyes. Then the exposure of the light to the emulsion. Then the exposure of the emulsion to the developer. Then the exposure of the light through the negative onto photographic paper. Then the exposure of light on the print. Then the exposure of the print onto our eyes. I do not know if that is seven, but each step is certainly "photographic".

I obviously missed "the exposure of the photographic paper to the developer". That would make seven. Not that the number seven matters, per se. It's the idea of the multiplicity of exposures in the photographic process.

 

[css9450]

Despite the closing of restaurants and other "non-essential" businesses, people have been walking their dogs in the neighborhood, walking out with family, going to the waterfront, lakes, rivers, parks, and hiking (because it's possible to do that and stay apart from others).

The riskiest place to go is the market, less than a mile from my house: even within 20 minutes of closing time, there are plenty of people (usually under 50 years old) walking around in groups without masks or just standing in the aisle together, staring at their phones.

That's true here too. With the arrival of good weather, people are outside constantly. I can work from home and I sit on the couch with my laptop and there are a steady stream of passers-by most of the day long. By dinnertime they pretty much disappear. But man oh man, the stores are packed! And some places have a line at the door to limit how many are in at one time. I hope these are all essential shopping trips.

Its now midday on Sunday and I've been out taking pictures about four times so far this weekend. I haven't spoken to another human being the whole time, and if one came within twenty feet of me I'd be surprised. My photography is a pretty solitary activity and the virus hasen't changed it much.

Last night I drove into Chicago to shoot some scenes near Midway Airport I've been meaning to do. Same situation: people everywhere, but my lone wolf shooting style didn't bring me anywhere close to any of them.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

If you are not taking pictures, you are not photographer. Director, collages cutter, anything else, but not photographer.

Annie Leibovitz is technically illiterate. She has assistants. She would give one of them camera and explain the problem and what she wants. Assistant is making changes on camera and she takes the image.
She is photographer, dudes bellow aren't.

Movie directors - film-makers - get others to operate the camera. Some directors know nothing about cameras! If it's OK for those who make moving images not to use a camera but still be considered the creator of the shots, surely that's true also for still images, i.e. photography?

The renowned photographer Gregory Crewdson works like a movie director and doesn't take his own photos - he pays someone to actually press the shutter for him!

The British photographer John Stezaker doesn't own a camera but creates collages from cut-up postcards and other found photos. He won one of the world's highest photography awards in 2012, the Deutsche Börse Award, sponsored by the UK's Photographers' Gallery - the world's first and foremost public photography museum. The gallery has also exhibited Gregory Crewdson.

Clearly, the photography world doesn't think a photographer needs a camera... that consensus surely trumps our personal view.

In late interview with HCB, then interviewer showed him picture and told how awesome it is, HCB admits it was not his picture. He gave camera to another photog sitting in the street light pole.
Your links are about the same.

 

[LCSmith]

If you are not taking pictures, you are not photographer. Director, collages cutter, anything else, but not photographer.

Annie Leibovitz is technically illiterate. She has assistants. She would give one of them camera and explain the problem and what she wants. Assistant is making changes on camera and she takes the image.
She is photographer, dudes bellow aren't.

In our "fame obsessed" culture we sometimes lose the forest for the trees. I understand your feelings of indignation about the lesser-known but worker-bee photographers. You are justified in that feeling; but that fact has no bearing on the legitimacy of the queen-bee photographer.

If you are worried about "being remembered as a photographer" I do not know what to say. I think that can be a good and motivating drive to success, but it can also lead to the solipsistic and patronizing mania of a self-consuming monster.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

In our "fame obsessed" culture we sometimes lose the forest for the trees. I understand your feelings of indignation about the lesser-known but worker-bee photographers. You are justified in that feeling; but that fact has no bearing on the legitimacy of the queen-bee photographer.

If you are worried about "being remembered as a photographer" I do not know what to say. I think that can be a good and motivating drive to success, but it can also lead to the solipsistic and patronizing mania of a self-consuming monster.

Whut?
Is person who tells were to turn and stop is bus driver, then?
And traffic coordinator on the observation tower is the pilot. For sure. 🙂

 

[LCSmith]

Whut?
Is person who tells were to turn and stop is bus driver, then?
And traffic coordinator on the observation tower is the pilot. For sure. 🙂

I am certain you missed the point.