Digital BW, The Print

"Consequently it tempts the photographer to be similarly
indiscriminate, and just shoot away, hoping for a good result."

Not when you're using an 8x10 camera and not when film costs $4 a sheet. 
: - )

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Stone" <David.Stone@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2007 11:18 AM
Subject: [Digital BW] Re: why do you take/make pictures


Harry wrote:

 > Someone (I wish it was me, or at least that I remembered who) said
 > that we photograph to learn how to see.
 >
 > Harry

I always told my students that if they wanted to learn to see, then
photography is the wrong medium. Photography is all-inclusive,
indiscriminate. It grabs everything in sight without stopping to
look, something that bothered the early users of the medium.

Consequently it tempts the photographer to be similarly
indiscriminate, and just shoot away, hoping for a good result. I
think that it was Lee Friedlander who said that photography is a very
generous medium, because it gives so much without any extra effort,
but of course few photographers are prepared to admit that much of
the content of their photographs is there by pure chance and not by
intention.

If you want to learn to see things critically, analytically, then
there is no better way than learning to draw (most photographers
don't want to know this of course). Producing an image, even badly,
by manual means imposes a discipline that in photography is simply
not required, and so never learned. Many of the most famous
photographers have been equally skilled at drawing and painting -
Henri Cartier-Bresson, Charles Sheeler, Irving Penn, and many others.

Many years ago, when as a student I did a full-time course in
photography, we spent the whole of every Monday morning for the first
year doing life-drawing. This was so revolutionary, and so effective,
that the effects on my eyes and brain remain decades later.

Jack's original question "why?" is a good one and needs to be
considered by anyone who teaches, or is planning to teach
photography. And, of course, by anyone who studies it. But I would
suggest that, as a starting point, you could do worse than consider
the collection of quotations at the end of Susan Sontag's "On
Photography". There's plenty of material here for students to think
about and discuss. And of course there are plenty of biographies and
autobiographies by and about photographers. But I can't think of a
better, more unpretentious or more concise answer to your question
than the title of Irving Penn's book of photographs from 1965:
"Moments Preserved".

David


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Brian Ellis
<bellis60@...> wrote:
> "Consequently it tempts the photographer to be similarly
> indiscriminate, and just shoot away, hoping for a good result."
> 
> Not when you're using an 8x10 camera and not when film costs $4 a
sheet. 
> : - )

That's a very valid point. I find that I always get the best results
when I am forced to slow down the most. This goes for technical
quality, obviously, because if I take my time I don't tend to mess up
with the basics, but it also applies to composition. If I shoot with
my little point-and-shoot Panasonic, I only rarely get good results,
not because of the camera or lens, but because I tend to take 5 to 10
seconds over a shot. I tend to use it for record shots only for that
reason -- things like, yesterday, wanting a list of the sizes of
cardboard boxes I could get from a local shop, not finding anything,
then just basically taking a couple of quick photos of the shelves so
I could refer back to it later.

This is why, about a year ago, when I decided to put some serious
investment into my hobby, I *didn't* go the DSLR route. This would
have been sensible and a lot cheaper, but I doubted I'd have really
liked the results. Not so much because the cameras or lenses were
inferior, but because I know I'd be tempted to work too quickly.
Instead, I went for medium- and large-format, but digital in both
cases. I wanted the image quality of high-end digital, and didn't want
the hassle (or ongoing cost) of film. The lack of automation, the
physical difficulty of moving heavy cameras and tripods, all of that
slows me down. With medium format, if I go out landscape shooting, I
might take 50 to 100 frames in a day, with many of them simply being
repeats or bracketing. With large format, 20 frames would be a *good*
day. But out of that, the number of usable 'keepers' is actually
pretty high -- I generally get at least 3 or 4 shots that I'm really
happy with. This is way more than I ever had previously, but it's come
from taking fewer photos. I think it's partly because, if I've half
killed myself hauling large format gear to a location, if I know that
it's going to take me half an hour to set up for a shot, I might as
well take 10 minutes to find the best place for the camera, and think
about what I really want to get out of the image. This really *does*
make a huge difference.

I don't think my previous problems were so much inadequate seeing as
not really having had the habit of doing enough *looking*!

As for why I take photographs, this is either simple or complicated.
The simple view is that I get a huge amount out of it -- if I make
some photos that I like, I get a big boost from it emotionally. This
happens for me from pretty much any art -- in the past I was more into
music, and got much the same kind of return from playing keyboards and
bass guitar. The more complicated view is harder to pin down. I think
if we do something artistic, it gives us an opportunity to redefine
ourselves as in some sense artists -- for some, this isn't much of a
hurdle, but for others (myself included), coming from a culture that
didn't tend to value art, and having gone through a school that
repeatedly told me that I was useless at it, created more of a
mountain than a hurdle. The sad thing is, I actually am more an artist
than an engineer at heart, and always have been, though my career
hasn't taken me in that direction. It's tempting to theorise that the
art side makes me a better engineer/scientist, but I'm only one person
and I can't repeat my life a different way to see if this was really
the case. I think that scaling that mountain and getting to a position
 where I can (and do) make art that I'm happy with has been a hugely
empowering thing for me.

Another part of the story (I said it was complicated!) is that I moved
from the UK to the west coast of the USA a year ago, entirely on my
own. Having the opportunity to photograph here has certainly made a
significant difference -- I think it's no coincidence that so many of
the historic 'greats' in photography came from this area, because, to
be quite frank, there are so many amazing things to photograph here
that it's hard not to be inspired by that. Coping with living alone
here with few friends and nothing really to speak of in terms of a
social life has been far easier because of the photography -- it gives
me something to do on weekends, it gives me a purpose that's entirely
 distinct from my day job, and the direct emotional return on making
the photos has been (and remains) a really big thing for me.

Yes, this has run on a while. Sorry!

Sarah

PS: Next project is basically getting the process of making prints
from my images working as well as I'd like -- I've had some good
results from my R2400, but it's basically too small to do justice to
some of my photos, particularly from the 150 megapixel images from the
Better Light, so expect me to be bugging you all over the next few
months about this! (Apologies in advance...)

compilerbitch wrote:
> That's a very valid point. I find that I always get the best results
> when I am forced to slow down the most. This goes for technical
> quality, obviously, because if I take my time I don't tend to mess up
> with the basics, but it also applies to composition. If I shoot with
> my little point-and-shoot Panasonic, I only rarely get good results,
> not because of the camera or lens, but because I tend to take 5 to 10
> seconds over a shot. I tend to use it for record shots only for that
> reason -- things like, yesterday, wanting a list of the sizes of
> cardboard boxes I could get from a local shop, not finding anything,
> then just basically taking a couple of quick photos of the shelves so
> I could refer back to it later.
>
> This is why, about a year ago, when I decided to put some serious
> investment into my hobby, I *didn't* go the DSLR route. This would
> have been sensible and a lot cheaper, but I doubted I'd have really
> liked the results. Not so much because the cameras or lenses were
> inferior, but because I know I'd be tempted to work too quickly.
> Instead, I went for medium- and large-format, but digital in both
> cases. I wanted the image quality of high-end digital, and didn't want
> the hassle (or ongoing cost) of film. The lack of automation, the
> physical difficulty of moving heavy cameras and tripods, all of that
> slows me down. With medium format, if I go out landscape shooting, I
> might take 50 to 100 frames in a day, with many of them simply being
> repeats or bracketing. With large format, 20 frames would be a *good*
> day. But out of that, the number of usable 'keepers' is actually
> pretty high -- I generally get at least 3 or 4 shots that I'm really
> happy with. This is way more than I ever had previously, but it's come
> from taking fewer photos. I think it's partly because, if I've half
> killed myself hauling large format gear to a location, if I know that
> it's going to take me half an hour to set up for a shot, I might as
> well take 10 minutes to find the best place for the camera, and think
> about what I really want to get out of the image. This really *does*
> make a huge difference.
>
> I don't think my previous problems were so much inadequate seeing as
> not really having had the habit of doing enough *looking*!
>
> As for why I take photographs, this is either simple or complicated.
> The simple view is that I get a huge amount out of it -- if I make
> some photos that I like, I get a big boost from it emotionally. This
> happens for me from pretty much any art -- in the past I was more into
> music, and got much the same kind of return from playing keyboards and
> bass guitar. The more complicated view is harder to pin down. I think
> if we do something artistic, it gives us an opportunity to redefine
> ourselves as in some sense artists -- for some, this isn't much of a
> hurdle, but for others (myself included), coming from a culture that
> didn't tend to value art, and having gone through a school that
> repeatedly told me that I was useless at it, created more of a
> mountain than a hurdle. The sad thing is, I actually am more an artist
> than an engineer at heart, and always have been, though my career
> hasn't taken me in that direction. It's tempting to theorise that the
> art side makes me a better engineer/scientist, but I'm only one person
> and I can't repeat my life a different way to see if this was really
> the case. I think that scaling that mountain and getting to a position
>  where I can (and do) make art that I'm happy with has been a hugely
> empowering thing for me.
>   
Well said. I think you nailed one of the main attractions of LF 
photography. People who haven't climbed our particular learning curves 
often seem to think that the main draw is the control a view camera 
gives you over the plane of focus. But for me its more about the 
processes, slowing down, and less-is-more. For me, as you, this results 
in a much higher percentage of "keepers" because I don't pull the camera 
out of the bag unless the image I see in my head demands that I commit 
everything I know and have learned to making the photograph. This ain't 
no point-'n-shoot.

So I guess I'm saying that using a view camera does very much help me to 
slow down and actually see. And that's one of the driving reasons behind 
my art.
--
Bruce Watson

> Well said. I think you nailed one of the main attractions of LF 
> photography. People who haven't climbed our particular learning curves 
> often seem to think that the main draw is the control a view camera 
> gives you over the plane of focus.

Indeed -- I think few people tend to know about the lack of
depth-of-field that is typical in large format, so they don't realise
that quite often, we *have* to use those movements just to get
whatever it is we're shooting actually in focus at all. Using the
Better Light, it's generally not really appropriate to stop down much
past about f/11, because you can really see the diffraction losses
beyond that, and you also end up with needing extremely long scan
times. I tend to shoot mostly at f/8 or f/11, so I've had to get used
to using swings and tilts a lot more.

> But for me its more about the 
> processes, slowing down, and less-is-more. For me, as you, this results 
> in a much higher percentage of "keepers" because I don't pull the
camera 
> out of the bag unless the image I see in my head demands that I commit 
> everything I know and have learned to making the photograph. This ain't 
> no point-'n-shoot.
> 

Yes, exactly. The stuff that Ansel Adams said about visualisation
really *is* the key, and is almost always the deciding factor in
whether or not I get a good image. If the visualisation is there, I
pretty much have the shot unless I screw up technically, which
thankfully isn't happening quite so often as it used to. There is
quite a learning curve with these things.

Another factor is the upside down/back to front ground glass image, or
the back-to-front but right way up image if you use a reflex viewer
(or for that matter a medium format camera with a waist-level finder).
I think there's something about that that helps you to see the image
as what it is -- a 2D representation -- by breaking the link between
it and your visual perception's much more complex 3D understanding of
the place you're standing in. I was a bit skeptical about this when I
first heard claims of it, but after a year or so of working this way I
think there's something to it.

> So I guess I'm saying that using a view camera does very much help
me to 
> slow down and actually see. And that's one of the driving reasons
behind 
> my art.

It's as good as any I've heard. :-)

Sarah