I have a nice Nikon Digital SLR and it has a lot of buttons, lots and lots of buttons combined with so many menu settings that I am still finding new options. This camera takes an amazing technically stunning photograph. There are two questions that I ponder on. Do I take a stunning photograph? Is that particular photograph improved with all the technological wonders of my digital camera?
The answer to both of those questions is yes and no, great, ambiguity within the second paragraph.
Yes: Having a high end digital camera with all of those buttons and menus does assist in creating a stunning image. The emphasis is on the word “assist”.
No: No matter how advanced, expensive or brand of digital camera it will not magically create a portfolio maker.
Here is something that you the reader need to understand. “IT IS NOT THE CAMERA!”
It is you that takes a portfolio maker and what you shoot that image with is 100% irrelevant.
It is your personal vision for the subject material that you like to shoot. It is your vision on where to place the device you use to capture that image. It is you that decides what lighting to add. It is you that decides where to have you subject placed within the frame. It is you that decides where the props need to go and so on. I could keep going “it is you” for another 30 pages.
Starting to make sense?
Now to go back in time. The cameras that were used up to the mid 1950’s were rather primitive compared to the film cameras that we started to see in the 1960’s through to the early 1990’s. There was a period of great leaps in camera technology after the 1950’s. I know of photographers that are to this day shooting with a very well maintained Hasselblad that was manufactured in the 1960’s. Present day the selection of film cameras is very small compared to even a couple of years ago.
All of these cameras including cameras that Ansel Adams, Henry Fox Talbot, Helmut Newton, Herb Ritts, Richard Avedon, Irving Penn and hundreds of other great photographers, did one thing, they captured an image.
The cameras were not advanced, Ansel Adams who I am sure all of you have heard of used a basic 8”x10” view camera. This is just a lens on the front and a film plate on the back. You manually control the focus, movements and controls on the lens. You can’t get any more basic than this, I know I use a 5”x4” view camera on a regular basis.
Great photography is created by a human being, when they press the shutter button. Or even in some cases just flip a lever.
Don’t fall in love with the gadgets, fall in love with photography.
Blake Foss is a San Francisco based photographer, designer, developer, and model maker. His entries are crossposted with permission from his blog at www.blakefossphotography.com
Follow Us!