No, of course not. But what I created would of necessity be different than if you had given me a 16x20 camera.
The tool of a 35mm camera carries with it certain strengths and weaknesses regarding its properties and behaviors. Things such as size, weight, number of frames available without reloading. Stuff like that. A 16x20 carries with it its own set of unique capabilities and constraints. Unique because the two are different and not the same.
Each of those sets of properties and behaviors affect what is possible to achieve with each camera. And what we can do (are allowed to do) with each camera affects how we perceive the world through it.
While I can certainly set up the 16x20 underneath the basket at an NBA game, the resulting photos will be entirely different than had I used my Nikon F2 w/motor drive, which itself would produce completely different results from the modern professional DSLR the Sports Illustrated guy is using.
Actually, not to belabor the point, but SI is an excellent example of tools affecting the final photographic message. I'm a 40+ year subscriber. In the beginning (early 70s) I signed up because I loved the photography. But now I continue only for the writing.
When SI made the jump to digital, the photography changed radically. It ceased being... substantive, for want of a better term. There was more shallow fluff and less intellectual depth.* At the beginning the eyes behind the cameras had not changed. They had simply migrated. And the games were still exactly the same, as they are governed by set rules.
What changed were the tools. The cameras. Specifically, the properties and behaviors of those cameras. And those changes affected how the SI photographers perceived the competitive sports world before them. What they could show of that world has always been directly related to their camera's capabilities. And those capabilities had radically changed. As a result, so did their pictures.
So sure, hand me a different camera than I am accustomed to using and I can still make photographs. And those photographs will still match my vision. But the implementation of that vision will be unavoidably altered. Because it's not the same camera. Not the same tool.
Hand Michelangelo a pneumatic chisel and David would unavoidably look different as well. My guess is that he might have been noticeably more detailed. Or he might have been completed quicker. Or he might have been larger. But he would not—could not—have looked exactly the same. Because he would have been created differently.
Ken
* For what it's worth, the acknowledged Greatest Sports Photograph In History, Muhammad Ali standing over and sneering down at a defeated Sonny Liston, was made at ringside by a then very young Neil Leifer using a Rolleiflex TLR. He knew the camera property was that he had only a handful of frames to work with, so he concentrated a lot harder...
The camera is important only in the sense that it must not hinder the creative process. Every photographer works differently, which is why there is no one perfect camera.
Thank you for taking time, Ken. I appreciate it. I still don't agree, but that's not bothering me in the least. I appreciate that we are different.
I argue that 95% of the meaningful transformation from light to print comes from skill.
...
Most important are these abilities/qualities of the photographer, in no particular order:
- The intellect
- Sense of design and composition
- Understanding light
- Emotional involvement
- Hard work and dedication to projects
- The ability to speak their voice and crystallize what they wish to express
....
Maybe they are hard to discuss in words
The journey doesn't matter, it's only the destination which is artistically important. Everything else is just...
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It was just a fundamental philosophical question of does the tool inhibit you from making your "message", not your sweet print, but your message from happening.
I wonder how many people in this discussion who don't think the camera is important would manage in life without a car. After all, a car is only a tool for travelling between point A and point B right?
Do they take the their tools for granted without according them the amount of importance they hold in their life. Are they ignorant of what it is they've got in their hands.
And for others, it is only the journey that matters, and that is equally valid. It's a kind of art that is not bought and sold, but lived. Most of us are between these extremes.
In the original heading on this thread, the term used was "if your goal is art", then is art something that someone makes for a pastime and keeps in a drawer or on his wall at home, or is art something that is communicated to people. If you enjoy making pictures but nobody sees them is that communication.
The OP seems to me to not include those people in his query. Even though some are answering.
I'm not intentionally trying to exclude anyone. I read all the entries, and reply to what I would like to know more about, or where it doesn't make sense to me. I apologize if I'm being selfish.
I don't think art has to be seen to exist. It's an expression, a pursuit to describe an emotion or and idea that's inside and wants to come out. That is to me the fundamental aspect of creating, that we have a desire to do so. Whether it gets seen or not does not affect its status as art. That's my opinion, of course.
Do people create simply to express themselves.
OR is do they create to communicate to others.
Then these are perhaps the fundamental questions:
Do people create simply to express themselves.
OR is do they create to communicate to others.
Put in a more crude and different way, are they masturbating or are they making love. When love is defined as with another person.
Is it a primal need to get something out. Or is the primal need to share.
I don't have the answer but it's an interesting thought.
(And I hope it doesn't devolve into who's doing what in the darkroom).!!!!
OP, just depends. A crappy cam wont bring home the goods no matter how nice a list you make.
I don't think art has to be seen to exist.
As for viewing a photograph, Thomas, my reactions are usually in the same order you wrote them.
- what was it like to be there
- what was the photographer feeling
My favorite photographs are the ones that make me wish I could be there, or evoke some memory of my own past.
Then if I like the photograph, I might think about the light and the composition and sometimes I try to understand if there is something about the composition or design that is what draws me to the photo. But most often, I get stuck at stage one, just knowing I like the photograph and not analyzing why too much... although in the past couple years here at APUG I am realizing that there are some fundamental design elements that matter and that photographers who I admire and I know have a good eye pay attention to. So I have more to learn along those lines.
And by the way, when I go out to make planned photograph, what is in my mind is almost never a "pre-envisioned" scene.... the goal is always a photograph that feels a particular way. I might know the feeling I want to evoke, but not if or how I'll do it. Other times if the photograph is not planned, the idea is to capture whatever caught my attention... I think that mirrors the way we live in the world: what do we notice and what do we care about? Or I might discover something and try to come back later to get it...
I doubt that art must be seen to exist.... it already exists in the mind of its creator...
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