The lack of knowledge in new photographers

[Bob Carnie]

Interpreting the light is the fun part and is what makes us all different and unique.

While I agree with your point, enthusiastically, I'd observe that interpreting that light is just as legitimate as recording it.

 

[Removed Account]

I am 22 years old, and last November bought a Rebel XTi, Canon's shining entry-level DSLR. It was a great device, and made some very pretty 8x10s when printed at the local drugstore digilabs. One thing I did like about it was the photoshop, in may case elements, manipulation. I used it to change the colours of carpeting or backdrops, remove or combine things etc... I don't see anything wrong with digital art. Even stuff created entirely in computer, ala this gentleman takes a great amount of skill. I have frustrated myself quite a bit trying to use the open-source 3d modelling software Blender. I have been toying with the idea of getting digilab prints made from such files, as well as printing transparencies and making darkroom contact prints from them. If printed, is it photography? No, it's mixed media art. But it IS still art.

That said, about 2 months ago I sold the XTi on the 'bay for nearly as much as I paid for it. That money went towards a 4x5 camera which is older than my parents :rolleyes: , along with a lens, film holders, and a 4x5 enlarger. I haven't even used the enlarger yet, just made contact prints, and I have already started to sell my 35mm Nikon gear to invest in more 4x5 stuff and darkroom supplies. (3 more days, please bid up, please bid up....)

I feel a connection to ritualistic things. With my digicam, and 35mm, I took a ton of shots but if I wanted to print 1 in 20 it would have surprised me. The view camera makes me consider each shot much more carefully, and even though nothing I have taken so far has been particularly special, I wouldn't be emabarassed to show any of them. This moves in to other areas of my life, such as grinding whole bean coffee and brewing it in a French press, even roasting my own beans on occasion. Personally, Fol**rs and powdered creamer makes me want to throw up, but I know some people who really enjoy it, and have even run in to a few who disliked the way I make coffee. To each his own. I have even been known to drink the dreaded sludge on occasions when I am too lazy to roast, or (GASP) reheat yesterday's coffee!

Using my bedroom as a darkroom is a pain in the butt, and many times I don't feel like going through the trouble of lightproofing and setting up. I would give a whole lot to have a dedicated darkroom, but when I do go through the trouble, after the session I can't believe I didn't want to do it, even if just doing a little film processing. The point to me is that sometimes technology can make people lazy and produce poor quality, such as the particle board dresser I bought from the Home Depot that swayed from side to side before the cardboard back was stapled on, whereas the 60+ year old furniture at my grandparents' house is still going strong. But when one overcomes the urge to cheap out, whether with the digicam, or the digital artist I mentioned earlier, some pretty neat stuff can come out.

That was all over the place, but the short version is that the end result is what matters to me. If you've read this far, congratulations, and my thanks!

- Justin

 

[budgetbus]

im 33 and wanted to study photography when i left school....unfortunately we had very little money so went out and got work.....3 years ago i bought a Dslr and it sparked off my passion again.....so i gave up work and started a full time course......although i know have a superb 30D i never use it.....i got the ebay bug and know am knee deep in canons AE1,AV1,A1 etc and have recently bought a '51 rollieflex which i love......i only use the 30D for quick stuff really and am going on holiday i 2 days time....im taking my A1 and rollie and a ruck load of film....cost always put me off but thank god to ebay and 7day shop i generally shoot FP4/HP5 and wet process but also shoot out of date ebay find slide which i C41 and scan.....most of my work is for web so this suits me down to the ground.......

Having said that i fully acknowledge the the fact that a HUGE amount of new breed photographers have very little BASIC knowledge ........BUT me (as a mature student) and the rest of my group are making strides into regressing the knowledge deficit

 

[Lee Shively]

The previous two posts instill hope in this old fart heart.

 

[Antje]

I started with a Fujifilm P&S a couple of years ago and now shoot a Canon 20D and a Hasselblad and a Rolleicord I. The funny thing is, I learned so much about exposure and working the light through the limited dynamic range of my dSLR that exposing B&W film seems outright easy now. Digital didn't make me a better photographer, it made me a photographer.

Antje

 

[freespirit67]

Interesting thread, I recently turned 40 and I shoot Digital and Film and I use Photoshop as my Darkroom, as it's currently impractical to have a wet darkroom anywhere.
I trained as an illustrator a long time ago,before computers!

At the time Airbrush was "the thing" to do, everyone airbrushed everything even if it didn't call for it, these days I think the same is true of Digital, digital is a very convenient tool,easier to master than say film, but at the end of the day what makes a good picture is the person behind the lens, it is sad that the teacher in Union Sq said what he did, perhaps he was thinking of a quote by David Bailey who said something along the lines of I shoot a lot of images each year and only a few of them are really good (or words to that effect).

These days I would be more worried by the restrictions being placed on Photographers (Digital or Film) rather than the tools they use!
I'm thinking of Henri Cartier Bressons wonderful "snap shot" of a man leaping from plank to plank in order to avoid getting his shoes wet! Try doing that these days, without being asked what it was for,and if there's any money in it, or worse being told you can't use it....

Who cares what you use.... go shoot, and enjoy whatever you do.
My 2 pieces of currency!

 

[Daniel_OB]

freespirit67
"Who cares what you use.... go shoot, and enjoy whatever you do."

That is right, but it has nothing to do with photography nor with what photographers do. I think and You misundestand photography as any picture on paper.

www.Leica-R.com

 

[Daniel_OB]

Bob Carnie
"Take an egg in your hand outside, hold it in the air, look at the highlights and look at the shadow. Understand the lighting ratio.
Photography is the process of recording this light on paper.
The tools you use to achieve this is secondary."

Bob this is old as photo shop is.
If you are happy with what you saw in the egg why you need any tool at all? You already saw it, so.

We need photography specific tool to record what we see at specific moment to record it and to show to other people our vision of the scene at a specific momemt, or, to see a customer in the light he will like and to sell it to him...

If you post process your vision you are no more photographer, what you have to show is not what you saw, but rather sick phantasy that have "negative value". Negative value means educating people around through that vision that never existed, false vision represented as a photograph with sole intention to be shown as a truth for it is "a photograph". You are printer and have to know that even in darkroom some move away is permissible to some extend, but tolerance are there. It is up to photographer to set his own tolerance range, and get a risk that curators, critics, ..., tolerances are not the same. Sory you disappointed.

www.Leica-R.com

 

[jstraw]

If you post process your vision you are no more photographer, what you have to show is not what you saw, but rather sick phantasy that have "negative value". Negative value means educating people around through that vision that never existed, false vision represented as a photograph with sole intention to be shown as a truth for it is "a photograph". You are printer and have to know that even in darkroom some move away is permissible to some extend, but tolerance are there. It is up to photographer to set his own tolerance range, and get a risk that curators, critics, ..., tolerances are not the same.

Hogwash.

 

[Richard Mendales]

Most of the people whom I know who shoot d***l don't use Photoshop at all, so I think that it's unfair to blame the computerized darkroom as against the wet darkroom. Even Ansel Adams did a great deal of burning and dodging on his prints--so much for post-processing. I suspect that more pictures are being taken with cell phones than with cameras these days. That doesn't mean that there aren't problems, which seem to me to fall into two major categories (of course, there are two categories of people, those who divide things into dichotomies and those who don't): On the popular side, people have no idea just how much better a projected slide can look than an image on a monitor (judging by people I know, a lot of pictures aren't printed at all, but just viewed on the computer and forgotten, like everything else on TV), or what you can see in a good monochrome print that you can't see in the average color image. Those people won't be tempted to go on to use their equipment for better things, the way people did in the '70's when they bought SLRs as status symbols and then learned they had better uses. On the professional side, judging by magazines, people are talking of "workflow" instead of art, and producing images that reflect that. I wouldn't mind, except that all of this has made it much more difficult to get good materials and equipment, and I worry about generations growing up without the kind of past that my family pictures from the 1880s show.

 

[Antje]

Sure I use Photoshop - just like my dad uses his darkroom. I get rid of dirt and specs, I adjust contrast, I crop, I might adjust the overall mood and colour. That is also the reason why I shoot RAW, btw, there's just more information in there than in a JPG, so less artefacts when I dodge and burn. And of course, to make a really good print, you can't start with a mediocre "negative". Just like in film.

Antje

 

[eddym]

This moves in to other areas of my life, such as grinding whole bean coffee and brewing it in a French press, even roasting my own beans on occasion.

You should try a pump espresso machine. Krups makes a nice one at a reasonable price.

I have even been known to drink the dreaded sludge on occasions when I am too lazy to roast, or (GASP) reheat yesterday's coffee!

The latter will get you burned at the stake.

 

[eddym]

I suspect that more pictures are being taken with cell phones than with cameras these days. ... (judging by people I know, a lot of pictures aren't printed at all, but just viewed on the computer and forgotten, like everything else on TV), or what you can see in a good monochrome print that you can't see in the average color image.

I've been thinking a lot about this lately, having closed the doors of my portrait studio last December, and I think you are right. People no longer appreciate a photograph. It has become "devalued" by the cell phone camera. I have one. I paid nothing for it; it was free when I renewed my contract with Cingular. And if I take a picture with it, that costs me nothing. If I whip it out of my pocket and show you the picture I took of my child, my dog, my cat, or whatever, that is free also. I have not had to pay for a camera, nor film, nor processing, nor printing. Photography is now free! So why on earth should anyone pay good money to me to take their picture? Photography, thanks to the ubiquity of d*****l, now has no value to the common person.

 

[freespirit67]

freespirit67
"Who cares what you use.... go shoot, and enjoy whatever you do."

That is right, but it has nothing to do with photography nor with what photographers do. I think and You misundestand photography as any picture on paper.

www.Leica-R.com

ha ha, have you seen any of my pictures? I doubt it, I wasn't judging anyone, perhaps you should try the same.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

FYI I think there is a lot of rubbish out there, and I am certainly not one of the people to be happy with my own work, I constantly strive to do what I do better, and make more pleasing images, which is another reason you probably haven't seen much of my work, as I don't post much of it, believing it not to be worthy of people like you! :rolleyes:

 

[freespirit67]

So why on earth should anyone pay good money to me to take their picture? Photography, thanks to the ubiquity of d*****l, now has no value to the common person.

Sadly a very valid point, although if this is specific to digital or not, I can't say, I believe it has more to do with the "instant access" society we live in today.
I work in film these days, nothing glamorous, I do Visual effects! But it is equally soul destroying to spend 17 hours a day, seven days a week (at deadline time) working on a film, only to see a copy of the film on DVD shot in a cinema from someone's hand held digital camera, being sold to people on the streets, and those same people afterwards telling me that they thought the film didn't look very good! But at least they'd seen it.

The one thing I enjoy about shooting with 5x4 is the time it takes to compose the image, to make sure I'm getting the effect I want, the exposure etc. It's refreshing after digital, but there are times when the instant satisfaction of digital is pleasing too (Yep! I got it!) I once read that if Ansel adams was alive today he would be overjoyed at the idea of photoshop, who knows, we can't ask the man sadly.

 

[snegron]

I work as a photo editor at a magazine and also work shifts at a daily paper.
There was a day when photographers mastered their craft and rose to be professionals.
Very few people are mastering digital. Most just save it in Photoshop.
-Rob

I agree, to some extent, with this statement. Problem is that many of us here miss the good old days when film was the only option. Looking back at the market trends I can't help but think that photographers have always been divided in two groups; the pros and the amateurs. IMHO it has always been this way.

Think back recently (early 60's or so) to the birth of the Nikon F system. It was designed as a system with the pro in mind. A few years later, probably to make more money, Nikon came up with its Nikomat, Nikkormat system. Then came the compact cameras with the FM, FE, etc. There have been really only about 6 "flagship" pro-oriented SLR's (F, F2, F3, F4, F5, and F6), yet I lost count on the amount of other SLR's produced by Nikon for "prosumer, semi-pro, pro-like" cameras. The general public was buying up all those "almost pro" cameras and shooting tons of film. Think of it as the birth of "spray and pray" photography very much like digital is today. Go back even further. Think about the old Brownies and the millions of snapshots taken with them by Joe Snaphooter.

There are photographers out there today (as there were back in the old days) who take their work seriously and don't subscribe to the "shoot now, fix later" attitude.

I'm probably going to get slammed or banned from here for this next comment, but here goes. I shoot weddings now entirely with digital cameras. I use a pair of Nikon D1X's as primary cameras, and a D200 as a back up. I still shoot film for all of my personal stuff, but digital is just a business decision to me. I have been forced to go fully digital because of the lack of reliable local labs, higher cost of developing, and ability to reduce my darkroom to a simple desk.

I shoot digital as if it were film. I have set my D1X's, Photoshop CS2, and printer to produce images as close as possible to Porta 160VC. I treat all my images as if I were shooting film. I probably do this because I started in photography back in the early 1980's and was weaned on F3's and Mamiya 645's.

I understand what the OP is stating regarding the new generation of digital snapshooters. I see them at every wedding I shoot. They are always talking equipment with me, comparing their new state of the art DSLR's that do everything, telling me how much better their 10 megapixel DSLR's with their 18-400mm kit lens is far superior to my wimpy little 6 megapixel D1X with my 17-55mm 2.8 lens. I smile politely and excuse myself as I go about capturing the money shots I'm there to get. These are the same characters who back in the good old days used to buy the Nikon EM's with a Samyang 28-600mm 5.6/11 and shot a million rolls during the first three months after purchasing their cameras. They were the same ones who used to laugh at my slow F3HP with that tiny 105mm 2.5 lens on it!

Not to get too digital here, but I use CS2 as I did the darkroom back in the day. Instead of pushing by film during exposure and developing, I up the ISO in the D1X camera and reduce noise in post processing. Grain back then is noise today. I shoot color and convert to B&W through Channel Mixer simulating my favorite B&W film, Tri-X. Instead of using warming or cooling filters for light balancing, I open my RAW images in Camera Raw window and adjust the color temperature of the image. Same craft, different tools.

Disclaimer: I still love film. I just ordered a Nikon F body and 50mm 1.4 SC non AI lens for fun shooting. Again I set out to buy a rangefinder, but I couldn't resist the prices on these old Nikon gems! Now if I could only find a reliable lab...

 

[ksmattfish]

But some of the things I read are plumb scary! On one thread concerning shooting RAW vs JPG (see, I'm learnin' this stuff--I can talk digital now!), almost all the posters came across as believing it is less desirable to produce a finished photograph in the camera alone. They promote shooting RAW so they can use the computer to manipulate the image. It's as if actually making a photograph is not enough--it has to be Photoshopped into existence or it's somehow unhip.

Do you think the same of manipulations done in the darkroom? What's scary and unhip is an entire generation (or three) of film photographers dropping their film off at an automated corner lab, letting someone else finish the job, and completely forgetting what it's like to be in control of the process from start to finish. My film cameras produce negative images on small bits of plastic (not to mention the various manipulations necessary to get them to a state in which I can view them under visible light). They aren't nearly as nice hanging on the wall as the prints I create on paper using numerous manipulation techniques in my darkroom. Unsharp mask and many other popular Photoshop manipulations originated in the traditional darkroom, but were abandoned by the masses, and most photographers in favor of convenient, cheap, automated processing and printing.

"You press the button - we do the rest." -Eastman. Snapshot photography originated with roll film in the late 1800's.

 

[Anupam Basu]

Um, Lee, While I can see the crux of your argument you are way off the mark with RAW vs. Jpeg. Anyone who knows what s/he is doing would shoot RAW, jpeg is more for my mum's point and shoot.

And I was surprised to know you produce finished pics in your camera. I only produce negatives (wait, they become negatives only when cajoled in the darkroom) and then tweak and dodge and burn the heck out of them to print. The RAW file is the unprocessed negative. The jpeg is the end product where all the intermediate steps are taken care of by the kid at Walmart. So, shoot RAW.

-A

 

[Mike Té]

"I shutter to think how many people are underexposed and lacking depth in this field." ~ Rick Steves

 

[Mike Té]

"Photography is not about cameras, gadgets and gizmos. Photography is about photographers. A camera didn't make a great picture any more than a typewriter wrote a great novel." ~Peter Adams

"Photography has not changed since its origin except in its technical aspects, which for me are not important." ~Henri Cartier-Bresson

"No photographer is as good as the simplest camera." ~Edward Steichen

 

[TenOx]

I participate in a foto / discussion site. Recently, a user there crossposted to about 3 forum boards a question regarding those stupid millimeters that they call lenses. How come a 200 mm lens is longer, physically, than 2 inches? What is a millimeter? WHY DO WE EVEN NEED TO CARE?

A lot of people chimed in with explanations, facts, figures, web sites that explain in little or great depth what all that means, and why to know it to perform the act of photography...but the OP (original poster) was not really able to grasp, nor show much interest in learning some small amount. Some small amount that, basically, would be an investment in not being so stupid.

How is my attitude? Am I a curmudgeon? Does it matter?

/..

 

[Lee Shively]

"Do you think the same of manipulations done in the darkroom?"

Pretty much. I was never much of a Jerry Uelsmann fan. I'm more of a Walker Evans guy.

"And I was surprised to know you produce finished pics in your camera."

I was speaking of transparencies. Of course you can mess around with transparencies if printed or copied and manipulated but the transparency was considered the finished picture by the overwhelming majority of photographers.

"Anyone who knows what s/he is doing would shoot RAW, jpeg is more for my mum's point and shoot."

From the meager research I've done, I guess that means a lot of professional photojournalists, sports photographers and photographers shooting for publication don't know what they're doing. They don't have the luxury of time to mess around with their pictures in post production so they get it right in the camera or toss out the rejects--just like we used to do with slides.

This is coming full circle to the original reason for the original post--people relying on Photoshop instead of knowledge and craft. Whether you shoot RAW or JPEG is not the issue--it's knowing how to use your camera to make that file into a finished photograph with little or no manipulations. Since we all screw up or have equipment failures, it's good to have tools and methods to "fix" mistakes or flaws. I've done it in the darkroom with black and white and color negatives, other film shooters have done it using a copier for transparencies and digital shooters do it with Photoshop. No problem. But if every one of your pictures need darkroom manipulations or photoshopping to make the final photograph, you really need a remedial photography lesson before continuing.

 

[Antje]

This is coming full circle to the original reason for the original post--people relying on Photoshop instead of knowledge and craft. Whether you shoot RAW or JPEG is not the issue--it's knowing how to use your camera to make that file into a finished photograph with little or no manipulations. Since we all screw up or have equipment failures, it's good to have tools and methods to "fix" mistakes or flaws. I've done it in the darkroom with black and white and color negatives, other film shooters have done it using a copier for transparencies and digital shooters do it with Photoshop. No problem. But if every one of your pictures need darkroom manipulations or photoshopping to make the final photograph, you really need a remedial photography lesson before continuing.

When you are saying that one should learn how to make a good photograph in the camera instead of relying on Photoshop, I'd agree. Shooting in RAW doesn't mean that, though. If you shoot JPG, you rely on the camera to set saturation, sharpness, and colour. Is this something you are letting your film camera decide for you, too?

Sports shooters don't use RAW because, for instance, their images are reduced to puny little shots in the newspaper or on a website. Also, many of them adopt a machine-gun like shooting style and can fit more on their limited card space this way. That is also why professional cameras often have a large set of shooting styles that allow the photographer to influence the postprocessing that is done in the camera. To some extend.

If you want to create art, you're better off with RAW as it allows you to choose what the image looks like. You, instead of the camera. This is not about fixing mistakes, it's about turning the raw image data into a photo. Which is exactly what people do in the darkroom, btw.

I noticed by the way that we here at APUG talk an awful lot about the dreaded workflow, too. We have whole forums dedicated to that. What chemistry to use, how to develop a certain film, influencing the grain by choosing a developer, how to dodge, burn, mask, how to use paper, how to tone, even how to archive - in what way exactly is that different from adjusting contrast and saturation in a digital file?

Antje

 

[jstraw]

"Do you think the same of manipulations done in the darkroom?"

Pretty much. I was never much of a Jerry Uelsmann fan. I'm more of a Walker Evans guy.

"And I was surprised to know you produce finished pics in your camera."

I was speaking of transparencies. Of course you can mess around with transparencies if printed or copied and manipulated but the transparency was considered the finished picture by the overwhelming majority of photographers.

"Anyone who knows what s/he is doing would shoot RAW, jpeg is more for my mum's point and shoot."

From the meager research I've done, I guess that means a lot of professional photojournalists, sports photographers and photographers shooting for publication don't know what they're doing. They don't have the luxury of time to mess around with their pictures in post production so they get it right in the camera or toss out the rejects--just like we used to do with slides.

This is coming full circle to the original reason for the original post--people relying on Photoshop instead of knowledge and craft. Whether you shoot RAW or JPEG is not the issue--it's knowing how to use your camera to make that file into a finished photograph with little or no manipulations. Since we all screw up or have equipment failures, it's good to have tools and methods to "fix" mistakes or flaws. I've done it in the darkroom with black and white and color negatives, other film shooters have done it using a copier for transparencies and digital shooters do it with Photoshop. No problem. But if every one of your pictures need darkroom manipulations or photoshopping to make the final photograph, you really need a remedial photography lesson before continuing.

I don't think Uelsmann is what the poster had in mind. I think the question had more to do with dodging, burning, contrast control, etc.

As for sports shooters, I know nothing of your research but I know of no pro on deadline that doesn't shoot RAW. Shooting jpg is like throwing the negative away. It's trivially fast to convert RAW to jpg for that deadline image that has to fit a 2x6 hole that's going to press in 30 minutes but there's no telling what you may need images frome the same assignment for, later. I'm here to tell you that if the Jayhawks win the NCAA tourney next year, the paper WILL publish a commemorative magazine and there better be high res images for every shot from every game.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I noticed by the way that we here at APUG talk an awful lot about the dreaded workflow, too. We have whole forums dedicated to that. What chemistry to use, how to develop a certain film, influencing the grain by choosing a developer, how to dodge, burn, mask, how to use paper, how to tone, even how to archive - in what way exactly is that different from adjusting contrast and saturation in a digital file?

Antje

The problem is not the numbers of poor digisnaps taken. Just look at the vast number of lousy snapshots were taken for support the film industry. Lousy photos help lower the cost of equipment and supplies by keeping the production levels high.

Flooding the internet with digisnaps is not a problem either. Aside from the point just mentioned, the more interest in photography and imaging the better.

The problem comes in when you see photographs at art fairs with images of sprites added with filtered flashes or photoshopped-in. These are done with such poor taste that even Kincade's cottages start looking good! Add to that the crap with photoshopped-in random junk [added just because they can; not to any artisitic reason] and the public will become so jaded they will stop looking at photographs all together.

Paintings, ... are differentiated from photography in that the artist can arrange the composition as the artist sees fit; the photographer has to work with reality and use his skill to develop [pun intended] the composition to his desire. The photoshopper has the freedoms of both to produce some really exceptional junk. Therein lies the problem.

Steve