A hard lesson to learn, and one that I forget all too often:
Some photographers (poor souls) never learn the essential trick of photography, which is that photographs are about light—not about their subject, not about your equipment, not about colors or “sharpness” or proving you’ve been to the Statue of Liberty or Disneyland or what Uncle Fred looked like. Well, all of that, too. But mainly light. Light is the essential ingredient of a photograph. It can ennoble virtually any subject. More than that, it creates subjects. It structures the things we see. A photograph that doesn’t depend on the light it was taken in has a lot of extra work to do to amount to anything.
From The Season of Light at the Online Photographer. Well worth a read.
Intentionally blurred images certain are in vogue this year. Master landscape photographer Alain Briot has posted a lovely portfolio of intentionally blurred images on his website. Though the technique is largely the same, it is interesting to note just how different Alain’s images are from William Neil’s images that I blogged about previously.
While I am on the subject of Alain Briot, I must say just how depressing (and motivating) it is to view his work (and to read his essays). Every time I think I’m getting better at photography, I view his portfolios or read his essays on the Luminious Landscape and realize just how much further I can progress as a photographer. Not to copy Briot’s images or his style, but rather to have the technical control and aesthetic sense to make images that reflect my style and vison as effectively as he does.
The following from the Online Photographer review of the new Nikon D700 got me thinking:
You digital people are so lucky. And what do I mean by “digital people”? Michael Reichmann mentioned, in the course of his new Panasonic G1 review, that he encounters photographers these days who never shot film. So do I. It’s an amazing if inevitable development in the hobby. Anyway, I often don’t think you digital people have any idea how lucky you are.
I am one of the people Mike is talking about. The only film camera I ever owned was a Kodak 110 Instamatic, and the last time I exposed some silver halide was in my father’s Minolta SLR. When I was eight. And I definitely feel lucky to have come to photography during the golden age of digital. But I wonder, what might I have missed?
Continue reading Thoughts on Being “A Digital Person”
