| Photography Forum: Philosophy Of Photography Forum: |
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Q. Anybody can do photography.....
Asked by B. Wyatt
(K=15) on 4/29/1999
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I had a discussion with a co-worker about photography. He is of the opinion that photography is easy. He really doesn't think there is a talent for creating beautiful pictures. How do you argue with a person who is so uninformed? I showed him some shots by Galen Rowell. His response,"anybody can do that. What's so hard about taking pictures?" bla, bla, bla. I tried to explain about proper exposure, composition, light and shadow etc. Have you expierenced people like this? I usually don't worry about such matters, but I am known as a person who is serious about my hobby. I feel the need to defend myself.
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Gary Watson
(K=1665) - Comment Date 4/29/1999
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Ask him if he feels the same way about good writing--assuming he's literate, of course...
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Chris Hawkins
(K=1508) - Comment Date 4/29/1999
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You are better off just ignoring this person, but since you asked for help.... Ask him to show you examples of his own work which demonstrate that it is easy. Then thoughtfully critique is his work. Give them real life examples as to how his work could be improved. Another idea is to challenge him directly to a competition. Pick a subject that you both like and agree to try to convey the essence of the subject via images. Then have an outside person to critique your work.
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Alan Gibson
(K=2734) - Comment Date 4/29/1999
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I actually aggree with him. Photography is easy. So is writing. So is painting, drawing, computer programming, and pretty much anything else. When da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, all he did was to spread mixtures of pigment and oil on a bit of cloth. Physically, this is a trivial activity.
Doing any of these things well is quite a different matter. And doing them consistently well is even harder.
Turn the question around. What does the co-worker do as a passion, or for a living? The essentials of that are probably also 'easy'.
He may think that the technicalities have been simplified over the years. We no longer have to know about apertures and shutter speeds, let alone spread emulsion over glass plates. For snapshotters, I would agree. Serious photographers do tend to know about the more subtle aspects: DoF, lighting, characteristic curves, and what have you. But these are not too difficult.
The harder parts of photography, the stuff that comes with experience and practice, the stuff that can be learnt but can't be taught, are concerned with aesthetics, and instinct, and empathy, and visual expression of emotions. Concepts that are difficult to describe to someone with zero experience of them.
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Dave Jenkins
(K=1350) - Comment Date 4/29/1999
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If people can't the difference you can't the difference. Your friend is visually illiterate.
As a professional, this is one of the things I run up against most frequently when dealing directly with clients, as opposed to dealing with creative people at an agency. They can't see the difference, so they don't want to pay for the difference. I've seen so many brochures and other pieces that cost substantial money for printing and design, yet the photography was junk. Photography is the first place many clients economize, yet it's the worst place to economize.
I've found the very best clients to be those who know quite a bit about photography. They are often very good amateur photographers, and they know enough about it to know that they could not do what I do. In some cases they realize they couldn't do it at all, and in other cases they might be able to do it, but only at such an investment of their time that it would be more profitable for their business to pay me to do the job.
I think you should just drop the subject with your friend. Would you discuss the subtleties of music with someone who is tone deaf?
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stefan
(K=437) - Comment Date 4/29/1999
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I agree with Alan Gibson, above, and add the following.
Taking one or two photographs is easy --- there is simply a matter of timing and luck. Auto exposure, etc., makes it even easier, but meters, polaroids for preview exposure, etc., make the craft within the grasp of even the least mechanically inclined individuals if they bother to learn. To maintain that coherent, consistent photographer's vision over a lifetime is something else again. Lee Friedlander has a book --- "Letters from the People" which seems a really well arranged series of pictures. When you look at the dates, however, you get another surprise. There are pictures from 1960s right next to pictures from 1970s or 1980s. I am impressed with Friedlanders ability to shoot interesting pictures that can form a coherent whole over a span of DECADES. Now that isn't the point of the book, just an interesting side of it to me as a photographer.
Anyone can take interesting "flavor of the week" photos or come up with the occassional "blue ribbon prize winner" photograph.
Maybe taking interesting photos consistently requires a sustained effort, training your eye to see the picture possibilities and then take them. Any klutz can throw a basketball at a hoop and get lucky and have it go in. The true athlete amazes us at his ability to do so consistently, or his ability to anticipate his opponents moves in a split second or to be graceful and directed and focused under these conditions.
I have heard this same thing again and again and fear that there is NOTHING you can tell this person --- I suspect he is trying just to needle you anyway. I've heard idiots say they think playing jazz is easy "cause these jazz guys just make it up as they go along." I think looking at, thinking about and developing an interest in photography is something that requires sustained interest and concentrated effort --- more effort than is required for just the lucky 1 in 1000 snapshot. What your coworker is unable to grasp is that the humbling fact that the single photograph may have been taken by accident doesn't mean that the photographer can't become interested in making that accident happen more often (and thus it is no longer an accident).
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Dave Jenkins
(K=1350) - Comment Date 4/29/1999
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Sorry, the first line of my post above should have read, "If people can't see the difference, you can't show them the difference."
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steve
(K=1127) - Comment Date 4/29/1999
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I also agree with Alan. I especially like Alan's comparison with writing. I do technical writing for many of my projects and can really relate to that statement as I often have to edit and incorporate writing from several individuals into a single document. Anybody can write - however, few of them write really well.
Photography has always been the creative form that has always been on the fringe of "art" specifically because it appears on the surface that it is so easy to do. In fact, anyone can make a rudimentary image quite easily - that's a fact. As we all know, making an interesting image is quite another matter.
This is an argument that you will never win with this person as they do not want to get involved enough to get past their current preconceptions. Even if you gave them a camera to use, and both of you went out at the same time and same location to take pictures, and you compared your roll against their roll they would fail to see the difference.
This is not uncommon. In a previous life I used to manage a photo store that also sold electronic equipment. There were those people who came in to buy a stereo system that could not tell the difference between a $20,000 system and a $1,000 system - they both sounded the same to them. I figured out that some people have no aesthetic sensitivity and probably never will.
That's why continuing to attempt to prove your point is fruitless. Just smile and say O.K., why don't you show me?
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Patricia Lee
(K=336) - Comment Date 4/29/1999
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You have to choose your battles. Forget trying to reason with this person, and drop the subject if he brings it up. He might even be trying to get your goat anyway.
Even among photographers, there can be biases based on ignorance. Some people think landscape is easy because the obvious subject (e.g, a mountain) is stationary (and a geologist would debate that point). They forget that what makes photography photography is LIGHT, which is constantly changing. Other people think action photography is easy because the typical equipment these days is fast motor-driven auto- everything cameras. They forget that knowing the sport/activity in question and being able to anticipate where something will be and what it will do are not things a camera can do. There are cameras that can track a line of motion to some degree but I wonder how they do with the erratic zigzagging run-for-my-life bursts of a rabbit.
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steve
(K=1127) - Comment Date 4/29/1999
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My only other thought is to find out what they like to do, golf, tennis, bowling etc. and engage them in a conversation about it. During the conversation you can say "Oh, yeah I know what you mean. Anybody can do (activity of his choice). By the way, how come your not a professional?" At which point they will, in all probability go into a lengthy discourse about how difficult it is to get that good etc. Listen very intently, nod knowingly, murmur "I see" every so often and then, after they have finished -- you can say, "exactly, just like photography!" Then turn, and walk rapidly away.
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John Kantor
(K=1664) - Comment Date 4/29/1999
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Once again the "Is photography Art?" question - in this case being subsumed under the assumption that true Art requires sophisticated technique. I was thinking about writing something on this after some of the preceding posts which were talking about the importance of technique in good photography. But to keep it simple for now, let's take a pragmatic approach.
The only meaningful questions to ask about any work of Art are:
Do you like it?
Do other people like it?
Is anyone willing to pay you for it, for something similar, or to talk about what you do?
Are you (or it) important enough to draw the attention of an established group or body which considers itself the arbiter of what constitutes art? This could be anything from an established circle or critics, to the NEA, to the little blue-haired old ladies at the county fair who like your pictures. (I'd leave blood relations out just on principle.)
I'd say yes, it is easy; that's why I chose photography rather than marble sculture (which is what I'd really prefer to do - I just wish I'd been born in the 17th century so I could have met Bernini!).
As for technique, I'm now $10,000 in debt for camera equipment that I hope will one day allow me to make a living at commercial (fashion) photography - which interestingly enough is usually not considered "art." However, I also just spent $15 on a plastic Holga which creates out-of-focus, fogged, vignetted pictures which usually are.
I don't spend much time worrying about whether what I do is art - or difficult enough to impress others. I just enjoy the process and try to sell the product. (Take some nice pictures of this guy's kid's sometime; I'll bet he pays you for them.)
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Howard Creech
(K=3161) - Comment Date 4/30/1999
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You are not obliged to defend your hobby/passion. The easiest way to deal with people like this is to tell them that they are absolutely right, smile pleasnatly, and then go find someone more interesting to talk with.
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Lot
(K=1558) - Comment Date 4/30/1999
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Of course it's easy, just like drawing and painting. And: "everybody is an artist" (Moholy-Nagy)
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Jack McVicker
(K=1704) - Comment Date 4/30/1999
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Wow... are you really getting wound up by the inane comment of some philistine, to denigrate any subject the oaf will be chuckling into his beer for hours in having 'wound' you up, The comment are a reaction to his own inability to carry out the most mundane task. As for something constructive,.. Please....
Jack.
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JLee
(K=150) - Comment Date 5/4/1999
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I think that taking the pictures is fairly easy in most situations. It's the seeing that's the difficult shot. I can't tell you how many times my wife has flipped through a magazine or walked through a gallery and said, "hey, you could have taken that" or "you're good enough to do the same." She's normally right, I COULD have taken that picture and I had the ABILITY to take that picture, the question is: Would I have seen that picture? Would the scene have caught my attention and would I have chosen the same elements to render on film in the same or in as talented of manner? I think that is what makes us good photographers. That said, I've known children with little to no technical skills that I consider "good." The technical skills can be learned it's the eye that is the real challenge.
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Trib
(K=2701) - Comment Date 5/5/1999
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Ooo, Jack I take umbrage to that Philistine comment. Of course I'm not a philistine(you outed me you rat,hehe, i have black hair and red skin though, not a pinkie like you,heheehe) but I sure do act like a philistine round' these parts. Current historians are now discovering that the Philistines were more skilled, prolific and cultured artists than all of their counterparts in the same time and region. As for the topic you and Jlee and my other buds are right! Screw those idiots, they don't want to get a rise out of me around beer by god, I'll whup' they's butts. Blunt force trauma with a Technica wins all those kind of arguments. hehehehe get you a real camera B. Wyatt, those amateurs won't make silly claims like that if they don't even know it's a camera. hehehe
ps. No damn it, you don't need a real camera to be an artist. Just one to wail on the "philistines".
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Pico diGoliardi
(K=1327) - Comment Date 5/31/1999
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:) The apeasing response is to to suggest that ignore him and accept the fact that he is simply insensitive, then the mean thing is to remind you that many photo editors are similarly insensitive!
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