| Photography Forum: Philosophy Of Photography Forum: |
 |
Q. Rules
Asked by Tony Rowlett
(K=1575) on 3/19/1999
|
Are you a very disiplined person when it comes to photography? Photography can be practiced in so many ways, and it can be done so differently by people, i.e. subject framing, lens selection, focus, development, enlarging, cropping, post processing, etc. Often times, I find other photographers subject themselves to rules and guidelines, many seem useful, many seem stupid and arbitrary. What photographic rules do you subject yourself to, or do you practice photography with whatever techniques/beliefs that just pop into your head at the time at the time? When do rules cross the line from good, solid disiplinary techniques to become arbitrary limitations to versatility? For example, I went for a while believing that I should do all my framing at the picture taking stage, and then later print them full frame. I think doing that can come in handy to sharpen your composition skills, but as an excercise, not as a rule. To take it to extremes would preclude some artistic cropping in the darkroom, which I do from time to time. Okay, give me some other examples.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
tom meyer
(K=2752) - Comment Date 3/20/1999
|
For a while I photographed people only in B&W and everything else (landscape and still life) in color. It had to do with objective vs. subjective. I don't do that anymore. Filing has gotten harder.
I still won't make color landscape in hard light. I always shoot trans and color neg of the same scene.
I did note in the "format" thread that I use new or different cameras to break up my own rules, whether they're concious ones or accidental rut type habit/rules. I will take color lanscape shots with the Diana in hard light, but they're multiple exposure and that really softens them up.
I think rules are good, necessary learning tools that we adopt as our perceptions move into new areas, then expand as we gain confidence and finally violate as we move to new perceptions...t
|
|
|
|
james mickelson
(K=7344) - Comment Date 3/20/1999
|
I learn new rules everyday. Rules are good. Why should I try and reinvent the wheel? Most everything has been done and done to death. Yeah, I know that might raise a few hackles and I promised to be good, but good is subjective so get over it. Without knowing the rules you just fumble around till you hit something right and then you fumble around somemore. Learn the rules and then you can break them all you want. I made a very high key print from a neg shot last year in Bodie, Ca. It wasn't meant to be high key but when printing it I saw the potential. Had I not known the rules I wouldn't know how to break them. The rules say to have your chems at x temp and keep them all within such and such a temp. Well I didn't and have a stunning reticulated print from Yosemite. Hot pre-soak and cool dev and cool stop followed by a hot fix. Rules are for modifying. I teach my students that they learn the rules first and then modify them to fit their vision. Easy.Try 4x5 IR and over expose it and then really over develope it. Looooonnnnngggggg printing times but it is really valuable potential. Print with a very hard filter. You'll have to bern in the corners a lot but it comes out cool looking. And still learning. Can't wait for my Sexton workshop in November.
|
|
|
|
Joe Stephenson
(K=377) - Comment Date 3/21/1999
|
My main rule is to keep things simple and to add complications only as needed to solve specific problems. I experimented for years with every sort of process, film, paper, etc. Now I do almost all work with an M6 and a 50 mm and 35 mm lens in B&W using the same film and developer combination almost all the time. I try hard to shoot full frame and to avoid cliches. This may sound restrictive to some, but to me it is quite freeing. I know what my kit can do. I seldom get an unwanted surprise and my simple technique allows a very high percentage of good negatives, making life a lot easier. I have a 4x5, but don't use it much any more except for work where the movements and camera controls are needed. I try to use existing light when possible, but also have a studio and 2000 watt second strobe set up for when times when I want complete control of the light. Let the gadgets be simple and the vision clear. sincerely, Joe Stephenson
|
|
|
|
steve
(K=1127) - Comment Date 3/22/1999
|
Tony -
I'm not sure what you mean by "rules." Formally espoused rules (e.g. rules of composition)? Self imposed rules (e.g. real photographs can't be made with a Holga)? Group sanctioned rules (e.g. the photos that get all the points in the local PPA competition look like this _____)? Commercial rules (e.g. "I'm sorry, we just don't take photographs for our image bank that look like _____)?
Fortunately/unfortunately I went to a technical institute for my photographic education and two art schools for an art education. While I learned lots of really interesting things about art and photography, I've had to "unlearn" a lot of what was demanded to meet the curiculums in order to create many of the photographs that I currently make. However, without learning the rules, I'm not sure whether I would still be trying to discover them today, or whether learning them gave me a condensed course in what to ignore.
The local university has a photographic department that specializes in not teaching the basics of photography as they do not want their students to be creatively stunted by having to adhere to preconceptions about photography.
So, you have classed taught by teaching assistants (MFA candidates) who tell their students to "...use only TMAX 200 for this class." Wow, talk about breaking the rules! Heck, we're talking about a clear departure from reality. You should see the panic in their little student faces when the photo sales person says, "you have a choice between 100 or 400." They have to make a choice to break a rule set by an instructor who, apparently, doesn't know what they're talking about. Maybe it's really a clever teaching method to make the student think on their own. I'd believe this scenario except it's too diabolically clever (and I've talked to the instructors & they really think there is TMAX 200).
I think rules are a good starting point to make a person aware of certain technical fundamentals. Unfortunately, it is not often explained that rules are just the beginning, and that they should be viewed only as a waypoint towards personal expression.
Sometimes, IF YOU WANT to play the game, and be considered successful in a certain stained-glass misty photo genre, you have to play by the rules. That is a consideration you have to make for yourself. Pander to the rules or set your own & hope everyone else catches on before you go broke. Or, forget the rules, forget making money, and just make photographs of any kind because that's what you find interesting.
Then it becomes more like knitting or any other self indulged hobby. Some people indulge themselves to the point of avoiding gainful employment - thereby, breaking the rules commonly acknowledged by current society as being the acceptable norm. I guess it all comes down to a personal choice as to how far one is driven by a personal pursuit in relationship to some common (or arbritrary) rule. eh?
|
|
|
|
Steve Bingham
(K=384) - Comment Date 3/23/1999
|
Learn the rules. Learn them well. Then make your own rules. Rules are only tools. You need all the tools to be a master of your art. Then forget the rules. As master, you no longer need them.
Finally, listen to your soul. Shhhhh. Listen.
Steve
|
|
|
|
Steve Bingham
(K=384) - Comment Date 3/23/1999
|
Steve,
I digress, but:
Consider this. T-Max 400 rated at 200. Pull one stop in developing. Extended range for contrasty subject matter. Or T-Max 100 pushed to 200. More snap for flat scenes - like fog covered coast line with pine trees on top of the cliffs. Perhaps the TA wanted to stir your mind. Or perhaps he was an idiot relative to photography. Wording could be everything. Like, "Use T-Max rated at 200." A beginning photo student might run down to the store to find T-Max 200.
See my earlier response for my true feelings.
Steve
|
|
|
|
steve
(K=1127) - Comment Date 3/23/1999
|
--I digress momentarily also.
I wasn't involved with the TA's. I was merely watching a procession of BEGINNING photography students filing into a camera store all asking for exactly the same thing. It was sort of like watching a train wreck in slow motion -- I couldn't leave. I HAD to find out how it ended. Later, one of the new TA's came in to find out why his students couldn't get the film he required. It had nothing to do with under/over development. These guys aren't that sophisticated. They make up their own little formulas (film/exposure/development/paper) through trial and error (photoscience is too hard) and pass it off onto their students as "the way." Or in the case of this thread, "the rule for my class." Good way to explore photography and not become bounded by all those rules. Contradiction in professed intent versus actualization?
|
|
|
|
Trib
(K=2701) - Comment Date 3/25/1999
|
Swines hehehehe that's a great story. I laughed my ass off! It's entirely consistent with my experiences in photography schools around the southwest. Mid-January I happened upon a clueless freshman in the local photo store buying from his teachers supply list attached to a syllabus. He had his girlfriend with him and both were visibly overwhelmed by the options available to them on every specific purchase. I stayed back about twenty feet with my girlfriend watching listening and chuckling quietly. He gave up on developer choices and walked over to a shelf of 3 or 4 different types of thermometers. His supply list recommended a dial style thermometer. Well we all know how accurate those are, so wanting to save him from the frustration that one of my photo instructors put me through I hopped in like an salesman and asked if I could help. I gave my advice and he looked at me like I had just raped his family's pet and said "no, I think I know what I'm doing this is my major". My girlfriend pulls me away and says to me "mind your own business". From here on I'm gonna watch those slow train wrecks like you. Rules work nicely in theory. A large number of photo instructors have no business teaching photography much less their bastardized rules and ways. An instructor/portraitist once told me that I should rate my 400 color neg film at 200 because and I quote " That's what landscape photographers do". Between rules, stubborn students, burnt out instructors and lousy counter help at your local photo store it's a wonder any photog makes it past a Rebel G and one-hour prints. It reminds me of a conversation with an art/photo master graduate. She had a decent "eye" nothing real original but was a walking encyclopedia of photo and art history but knew absolutely nothing about the tech stuff. So when the conversation frustatedly turned from my futile attempts to teach her a little color to her recommendations of a local photo program, she said of her favorite teacher of whom she was incredibly impressed "he's incredibly well read." I then asked "was he the one who taught your color course"....."Yes" she replied. I quit my last photo school when I saw what constituted a high score on another's final project...an entire portfolio of Kodak vps pushed to 1200 overprinted and 30 points too cyan. None of the photos exhibited color balance and all of them were marginal in composition with the double trite cinema-veritae "Indy zine" look. Some rules, huh? For me rules don't enter in to it, recommendations but never rules.
|
|
|
|
steve
(K=1127) - Comment Date 3/25/1999
|
"he's incredibly well read."
Yeah, and he probably gives great theory. Mostly, it's the art of teaching without teaching (how Bruce Lee). It's all too close to "The Painted Word." Interesting that she didn't say that he made really, really good photographs and she was attracted to his singular visual presentation.
|
|
|
|
Trib
(K=2701) - Comment Date 3/25/1999
|
zactly Steve ecckzactly.
P.s. I got me hankerin' for a bucket o' fried chicken taints or chicken f'loins... either one really.
|
|
|
|
james mickelson
(K=7344) - Comment Date 3/26/1999
|
Oh sure Tribb, Just slash at us landscape/rebel G P&S'ers. I thought my wife was the only one who wouldn't let me play salesperson. Lumberjack
|
|
|
|
Trib
(K=2701) - Comment Date 3/26/1999
|
Oh now old fart, I think you misunderstood the Mrs. I think she might have said "playing post office". No not at all the Rebel is a perfect place to start or finish. I wasn't taking pot shots at landscapers cause that's me. Only "professionals" and teachers who have no grasp of the basics. Have you ever seen what agfacolor 400 looks like at 200?
|
|
|
|
james mickelson
(K=7344) - Comment Date 3/27/1999
|
If there are more colors than black and white I ain't used it. I think the last time I shot color neg I threw up. Well, it's a long gory, I mean story. And I'm still jealous of you for being somewhere I can't be. Are there a lot of old homesteads? Where on the map are you? jimmmmmmmmmy
|
|
|
|
Howard Creech
(K=3161) - Comment Date 3/27/1999
|
I spent ten years learning the rules, so that I could spend the last fifteen disregarding them.
|
|
|
|
|
