The Photographer

[Steve]

I recently purchased my first DSLR, the Canon Rebel XTi. It's a great camera, whose features and capabilities still surprise me six months and around ten thousand images after I purchased it. I've been shooting for local bands a little bit, and I'm inserting a little of my own touches into my next shoot, having the band dress in a James Dean-esque fashion.

Personally, I see Photoshop as a medium for art, that is to say, original ideas and concepts. For me, photography is chronicling, a medium to explore and record the world and people around me. If there is any art to it, it is in the finding of angles and compositions that will make people see things as they never have before. Photoshop creates farces. Photography can show the world as it is, how it should be, and how you the photographer would like it to be.

If I ever touch up my photos at all, it is only to sharpen them.

 

[John in Covina]

I have studied photography on and off since High School. I'll count as a half of a photographer. Half-fast photographer.

The difference is between SNAPSHOT photography and photographs that have been COMPOSED, angles, content, lines of strength have been worked into a composition that is like visual music. Whether it is architectural, figures or nature, the magic is often in the composition. Now that is not to say that a cool sports photo, or family snapshot can't have magic, sometimes it happens at the right momment too.

 

[Dixon Cannon]

I worked as a pro commercial photographer for a twelve year period in the 80's -'90's. I used small, medium and large format cameras for the work I did. After going completely, dead-end broke, I stopped shooting and changes careers.

I've discovered with the advent of Digital tech that my analog camera, including my 4X5 view camera are completely workthless, with no trade-in value and no sale value. They have become paperweights!

I finally went digital this Christmas with my new Nikon D-80 and I'm really enjoying shooting again. Mostly because the film is so cheap!!! Actually being able to waste frame on spur-of-the-moment shots really puts the spontaneity back in it Being able to just dump the duds is wonderful!

I have all the studio gear packed away, but I'm anxious to try the digital format on something more professionally composed and lit sometime soon. I think for anything other than portraits hung on the wall, this digital thing may be the impetus for a photographic revival.

-dixon cannon

 

[Dixon Cannon]

Me!

How many photographers do we have on the lounge?

A graduate of the Artography Academy of Photographic Arts! Impressive ain't it?! I actually got paid for shootin' pitchers for more than a decade. And I have a closet of worthless equipment to prove it! -dixon cannon

 

[Quigley Brown]

A nudder one...

[/IMG]

 

[WEEGEE]

Salty Dog

Quigley Brown love your work!!!

fftopic: http://sigma-dp1.com/

I think for those of us who do street photography this maybe an ideal

machine for hitting the pavement.

 

[Kim_B]

*meekly raises hand*

 

[TheKitschGoth]

I love digital, but I love film far more. My dream is to one day have my own darkroom. Unfortunately I feel I'm going to struggle to find space, and fear that when I do find space it'll be very difficult to find the chemicals

Photoshop just isn't as much fun.

Also.. when I worked in a minilab, just printing 6x4's all day I noticed a difference between film and digital, and this is comparing decent digital point and shoots with cheap disposable film cameras. The colours were always just slightly better with the film. [huh] It may have been in my mind, but if someone showed me two photos, printed on the same machine (with no pixellation) I could usually tell which was which. The only exceptions were photos taken on high end digitals. Has anyone else noticed it?

 

[Photomuse]

*meekly raises hand*

Whew...I just found this thread and was about to ask if a gal can join in on it.... and then found one of my partners in crime here. Kim- raise that hand higher!

That's two gals joining you guys here. Ready for us?

 

[Photomuse]

sorry!!!

Not just two gals

 

[John in Covina]

Whew...I just found this thread and was about to ask if a gal can join in on it.... and then found one of my partners in crime here. Kim- raise that hand higher!

That's two gals joining you guys here. Ready for us?

*****************
Always happy to have the fairer sex join us here. Greetings and welcome!

 

[Photomuse]

Wow, quite a bit to digest here in one sitting.

Will digital shorten the gap between pros and amateurists? The people who feel that they don't need the shots a pro can take are probably not the clients that were ready to lay down big bucks for "pro photography" to begin with.

Does that mean I face into the corner without peering over my shoulder? No. It means I will continue to hone my craft and learn the latest skills to keep me ahead of the pack. Today? That means multimedia.
see: http://www.mediastorm.org

As we debate over the gap between digital and film, why not bring into the picture (egads no pun intended) the debate about video cameras on their way to being able to capture high quality stills? How will that impact the industry?

I do see it has been brought up previously in this thread, but yes - when our dear "daddies" of photography Niepce and Daquerre ushered in the realm of painting with light, you had better believe these same discussions were being had by the painters in the Hudson River School who felt photography could possibly supplant the realism they were trying to achieve with their brushes.

But look at us today.

Art changes, we embrace it, we digest it, we despair of it, we turn it into commerce - but it always finds ways to evolve and provide someone out there with a means to an end and a way to feel good.

Personally? I embraced digital rather reluctantly because I only viewed it as "the replacement" to film. That was the wrong way to look at it. When I finally realized it was a partner to film - that is when I made it my own. It actually opened up a new world of art to me and expanded my creative thinking. Now, it's multimedia.

What do I do when I want to please myself? sorry wrong topic - but in all seriousness, when I shoot "art" for myself it is generally on film and with a Crown Graphic, Holga or Horizon camera. When I'm really in the mood to get down and dirty I play with polaroid transfers. I'd hoof it into a darkroom if I had a house with one.... or knew where to rent one.

Unfortunately THAT is the pity to the birth of the digital world, the resources for film goers are harder to find. I am now down to ONE lab near me in NJ that will process my film - unless I go into NY.

But even that becomes the "quest" and the "experience" and isn't the experience what it is all about?

Off my soapbox now... gotta go learn more Final Cut!

 

[Photomuse]

For a start, there are examples by a nice selection of classic photographers in these galleries:

http://photomuse.org/COLLECTION/index.html

Ahem - getting territorial here and wanting to state "for the record" I had photomuse first and was even approached by ICP to sell my .com



Sorry sorry... just had to say that!!! And if I wasn't already so invested with my site, I would have sold it because ICP/Eastman are amazing!!!!!!

 

[Photomuse]

We have many pro photographers here... I have some questions;

Who are the greats?

Who do you admire?

Are they still around and do they use digital?

MY GREATS LIST:
Cartier-Bresson
Elliott Erwitt (worked with him for 8 years - still around - no digital)
Garry Winogrand
Josef Koudelka
Julia Margaret Cameron
Joel Peter Witkin
Sebastio Salgado
James Nachtway

This list could get really long......

 

[WEEGEE]

Well said

Photomuse,


What a great group of posts.

I wonder how those on your lists of greats who are no longer alive particularly Garry Winogrand would have felt during the digital revolution ?


"I photograph to see how the world looks pixelated" (not Winogrand)

And some great quotes from Mr. Erwitt--

Quality doesn't mean deep blacks and whatever tonal range. That's not quality, that's a kind of quality. The pictures of Robert Frank might strike someone as being sloppy--the tone range isn't right and things like that--but they're far superior to the pictures of Ansel Adams with regard to quality, because the quality of Ansel Adams, if I may say so, is essentially the quality of a postcard. But the quality of Robert Frank is a quality that has something to do with what he's doing, what his mind is. It's not balancing out the sky to the sand and so forth. It's got to do with intention. -Eliott Erwitt

You can find pictures anywhere. It's simply a matter of noticing things and organizing them. You just have to care about what's around you and have a concern with humanity and the human comedy. -Eliott Erwit

It's just seeing - at least the photography I care about. You either see or you don't see. The rest is academic. Anyone can learn how to develop. It's how you organize what you see into a picture. -Eliott Erwitt

 

[rongoms]

My degree is in photo-journalism, but alas, i never worked in the field for a myriad of reasons.

I don't think that digital will narrow the gap between amateur and pro photographers. I think the differenece is how the "pro" sees thru the camera and composes the shot. The Rule of Thirds, black levels, depth of field....these are the things that an exeperienced photog does without thinking and that casual photographers have never heard of.

I've been told that i can "see in black and white", meaning that i can tell what colour something is in real life based on the grey tone in the B&W frame. There is a huge difference between a snapshot and a well composed, thought -out picture, of course having a the journalism bent, as I do, i don't really like heavily staged pictures. (studio work bores me to tears, but i respect the hell out of the people who do it well)

I must confess, i resisted the digital revolution for a long time. I'm a traditionalist. i enjoy the smell of D76 in the morning. However, my digital camera has made my life MUCH easier. no worrying about film contamination when travelling, ability to use my laptop as a viewfinder and on-site editing studio, nstant gratification when shooting event shots for people.

HOWEVER, i must note that while i think that photoshop and it's ilk are tremendous tools, they are also one o f the most dangerous things to ever face photo-journalism. Just in the past year we've see how many incidents of a frame being published and then discovering that it's essentially a "created" shot. the smoke splumes from "explosions" PSed into a shot and published by Reuters is one of the most glaring examples.

 

[Quigley Brown]

HOWEVER, i must note that while i think that photoshop and it's ilk are tremendous tools, they are also one o f the most dangerous things to ever face photo-journalism. Just in the past year we've see how many incidents of a frame being published and then discovering that it's essentially a "created" shot. the smoke splumes from "explosions" PSed into a shot and published by Reuters is one of the most glaring examples.

Although I don't remember the details, many people don't realize how much this famous RFK assassination photo was highly manipulated in the darkroom.

[/IMG]

 

[Photomuse]

It's just seeing - at least the photography I care about. You either see or you don't see. The rest is academic. Anyone can learn how to develop. It's how you organize what you see into a picture. -Eliott Erwitt

Precisely

 

[Kim_B]

Kristin, you rock my world.

 

[WEEGEE]

What you see into pictures

Elliott Erwitt California,1955