How Photography Technique Transforms into Artistry
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- Опубліковано 30 вер 2024
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Here I go off on a tangent again. The whole soccer thing. I'd never heard it called football, then people started calling it football. I eventually looked it up when curiosity got the better of me. Soccer WAS the term in the UK. It was from asSOCiation football hence soccer. Americans picked up the term and some, not wanting to be like those awful Yanks, took to calling it football instead. And here we are.
Anyway, another good video. People so often put the cart before the horse in life, and you are trying to correct this one instance of it.
Your channel is evidence that good content will win out eventually. I remember when you were just getting started and wondering if making videos was even worth while. Congrats on over 200,000 subscribers!
Similar to your photography school experience, a long time ago I trained as a naval aviator. After months of basic and advanced flight training we finally were assigned to a squadron for carrier landing practice. For weeks we made simulated carrier take-offs and landings from an airfield. We already knew we were the best pilots in the world (ah youth) and felt we were ready to go land on the carrier but the instructors kept us bouncing on that damn airfield. Finally, we got to the day when we were to "hit the boat." That is when I learned why we practiced the basics for so long. Once we got into the real world environment of carrier landings there was no time to think about what had to be done, everything had to be instinctive. You have to thoroughly know and understand your equipment, whether it is and airplane or a camera, if you expect to succeed.
At least the consequences of overestimating one's skills are less serious than being a pilot. Off on a tangent here, but I just got done reading a book (a trilogy of them, actually) about the Pacific Theater of WW2. Those American pilots received more and more training before they were actually sent to combat as the war went on while the Japanese received less and less. The Americans, toward the end, were receiving 600 hours of flight training heavy on combat tactics toward the end. The Japanese didn't stand a chance against that.
In a college photography class, I showed to the instructor my print of a stream flowing over some boulders. He said "The water doesn't look wet." I asked, "How do make the water look wet?" He answered, "Go back in the darkroom and work on it until the water looks wet." At first I was almost angry at his unwillingness to show me or tell me the technique. But he went on to explain that I needed to find what combinations and limitations of negative, paper, chemicals, time, light, temperatures, etc, would produce what I wanted to see in the print. If I didn't want that vision badly enough to go after it, then no amount of instruction would make me a better photographer/printer. It was a great lesson that has informed my art as well as practically all my non-photographic professional life.
I'm not anywhere near a visionary. I learn from doing and then may adapt. As Thomas Edison once said, I didn't fail, I found 2,000 ways not to make a lightbulb.
Just wondering why on earth you wave that cup around on most if not all your vlogs. Is there actually anything in it.
As an educator I'm always interested to hear about your time at photo school and how that shaped your photography. Obviously you went there in the film era and you talk about experimenting and practicing. How do you think that experience would be different today with all the advantages of digital? Perhaps the subject of a future video?
I’ve always thought that photography is rather like music where one needs a certain level of technique and technical competence to produce, well anything worthwhile, I can’t remember anyone saying someone is a good musician ‘just they can’t play the right notes, in tune at the right time’. In a sporting context Ben Hogan’s ( golfer) remark “ the more I practice, the luckier I get” still holds true.
Exactly what I was thinking comparing music and photography. Our brains and eyes and ears are muscles. The more we use them to really see or hear, the more successful will be be. When Jimi Hendrix's father constructed a one-string diddley bow for his son, it would take Jimi time to master it but through play and experimentation he move on to a six-guitar and the play/experimentation process started again, but with some foundation. Master's at their craft do not begin as masters, you have put the time in to any worthwhile endeavor.
I love the thumbnail picture too. Lucky people to be photographed by you Alex. ❤❤❤❤❤❤
Im so happy i found this site . I know the technical aspect of photo already quite good so its videos like this I learn most from . Learn to program my brain to think photos
I absolutely love the picture you used for the thumbnail.
I saw that photo in the thumbnail. I liked it. It got my attention.
Routine is the magic word, not discipline
When you were in photo school, did you have to learn how to print? I was thinking how now we have to take classes on LR, Photoshop, etc. Did you develop your own color film? At our school, we never really learn how to print photos, and it's something I'm really struggling with. Using my cheap laptop monitor to edit, then printing at Walmart or sometimes the local camera store, but having trouble with how the prints come out. Usually too dark, often the colors are off. The classes do mention calibration and things to help, but doing it would help more.
Couldn’t agree more. Just recently completed two projects. One was on motion blur. In the studio. It took me two weeks to figure out how to do this. Second was pin the theme of emerging.
Model slowly becoming more clear over a series. Used smoke machine. Again took two weeks to develop the technique. First came the vision and then the pressure to develop technique. Now those techniques are in my tool kit and will support vision in the future. So, ultimately a false dichotomy.
Just wondering why on earth you wave that cup around on most if not all your vlogs. Is there actually anything in
Thank you for another informative video. It will be more economical with digital than it was with film
Thank you again. Between your chanel and another, I was reminded recently about the wonders of selective depth of field. A basic we learned in the era of manual everything. My modern camera leaves everything in focus, I lose something when I let that happen.
Alex, I think a lot of people like those car shots. It’s normal everyday life and that is what people like, they can relate to it.
Greetings from NC
North Carolina. Pardon my America-centric assumptions.
Greetings Alex! from S.W. Florida!
Hi Alex, i enjoyed this video great work. 😊
Your pro work images are stellar! Couture dress superb. All the best!
A very good morning from South Australia
Alex, Spot on as usual.
Just had a thought- what if the major camera companies made a 'complete' AI camera with a few options:
1. Does landscapes, street, portraits, etc. in the style of- whomever , or is overridden if you are inadequate.
2. Controls your Tesla, scooter, etc to go out daily and 'Find' images
3. You just get to review and edit with the AI overriding any poor composition, subject, etc. decisions.
No reflection on your excellent program, just a cynical observation of where we may be in the future?
Just call me Orson, and how much would that camera cost?
Humans want control, but they want better pictures more, and by “better”, I mean “better to the photographer”. I feel an AI camera would be more insidious than your examples, when you press the shutter, it examines the scene and nudges it more into the style of photograph you’ve prompted it into. You would tell it you want your take a portrait in the style of Vincent peters and it would rework your image to look as if it was one of his - adjusting your subjects expression, adding light and shade etc. it would add texture that wasn’t there to skin, film grain and so on but ultimately, you would look at it and recognise the shot you took. You would never get to see the “real”’shot you took because it would be between the sensor and the jpg processor. That would be lost. It’s insidious because unlike something like autofocus which ostensibly does the same thing, overrides the focus you set to deliver what the camera thinks should be in focus with your strict instructions (eye, dog, plane etc) the ai of the future will put in detail that wasn’t there and remove detail that was. It will make you feel like a better photographer than you are which is why it will sell millions.
Although I’ve used words like “insidious” I don’t mean it will be a bad thing. People will pick up a box and produce photos. There will be controversy similar to the controversy around digital cameras 30 years ago, it will be banned from competitions etc like digital was. It will be looked down on by “real” photographers, like digital was and ultimately it will be accepted, like digital was because a new generation will grow up used to its conveniences and annoyed at the attitude of “old” people clinging to the past.
And there will still be film cameras and traditional digital cameras being made, getting ever more niche and less value. And the beauty and skill that those photos take to make will be lauded over ai photos in the same way we’ve grown to appreciate film cameras and vinyl all over again. Perhaps digital will become the cassettes, only film and ai will be seen as “good” in much the same way as the cassette reinvention fizzled out while vinyl is being added back into inflation indexes as it is selling so well. But I suspect that place in history is reserved for ai. 50 years from now, people will love film and digital photography as well as holographic (or whatever the latest and greatest photography is) while ai is seen as the cassette is, cheap and convenient and consigned to the history books as having no redeeming features.
Another excellent show 🙂
Thanks for sharing.
"...wax on, wax off..." lol