Lessons I Didn’t Learn In Photo School 13-17
This Week’s LIDLIPS
13. Learning photography is just like becoming fluent in a foreign language.
14. Invest more in your education than you do in photo gear.
15. Understand that the meaning of “traditional photography” is relative and it always will be.
16. Photographers are like dogs – they come in many breeds, some are purebred, others are mongrels.
17. Learn to think of the viewfinder as optional.
Lessons I Didn’t Learn In Photo School 13–17
13. Learning photography is just like becoming fluent in a foreign language. To become conversational in a foreign language takes a lot of time and persistence. At the beginning, you learn some words and a bit of simple grammar. You babble like an infant and struggle to write a simple sentences. Over time, you learn more words and more grammar. To be truly conversational, you study literature – both historic and contemporary. Then more vocabulary, more grammar, more speaking and writing, and more literature. You forget old lessons and have to learn them again. Then one day, you realize that you’ve actually been fluent for a while. You think and create in your new language without hesitation. Rather than translate word-by-word, you’re expressing without hesitation. The path to becoming a competent photographer is just the same.
14. Invest more in your education than you do in photo gear. I’ve taught workshops where students showed up with a bag of gear worth many times the value of all the gear I own. Yet, they hadn’t a clue about how to craft a memorable photo. At every photo trade show I attend, I am reminded that there are thousands of people who feed their families by trying to sell me solutions to problems that I don’t have. I’m also amazed that many shooters are far more fascinated with the specs on a new lens or flash than they are with learning about which books to read or seminars to attend. It’s far easier for an experienced photographer to make a great photograph with mediocre gear than it is for an inexperienced photographer with great gear.
15. Understand that the meaning of “traditional photography” is relative and it always will be. Two years ago, I was greatly amused when a panel at the Palm Springs Photo Festival largely defined “traditional photography” as being black-and-white, silver-based prints. My friend, Mac Holbert, was the lone defender of digital prints as being actual photographs. Back in my dark ages, during the early Reagan years, as a student at Brooks, we were told that someday we’d no longer need film. Given that this was several years before the introduction of the first Macintosh computer, the concept of filmless photography was truly revolutionary. A few years later, while working on my BFA in Tucson, I lurked around the newly-opened Center for Creative Photography and became adept at making cyanotypes, carbon prints and generally infatuated with 19th-century processes. At present, we are witnessing the birth of a generation of photographers who will never shoot film and will likely see any type of paper-based prints as an alternative process. I’m not sure “traditional photography” has ever existed.
16. Photographers are like dogs – they come in many breeds, some are purebred, others are mongrels. Is there a right or best way to be a photographer? I think not. I am a pictorialist – a photographer who creates images rather than takes them. I’ve learned to shape light and do so freely whenever I need to. I won’t hesitate to change or fix something in Photoshop if need be (although I much prefer to get it right at the time of capture). Other shooters are documentarians. They strive to capture images with minimal influence on the event being photographed and process them in a way that does not alter the file. When I create photographs solely as a personal expression, I am working as an artist. When I create photographs to meet the needs of others, I am a businessman. Some photographers shoot only food or fashion or sports. Other photographers shoot anything they can. None of these is right or wrong, better or worse.
17. Learn to think of the viewfinder as optional. If you don’t regularly make photographs without looking through the viewfinder, start today. Learn how your lens sees without looking. Become more spontaneous. Hold your camera up over your head – like a paparazzi. Shoot from the hip (literally). Go for the worm’s-eye view. Stop chimping the LCD after each shot. Try this. Cover the viewfinder and LCD with tape — except where the histogram shows (so you can make good exposure decisions). Then shoot for a day or a week without ever looking through the lens. I’m sure you will come up with many great images that show you the world in a way you haven’t seen before.
Previous Lessons I Didn’t Learn In Photo School
Some great tips!
I particularly liked #14 – many people get too obsessed with “gear lust”, and don’t spend enough time actually taking photos or learning how to use their gear!
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Thanks for sharing Syl. In such an overloaded world you make it all simpler.
OMG this is so true! Great post Syl!
Hear, hear. Great post and thanks for the (non)learnings…
[...] Syl Arena continues with his theme and adds 13-17 with the lessons he didn’t learn in photo sc… [...]
More great lessons!
I’m especially glad to see #14 on the list. I live in an area where people have more money than the sense God gave them. They haul around tons of gear and yet they haven’t a clue how to use it properly.
Thanks for sharing all your observations. They truly put a lot of things into perspective for those of us who love photography.
[...] LIDLIPS 13-17 [...]
#14 rocks.Some of the best pics I’ve taken are with the oldest cameras I won. A friend one said to me “its not the camera, its the photographer”. how true…
In surf lingo they are Barneys, and mountain bikers have a name for them too. The person that shows up with the 2K bike or 1k surfboard and can’t catch a wave or get up the hill on the bike….
A lot of truths there Syl.
Good to see it all in print.
I am an amateur photographer. There is no doubt that the digital era made life so much easier for photographers. The Internet has helped too. One thing I know do is always print my photos using some online services. They are cheap and fast. If you have not done it before check out this place http://www.printrates.com for a list of good ones. I still have a photo printer at home but only use it when I need a print super fast.
Syl,
Thanks for this series. I’ve printed a ‘cheat sheet’ that I keep in my camera bag for inspiration.
Number 17 especially hit home. I was a late adopter and ‘went digital’ a little less than 2 years ago. Six months ago I was on an assignment and thought a film look would be cool so I brought along some Velvia.
Long story short, I loaded the film, popped a frame and you guessed it – chimped the shot! Worse yet, there was this brief moment of panic, like, did I get the shot? In the film days, I wouldn’t get my slides back for a week after a trip but still had a pretty good idea which shots I’d nailed before I saw the final product.
I love having the LCD and the ability to see what I’m getting as I go along but the shot is in front of the lens not on the back of the camera. Thanks for that reminder (and the tips).
#14, is dead on. A case example. A couple of weeks ago a huge rain storm blew through town. I went down to the river where some fishermen were practicing fly casting and the late afternoon sun was casting a golden glow with white towering cumulus as the background. I had some ideas for pictures and started shooting away. My Nikon D50 is a couple years old now and falling further behind in technology. As I was changing locations to get some wide angle shots from the bank, a conversation with a hobbiest photographer ensued for about 10 min. He had around his neck a new Nikon D300 and a nice lens to match. A camera I should have taken from him and shot what I was seeing. I shot a memory card full of RAW files, while he just watched me from afar. I doubt he even had an idea what I was seeing let alone taking pictures. What is with that? Why own it if you don’t use it!
Lessons You Didn’t Learn In Photo School … continues…
Syl continues with his nice lessons series and has now made it up to the impressive count of 40. Maybe he’s planning to make a book from it
Here is the complete series up to now:
LIDLIPS 36-40
LIDLIPS 32–35
LIDLIPS 28–31
LIDLIPS 22–27
LI…
[...] bits of wisdom that can benefit you not just in photography, but also in many other areas of life. Read through the next installment of these lessons. Same questions as yesterday- which ones stand out to you as being the most important, why? Which [...]
[...] found this great thought over on PixSylated.com, a wonderful sight I just discovered and am beginning to explore: [...]
[...] today’s post- Let’s read some more Lessons I didn’t learn in Photo School. Which one of these has the most truth to it in your opinion? Are there any that you don’t [...]
[...] Il s’agit d’une multitudes de remarques, souvent fort pertinentes, comme par exemple la 14 ou encore la 18, [...]