Photography is an art, not a numbers game
White Horse, South Uist, Scotland by Paul Strand
Paul Strand, pioneer of fine art photography, created meticulously crafted photographs from the early 1900’s until his death in 1976. Currently, the Philadelphia Art Museum in Pennsylvania has an extensive retrospective of his work on exhibition.
Maybe he didn’t really ruin my life, but looking at his work made me realize that photography today may be missing something. We photographers are caught up in the fast paced world we live in. Limited time and virtually unlimited space on camera cards has created a method of photography similar to the military philosophy of the machine gun called “spray and pray.” We go out and take hundreds, if not thousands, of images hoping to get a few good ones. We travel to amazing places for a few days and hope to assemble a large portfolio of work from the sheer volume of images we create.
Young Boy, Gondeville, Charente, France by Paul Strand
Paul Strand did it differently. Carrying heavy cameras and shooting expensive sheets of film, he would spend years in a location getting to know an area and its people. In that time he’d have maybe a couple of dozen images to show for it. Granted, shooting film is much different from shooting digitally, but we can learn about creating art from those who came before us with film in their cameras instead of a sensor.
Some of Paul Strand’s subjects were interviewed for this exhibition. When commenting on his working method, they didn’t really know what he did to create their photograph, but did know that he spent a long time doing it.
We can learn from this. Try to slow down and start a photo shoot by looking, thinking and studying the subject. Spend more time framing and adjusting before clicking the shutter. Maybe we would come back from a day’s shooting with just one great photograph instead of a bunch of good ones.
Beach Scene, Carmel California by Richard Lewis 2013
Enjoy.
Your best post ever Rich…spoken like a true artist.
Thanks Kathy…You are one of the people how help me be able to speak as an artist.
Very interesting and i agree with your view…but unfortunately when taking photos of other people they seem to expect from you to take loads of photos and want to feel that they can choose between many good shots, i’m talking about staged photoshoots of course. When shooting candid you can actually go the way you described 😀
You are absolutely right. When we photograph people, they expect what is available from technology which is lots of choices. This is something that we can explore with our fine art work but as commercial photographers, we have to go with what our clients want.
Yes, slow photography sounds great, but easier said then done. Lol
Lou, you got that right. Back then fine art photography required a lot more effort and skill to use a camera. It is why there were so few of us back then. I guess I’m not advocating to go back to those days, but to take some of that artistic craftsmanship and apply to today’s technology.
Wonder what he was doing on South Uist back then? I was stationed there until the mid-70s and went back for another 10 years on holiday to see my friends there when I left the Army but there were never any tourists until just before I stopped visiting – a few started to visit then but not many. I think the islands are quite popular now…
Carol.