Photography is an art, not a numbers game

White Horse, South Uist, Scotland by Paul Strand

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

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

Beach Scene, Carmel California by Richard Lewis 2013

Enjoy.