I am not technical photographer. I confirm this every time I watch a video by Thomas Heaton or Courtney Victoria or Gavin Hardcastle. I am a run and gun type of phoptographer. I get in, work a scene at a pace and then move on. I don’t plan excursions around a particular location at a particular time, and if I do, it is with the vaguest notion of both.
That’s not to say that I have a problem with the meticulous craft of many a landscape or portrait photographer. I have nothing but the utmost admiration for the patience, care and consideration they show to each shot. And they definitely fulfil both sides of the coin outlined below.
I am not that patient.
Not even remotely.
It does bring to mind a debate I have been having, both internally and with interested others, around the tension between technical proficiency and storytelling impact. An ideal, of course, is an element of both.
I have seen many photographs that are technically wonderful and beautiful but absolutely leave me cold (Ansel Adams being a prime example of this for me). And then are many photographers who make images that are less technically proficient but manage to convert story and emotion almost effortlessly.
As photographers I think, utter generalisation alert, there is a tendency to an obsession with the former rather than the later. We pore over sharpness edge to edge, pixel peek image quality across the image, obsess over this minor advantage of that technique over this one. It is profoundly tiring for someone like myself, who is primarily interested in the stories that a photograph is trying to tell.
I remember speaking to a friend and fellow photographer (he taught me), many years ago about a gallery event he attended. His response, with some residual consternation, was ‘well, José, they were photos I would have thrown in the bin’.
And I think that is the point. One person’s bin worthy efforts are another’s creative masterpieces. For me technique does not over-rule the story, but is there to support and enhance it. And sometimes that requires technically perfect photography and sometimes it requires a blurry experimental mess (Courtney Victora does this thing in a recent video where she moved the camera as she was taking a photo of some trees and it was wonderful).
I am very much in the story camp, although I absolutely still try to pay mind to the technical side. I like lenses and film with character, I like constraints and limitations. I like that, if I get it right, they can add to the story. I am an ill-disciplined, impatient and opportunistic photographer. No, really.
On the flip side, there are so many benefits to being more technically proficient (and patient and considered), not least that it adds more weapons to the armoury, so to speak. So I have bought a proper tripod with the aim of slowing down a bit and getting better at thinking about what is in front of me. It is always good to evolve.
