When people ask me questions about what I do, my typical response is: “Who me? I’m just a photographer.”—Joe Farace
Today’s Thoughts by Joe Farace
“A technically perfect photograph can be the world’s most boring picture.”—Andreas Feininger
There are all kinds of photographers in the world and I’m not just talking about portrait shooters, landscape photographers or photojournalists. All the practitioners of these different genres also include. at least, some of the photographic categories I’m about to describe.
Lets get started
Pixel Peepers: A photographer/friend and former magazine editor once showed me a portrait he made of a strikingly beautiful model and proudly said, “look how sharp her eyelashes are.” I guess they were sharp but the expression on her face said, “when is this session ever going to be over?” If you don’t get what’s wrong with the “sharp eyelashes” approach to making portraits, please check out this post Taking a Look at Modeling Styles when you have time.
I’ll readily confess to shooting pictures of brick walls to determine a lens’s sharpness but usually only when writing a product review. When it comes to lenses or even cameras that get used for my personal photography I just shoot’em and use’em. Ditto for DxO scores; I never look at them for myself but will occasionally refer to them in blog posts, just for grins or to make a (sarcastic) point, sometimes for both reasons.
Let me tell you something else: The best hands-down, all-world best ever mirrorless camera I ever tested was the Samsung NX1. When looking at images from the camera on my 5K iMac’s screen, I was blown away by their stunning visual quality; it was better than any camera I’d ever used up to that time and maybe even since. Other photographers, including YouTube’s Jordan Drake, have agreed with me about this camera. But Samsung didn’t get the memo about camera size for mirrorless cameras and the NX1’s larger body made it disappear as quickly as the Nimslo. I own a Nimslo, by the way, and once shot part of a wedding with it.
How I made this photograph: I photographed this historic home in Georgetown, Colorado with a Nikon 28ti film camera using it’s panorama mode. While smarter photographers than me have said, “The most useless feature of this camera is the panorama mode,” I loved using this particular mode. The film used was Kodak color negative film, I don’t remember which emulsion and the exposure was unrecorded, I traded this camera in on a Contax G1 and while I loved shooting the Nikon, I miss the Contax more.
Camera Collectors: Speaking of Contax, there is no doubt that some people admire the elegance and construction of photographic hardware, yet while they seldom take pictures the do care if the cameras they have are the latest or “the best.” When Shutterbug was still a print magazine, I once wrote “if carpenters could hang a belt sander around their neck, they might not treat it as the tool it is” but that’s not the way it works out here in the real world. Lets face it though, we’re all camera collectors to some extent.
As Walter Brennan once said, “No brag, just fact.” The film cameras I currently own include a Leica M6 TTL, Zeiss SW, a (barely working) Seagull TLR, Minolta Prod 20, Leica Z2X, Contax 167MT and all of the SLRs in Canon’s A-series, none of which I would part with. But it’s called photography not cameraography and it’s all about making photographs and not just collecting beautiful mechanical and optical Objet d’art. Although I think that’s no excuse for manufacturers producing ugly cameras.
Happy Snappers: We are all snapshooters to some extent. I’m not talking about using cell phones to make selfies but actually shooting pictures, like you and I and everybody else does for birthdays, anniversaries and other special occasions. For some people, like my friend Renee, it’s all they use their camera for and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s one of a camera’s best uses and something that makes photography the universal language.
Photographers: I suspect there’s a bunch of people, much like me, that just enjoy making images of all kinds and genres. Yes, we love cameras and lenses, although mostly as tools not as objects of worship and make pictures of birthdays and anniversaries too but also try to make images that are technically and aesthetically pleasing to ourselves and others.
There are probably more and other different kinds of picture takers out there and if you can think of any–or if you are one–please click the Contact tab and tell me what you think. Maybe you’re just a photographer yourself and want to talk about what you kind of images you like to make. Either way, I’d love to hear about that too. The best reply wins a small prize.
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