What do we contribute to the picture?

[John Cook]

Now that the New England winter is over, the sidewalks are no longer coated with ice, and it is light more than six hours a day, my thoughts turn to getting out and making a few artistically stunning happy-snaps for the living room walls.

While pondering all of this, a question suddenly occurred to me. As the yuppies would say, what do I, as the photographer, bring to the party?

To illustrate my point, let me recount three worst-case scenarios I have witnessed.

First. A local wealthy young woman decided she would like to be a great fine artist and photograph the human condition. She purchased the latest, most expensive model Nikon, a hundred or more rolls of color film and flew to Bangladesh for a private tour of some leper colony or similar unfortunate encampment.

There, she set up the tripod and camera on auto-focus, auto-exposure and activated the motor drive. For all I know, she just loosened the tripod head and let the camera spin around by itself, shooting the little children gathered around as the exposures automatically pumped off.

Returning to NYC, she dumped off the hundred rolls of film at a prominent lab for development and proofing. Several dozen randomly-selected frames were made into 30x40 prints and professionally mounted and framed. A show/cocktail party of this work was held at a local gallery, at which she was hailed as one of the great photographers of the 20th Century.

What, exactly, did this woman contribute, except the ability to land a young husband with the deep pockets to fund her great adventure with automatic equipment?

Example Two. I once worked for a food photographer. His typical method after receiving a commission, was to first hire a prop-stylist to canvas the local antique stores for nick-knacks to dress the table-top set. Then a food stylist was brought in to cook and prepare the product to be photographed.

A large softbox was shown onto the set and the shot framed with dummy stand-in props. The assistant determined the proper exposure with test Polaroids.

The agency art director selected the props from those gathered by the prop-shopper, while the food stylist arranged the final product on the set. After the art director was happy with the composition, the assistant made the exposures and the lab technician processed the film.

Again, what was the photographer’s contribution beyond building the studio, convincing the art director to give him the commission and hiring all the free-lancers to do the work?

Finally, I once worked for a fashion photographer. He had me set up a simple white flatly-lit wall. A very expensive, skinny, double-jointed NYC model whose hair and make-up were done by free-lancers, and who was dressed in the client’s clothes, simply stood in front of this wall and shook her booty to the rhythm of some loud fast recorded music. I fed pre-loaded motor-drive cameras to the photographer, who tracked her just as he would a parade going down the street in front of him. Later, the lab souped the film and the art director picked the frame to publish in the ad.

Again, what part of this adventure belongs to the photographer? He turned on the motor drive, but had nothing to do with the subject being “photo-copied”.

On the fine art scene, I have recently seen beautiful photographs of Big Sur and Cape Cod. What I would describe as technically exquisite snapshots of a breathtaking scene. Very nice, but nothing which could not be produced by anyone with an automatic camera who just happened to be there at the time.

So is the photographer’s contribution that he happens to live near a picturesque area which he can visit with a camera every morning before breakfast? Sooner or later, the sun, tide, fog and gulls will be all in the right place and ready to be recorded.

Then there are the autumn scenes of red maples and white churches in New England. Or perhaps rapidly flowing streams running past an old mill. Much more work to locate than well-known photogenic targets like Big Ben or the Great Pyramids.

Is the photographer’s claim to fame simply that he likes to take his little Ebony on endless walks, no matter the weather, all around the countryside? While the rest of us happily sit home by the fire and type things onto the photography forums?

So, to repeat my question, just what is it that we as photographers contribute to the picture?

[Struan Gray]

Perception.

[Renee Galang]

My contribution as a photographer/conservation biologist is to assist the conservation of the central Panay Island (Philippines) mountain ranges by walking from the coastal town to the deep jungle and photograph for the first time its beauty. My dream/hope is to convince the Philippine politicians to turn this mountain range into a national park in the near future. By walking I mean walking hundreds of kms through the jungle and rock slides without any trails and sleeping on a hummock under a tarp for weeks. I don't just push buttons my friend!

[Ben Calwell]

John,

To take your question off on a tangent, I've often wondered what it is that the great photographers (Adams, Weston, etc) had that the rest of us don't. I've often read that Adams' prints "glow" or that Weston's blacks were beyond this planet, etc. The ability to compose an artful shot aside, it seems to me that photograhy is a scientific process, so that film and paper would behave in the same ways for Joe Blow Unknown Photographer as it would for Adams. How come Adams could do it, but Joe Blow can't? Light hits film in the same way for Joe Blow as it did for Adams. The shutter opens and closes for Joe just like it did for Ansel. Joe sinks his film into developer just like Ansel did it. Joe puts the neg in the enlarger and exposes paper just like Ansel, so how come Joe Blow's work isn't the talk of the town?
If, back in the 1940s, Joe Blow Photographer had driven past the "Moonrise Over Hernandez" scene say, 15 minutes before Adams arrived there, stopped his truck, gotten out his 8x10 and made the shot, would Joe be revered today (assuming he had made a good exposure and print)?
I guess I don't understand why, if a photographer masters the technical side and has an artistic eye, he or she never attains the Mount Olympus status of past masters.
Were Adams, Weston and the rest just great PR people who aggressively marketed their work? Did they have a pact with the devil so that their paper, lenses, film and chemicals behaved differently for them?

[Nick Morris]

There are many, many reasons for loading a camera, aming it at a subject, and releasing the shutter. And in the history of image making there have been many, many repeat performances. By that, I mean basically the same image made by numerous image makers. These image makers each brought the tools, materials, knowlegdge/skill, motivation and a reason to make the image.

In examples two and three, I'd say the photographers brought either exceptional photographic skills or exceptional sales skills...and most likely a combination of the two, to the party.

In your first example, I'd say the photographer brought a strong desire to to tell the story. Something or someone motivated her to make the effort. Either innate skill or luck allowed her to succeed. By the way, two of our most revered photographers, Alfred Steigliz and Paul Strand were fourtunate enough to be born into families with means, which allowed them some freedom in persuing their art. Those of us without that kind of support, if motivated, seem to find a way.

[Bruce Watson]

Why not ask this question of a painter? a chef? a general contractor? an interior designer? an engineer? an architect?

What we bring to the party is our talent, our technical expertise, our experience, our organizational skills, our persistence, and our particular perception, and our vision. And of course, one of the things that sets us apart from the others is our willingness to go on location and be there when the light is right. In other words, our willingness to actually do the work.

While it's true that if I take you with me, show you what to shoot, frame and focus for you, pick the right filter for you, calculate your exposure, setup your camera for you, and tell you when to trip the shutter, you could take a shot just like the one I would take. Then if I processed the film for you, scanned it for you, applied photoshop corrections for you, researched the inks and papers for you, setup and linearized your printer for you, and setup your RIP for you, you could then push the print button and make a print just like mine.

But you weren't there, and I didn't do all that work for you, and you didn't trip the shutter or push the print button.

What I bring to the party (besides the talent, expertise, experience, perception, and vision) is doing all that work out in the cold and wet, so that you can sit happily by the fire, warm and cozy, and type things onto the photography forums while one of my prints decorates the wall opposite your computer ;-)

[John Cook]

My personal answer to this question is that it’s all about light. A photo-graph is literally a picture of the light, not of the physical objects in a scene.

Light has not simply quantity, but quality and character. A master photographer, by definition, must have a comprehensive understanding of the nature of light. It is his primary stock in trade.

An accomplished portraitist, using light alone, can add or subtract 20 years to/from the sitters age, 20 pounds to/from his weight and 20 points to/from his I.Q.

A food photographer can light a dish in a way that makes it look delicious. Green salads and the puddle of syrup and butter on pancakes, for example, are always lit with a 45-degree back light.

There is an unique form of light which will enhance black auto tires, beer, varnished wood furniture, silverware, lead crystal, or rough-textured fabric and leather. It takes a true master to light an object or scene which contains several of these different surfaces.

Outdoors, one must know what quality of light is required for a subject and when the conditions might be right for it to occur. My mild discomfort with the Zone System stems from a seeming misunderstanding by a few folks that less than optimum quality light on a given scene can be ignored, then completely fixed with heroic film development techniques.

Phil Cohen, one of the finest gentlemen I ever knew in photography, once gave me some advice for after I left art school. He said, "If you have only $1000 to invest in your first studio, buy a $100 camera and $900 worth of lights". That sentance was worth the entire cost of tuition.

I always wondered why photography stores don't display at least as much lighting equipment as cameras.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Good points, John. Regarding the Zone System, I agree that there is no substitute for good light, but I think of the Zone System as for light that can't be controlled. In the studio, where I can control contrast with artificial light, I almost always use normal development. For landscapes, one works with what one has, and the Zone System (or BTZS or whatever your favorite method) is another tool in the bag. While waiting for the "good" light, sometimes there are good photographs to be made by asking in the meanwhile, "what can I do with this light?"

[Alec Jones]

I think you're doing too much "wondering".

[Eric Z. Beard]

What one person can do, another can do. But just because you *can* do it, that doesn't mean you *will* do it.

Photography is all about choices. You choose to get up early and hike out to a nice spot. You choose each piece of equipment you use. You choose where to set up your tripod, how high to set it, what angle, shutter speed, arpeture. Do you wait another 5 seconds to trip the shutter or do it now while the wind is low?

Then you get to the darkroom and you have another array of choices. 5 1/2 minutes in the developer or 6? Bump the Shadow/Highlight slider one more notch to the right or leave it?

We make literally thousands of choices with each photograph that we take. The possible permutations on how you arrive at an image are nearly infinite, and the path to a truly strong image is quite narrow. I think what sets the masters apart is that they made just the right choice at each step of the process.