Mastery of the Medium?

[Eric Biggerstaff]

This is a good one.

I feel my images are based on my vision, but it takes command of the materials to realize the vision.

I am NOT a technical master, but I know the materials I use and can get them to do what I want in order to realize the image on paper as I intended when I made the negative. What is important is that I am confident in my abilites as a photographer to make the image, and as a printer to realize the image. Confidence comes from understanding the materials I choose to use and lots of practice using them. I am not interested in testing 20 different film and developer combinations, knowing detailed lens designs or having 10 different papers in my darkroom. I am only interested in knowing MY materials well enough that I can forget about them and concentrate making the image.

So my command of the technical aspects of photography is really my command of the particular tools I decide to use in the process, but success as I define it is when the image on paper meets or exceeds the image I had in my head when I made it.

Thanks for the post.

www.ericbiggerstaff.com

[Jonathan Brewer]

Take music, there's the classical composer who took 8 years to compose a master piece, there's Duke Ellington who'd sit in a restaurant, get struck by 'lightning' and who'd immediately sketch out that inspiration on a napkin, there's the entirely different universes transmitted to us by 'Bird', John Coltran, and Mile Davis, ..........all of these folks did great work much of which was done a different way.

Despite what they should/shouldn't know, or whatever the conventions were, they simply rose above it all, and did it. Know who Billy Strayhorn was? When you say Duke Ellington, then you must also talk about his lifelong collaborator Billy Strayhorn, they paired up and added strength to strength, burying their indvidual egos to make their work together even better.

There's plenty of master photographers who had a brilliant vision who couldn't/wouldn't print their own work, they shot what they shot, and had it printed by a friend/collaborator, or they took it to a lab, that doesn't make the work any less, even though many folks say that's not how you make a photograph, EVERY artist has strengths and weaknesses, and with regards to what you don't/can't do well, you have a choice of what to do about it.

Ansel Adams for all his technical expertise, didn't do portraits very well, Weston could and did, because when it came to portraiture, he could see in a way Adams couldn't, I admire Adams anyway for sticking to what he could do well, so most folks can'd do it all, there's nothing wrong with a master photographer who can't print, collaborating with a master printer, or a lab.

Much of what makes a good picture a good picture doens't involve anything technical, framing/composition isn't a science, deciding when the light is right isn't a science(and the zone system isn't everything there is to lighting), nor is DECIDING what you're going to shoot, they're all intangibles, but the bottom line is some folks trying to insist that the 'tail wags the dog', you see something, and your ability to pick out something that would make an interesting photograph is either brilliant or mediocre or clueless, you determine an exposure which might turn out to be perfect BECAUSE you worked it out scientifically, OR you bracketed exposures, and one of negatives comes out right, and you compose the shot in an interesting or uninteresting way, now at this point, if you've got a 'killer', the printing part of it, either makes no difference to the end result, improves the clarity of what you saw, or detracts from your vision, but it comes LAST not FIRST. It a process down the line which is either done well by you, or badly, or sent by you to the lab.

The technique of taking an interesting shot doesn't come from technique, it's inspirational, and I think the whole point of all this is what serves the other, technique clarifies and serves inspiration/creativity and not the other way around, they don't equal each other, one helps the other, and with a nice image you see something else rather than the technique which presents the work.

[John_4185]

Strayhorn?

Tell me if this link works: rtsp://199.17.166.22/music/pc06/ummg-71228.rm
(can't wrap it in a url tag.)

(It won't work for long. It just happens that I'm setting up the routing params for a REAL streaming server.)

[Jonathan Brewer]

Yes Billy Strayhorn,................................Duke Ellington was/is a composer for the ages, many folks don't know that he collaborated with his equally brilliant collaborator and friend Billy Strayhorn who composed 'Take the A train', Duke Ellington composed and played it, but got ideas/and compositions/ideas/inspirations and drew creative sustenance from Billy Strayhorn, and as with any great art, it didn't matter who did what, or who got the credit.

Make no mistake about it, Duke Ellington was the driving force behind his music, but he owed a lot to Billy Strayhorn and was proud of that fact.

[robc]

Nope it doesn't work. The player loads but the rm doesn't stream/download.

[John_4185]

Rob: Try this first r1.winona.edu:8080/music/pc08/joehendersonlushlife.HTML

I think the net guy is messing with the router.

[Jonathan Brewer]

Now that's a link,..................................Master Sax player Joe Henderson and 'Lush life-the music of Billy Strayhorn', a fabulous cd.

[John_4185]

Glad you could get a peek at it, Jonathan.
I have to turn on the access rules now, so it won't be available in a few minutes.

(I developed the library online music facility as part of my day job years ago and just updated the server software. Router rules going into effect in a minute.)

[jonathan smith]

I've seen some terrible photos on walls in restaurants and stuff but they were up there whereas mine are still in a box, or on my own walls. A significant portion of "success" is marketing, getting it out there, and waiting until every little thing is mastered just means you will never do it.

There are some terrible bands which are famous, and some great musicians who never leave their garages. Some music acts started marketing themselves before they could even play a song all the way through. I think you have to do something like that to get successful, even if you haven't mastered everything yet.

Some of the most famous photographs were shot by nobodies. Who, outside of this forum, really knows who Ansel Adams was? Or could identify any of his photos? But everyone has seen that photo of the kitten hanging on to a stick, with the caption "Hang on, Friday's Coming".

Of course, if your definition of success is making a perfect photograph every time, the mastery is the success, not so much the individual images.

[John Flavell]

I've always had the "feeling" the technical side and the creative side run together, like two roads that can run side-by-side, then cross over on each other depending on where you are with your career.

I know that when newspapers went to digital cameras, many photographers felt they had to learn to shoot that medium awhile before "mastering" it. After some time, the creativity picked back up. Several photographers made the comment that they were happy to still have their vision after learning digital. Most of the those were older and wiser, so I'm guessing experience is a heavy factor.

In the film days, we told photojournalism students they had to shoot thousands of rolls of film before they 'get it'. The idea, still today, is to learn what that "thing in your hand" will really do TO and WITH your vision.