A few comments on experimentation in photography.

[Ron Marshall]

Have fun with your photography, that's the key!

[wfwhitaker]

It's all about individuality and creative expression. It's not like you're using stem cells.

[Ed Richards]

This photographer builds homemade cameras from vintage parts and household goods for her work:

http://www.soulcatcherstudio.com/exh...tine/index.htm

Seems to work pretty well, so maybe you are on to something.

[Stephanie Brim]

See, that's what I'm talking about.

The most haunting images I've ever see, those that stay with me, are not technically perfect. They're compositionally interesting, but there's a lot that can be found "wrong" with them.

Stephanie, the only substantive criticism I'd make of you is that it isn't clear you've learned how to learn efficiently.

And I have criticism of this as well, while we're on the subject of learning.

People learn in different ways. This would apply if there was one true way to learn, but history and my experience working with kids has taught me otherwise. I learn plenty efficiently for me. I tend to learn fast from mistakes, but sometimes my "mistakes" lead me to other interesting experiments and my learning starts all over again.

You must make mistakes *yourself* in order to learn. Learning from others' mistakes works, but I've never really been completely satisfied that their conclusion it *was* a mistake would also be my conclusion.

If you get me.

[Gordon Moat]

I had someone once comment on my Polaroid manipulations that the little flaws in them indicated that they were worked by hand. I think in the same way, digital imaging has often been about ultra clean perfection, and sometimes those little flaws in film remind us about the extra work. Humans are imperfect, so perhaps there is the appeal.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography

[paulr]

I do not want to lose my experimental nature in chasing the perfect image.

That might be your central dilemma. Think about what you mean by "the perfect image." For a some people, it means an image that conforms to a lot of pre-existing standards, some of which they might or might not be conscious of.

This kind of perfectionism kills creativity. And an experimental nature is just one part of creativity.

If you open up your goal -- make sure you're seeking YOUR image, and not some inherited idea of a perfect image -- then i don't think you'll have anything to worry about.

[Miguel Coquis]

I'm a young person. I turn 25 on the 15th. The future of film will be, eventually, left to me. I take that seriously. Film is something I've enjoyed for almost 10 years now, and I hope to enjoy it for many, many more to come. I hope my children will get to enjoy it.
So this is why I do this crazy stuff. Just figured that, if I'm going to be spending lots of time around here, you should know.

Hope you will remind young somewhere in yourself. What may be interesting is to follow the "process of seeing". One can see itself growing through the "photographic experience". In some way, you keep for you what is good and put all this in one side and put in another side (or throw away) what is not. Later, when you look at all the good things and put them together, this can be an open creative source. There is a space for "memory" that is constantly being nourished with all kind of impressions. Through camera work one can better recognize some of this impressions and find some order for them.
Bon courage !

[Donald Miller]

While creativity, doing one's "own thing", can at first seem to be an exciting adventure...in reality that only comes when someone has the rudimentary skills to begin to use them effectively...for instance, if one has no concept of composition or the elements inherent in composition, balance in the image...the different types of balance and the different aspects of form then one can run around making images that while different from the norm may totally miss the mark so far as having meaning for anyone including the person "doing his/her own thing".

I strongly believe that to make meaningful photographs, one needs to live some degree of life in order to recognize the condition of life that most human beings experience. What things do human beings experience? Does the photographer recognize them well enough to know how to capture those on film? What I mean is there are things more universal than seeing trees, rocks, mountains and streams. How about loss, triumph, grief, sorrow, joy, happiness, despair, fear and any of the other assorted and sundry things that make life as a human being imminently alive? Someone once wrote that it takes 57 years to make a human being...I thought at the time, some years ago, that they were full of crap for saying that...yet today I know that is pretty darn true in my direct personal experience.

As an example, an aspiring musical composer could sit at a piano for years attempting to write the next "great score" and if he/or she had no knowledge of the need for rests in music they may have only sound that seems noisy at best.

As in all things there is balance here...there are those things that are called beginnings and there are those called endings and there is that God awful soul searching angst between the two.

[r.e.]

Some responses I've gotten here and otherwhere lately make me think that a lot of people discourage experimentation.

Despite what some people in this thread have said, you are not imagining this.

If you want to experiment, I think that the best site to follow is cinematography.com. There are people on that site who are being paid real money to do things that are truly interesting, and that are transferable to still photography.

Much of what you read on this site is extremely conservative, and not representative of where photography is going.

[Dan Fromm]

See, that's what I'm talking about.

The most haunting images I've ever see, those that stay with me, are not technically perfect. They're compositionally interesting, but there's a lot that can be found "wrong" with them.



And I have criticism of this as well, while we're on the subject of learning.

People learn in different ways. This would apply if there was one true way to learn, but history and my experience working with kids has taught me otherwise. I learn plenty efficiently for me. I tend to learn fast from mistakes, but sometimes my "mistakes" lead me to other interesting experiments and my learning starts all over again.

You must make mistakes *yourself* in order to learn. Learning from others' mistakes works, but I've never really been completely satisfied that their conclusion it *was* a mistake would also be my conclusion.

If you get me.

Stephanie, you protest too much.

And I don't "get" you. You remind me a little of a young woman I dated who decided to take up photography.

This person acquired a Nikon F with a plain (no meter) prism and a normal lens, went out and took pictures. When I asked her how she set exposure without a meter (yes, I was thinking sunny 16) she told me that she set aperture and shutter speed creatively. She was shooting b/w negative film, which has broad latitude and allows large exposure errors. Even so most of her shots were unprintable.

Eventually she got over her fixation with creative exposure, got a book and learned technique. These days she's a very capable photographer. Takes technically good pictures and has a very good eye.

Aleatory photography, like aleatory music, has always struck me as a bad idea. There's no way to avoid learning the craft.

That said, this discussion has been more about choice of equipment and very little about craft. As far as I know you're on top of the craft. What you're not on top of is reading. I am well aware that every individual has its own way of learning and I said so. And I told you that if you're happy, I'm happy for you. What more can you want? An explicit blessing for what I see as, um, misguided behavior?

Now go and be happy.