I rarely see anything online about the art of photography, everything seems to be about the equipment, more so than the actual imagery itself, the content, framing, subject etc. I see people talking and discussing all kinds of things from image quality, lens distortions, corner sharpness, resolution, pixel count, high iso performance etc, (how often do you take photos in dark caves?) I don’t know about you but if I go to look at a photographic exhibition the last thing I’m interested in or looking for is any of these things! I don’t take a magnifying glass looking for corner sharpness or lack of! In fact I often like to put a vignette on my portraits, so what use is corner sharpness, just pointless measurements nothing to do with making good photography. And I don’t waste my time examining photos of brick walls looking for barrel distortions either!
The internet, You tube etc is awash with self appointed experts doing reviews about this or that lens, this or that camera…YAWN. Most cameras are capable of taking decent quality images today, never mind looking for the next bit of kit that’s going to “improve your photography” you could buy an old Canon eos 350D for £40 with an equally priced Canon ef 18-55 lens and make good photography, on the other end you could go and spend thousands on the latest kit but its not going to give you great images, only you can do that, a camera is an inanimate object, a tool. “The photographer is the instrument not the camera” – Eve Arnold.
Yes, you need a certain level of technical knowledge/ability but its not rocket science, digital has made things easier in that respect. The most important thing is to enjoy your photography, do it for yourself no one else, and we are all learning all the time, one could be a hundred years old and learn something new, anyone who thinks he or she “knows it all” has already lost, stay hungry! I’m more interested in the end results, the art of photography, doesn’t matter how you got there, what you used.
Here’s a recent street portrait I did with my 15 year old Canon 40D, and a Canon ef 24mm f2.8 lens from the 80’s! Which is more like a 35mm focal length on the 40D’s APS-C size sensor.
'The butterfly effect'
