I’ve been running through my Nova Scotia photos looking for themes. One of the things I typically look for when wandering through a town are little details. These are a few that I took while we were in Lunenburg. Most of them were taken on the way to or from breakfast or dinner. See, photography and dining don’t have to be mutually exclusive! 🙂
There were a number of good and thoughtful comments to my previous post about balance. Some of them related to the visual balance of photography, but mostly the comments seemed to revolve around the time balance involved in making time for photography, and to a lesser extent about time balance in our lives in general. I find myself more and more preferring to photograph as a part of traveling or doing other things, as opposed to making photography the central purpose of my activity. There is a subtle but important distinction between the two. Mostly it just means a change in subject matter, but because I’m photographing things that attract me or grab my attention as I go, I’m more likely to photograph things that have more interest or meaning to me, rather than just going down a checklist or conforming to some predetermined agenda or formula.
Cedric’s comment was perhaps the most interesting to me, because he read my words in the context of the accompanying photographs, which were more of a “centered” type of composition. Relating it to his personal preference for photos that are “grossly one sided across the vertical” he said that he rarely shares that type of photograph, “because generally they are not popular and sometimes rattle people too much.”
My reaction when reading those words was “why does “balanced” have to be “centered?”” If your vision (or your preference) results in a photograph that has the subject off to one side and it pleases you and suits your intention, isn’t that OK? Balance should be dictated by what works for us in a particular situation and what feels right to us. In most cases that might mean a result that is closer to the center than to the edge, but it doesn’t have to.
Mark’s comments focused on the parallels between visual and time balance, and the fact that he feels that he has more control over the photographic part than the time part. I agree, as there are more outside demands on our time than there are on our photographic vision. I probably would have been perfectly willing to get up at 4am for sunrise a few days, were it not for the fact that our days didn’t leave room for catching up on lost sleep, that daylight went until sunset at 9:00 and that I didn’t want to go home from vacation needing a vacation! It was a lot easier to convince my traveling companions to head out for sunset than to get up for sunrise, so it was an accommodation I was more than willing to make, even if it meant completely forgoing sunrise.
Paul’s comment referenced my decision to leave the laptop at home, stating that he often does the same when I he travels. He said that he sometimes goes so far as to leave the camera at home, preferring to remove the “self-pressure to get out and photograph and carve out that time to do it.” I’ve found that, too. Sometimes I just want to go and watch, to experience whatever it is I’m doing for what it is. I don’t need to capture it with a camera if I see it, experience it and remember it. There is a time and place for the camera, and there is a time and place to just watch.
As it relates to photographic composition, I’m convinced that “balance” doesn’t have to mean “middle.” I’d love to see some of Cedric’s “unbalanced-balanced” photographs. I’ll bet we would love them, mostly because they would reflect his vision and are made from his heart. On the subject of time, some of us choose and are able to spend all of our waking hours doing photography. That’s great. If others of us are only able to carve out a few hours a day or a week for our photography, that’s just the other end of the continuum and is OK, too. When I’m faced with a choice between a nice dinner with my sweetie and a possible sunset opportunity, more often than not I’m going to choose the nice dinner. Except for those rare times of the year when I can do both! Several of us have given up television in exchange for more time doing other things. If that’s a decision that works for us, then that’s OK. If I post dozens of photos a day to my blog or Facebook while Paul leaves the computer at home and each choice works for us, that’s cool.
I think the main lesson in all of this discussion and conversation is that balance means different things to each of us. What is balanced to me may be nothing but tension for someone else. And what someone else finds comfortable might be like chaos for me. And you know what? That’s part of what makes this life so wonderful! Each of us has our own take on what works, for the most part we have the ability and the means to express it, and in the end what matters is that what we do makes us happy. If we are able to share our work and make a few other people smile in the process, that is just gravy!
On my previous post, Monte asked about how the HDR version of that image came out, and as it turned out I didn’t do an HDR series on that particular photo so I didn’t have anything to compare. Just for kicks though, I went back and found an image where I did do a bracketed series including an in-camera HDR file.
Most of my readers know that I really dislike futzing around in Photoshop, so I probably didn’t do the HDR version justice. But while there are things I like about it, I’m really a fan of the contrast you get from a single file. While the HDR version perhaps shows more “detail” I’d rather see the contrast. Of course I’m a fan of rich, dark tones in my photos and HDR kind of defeats the purpose for me.
I’ve made these files a little larger for those who want to pixel peep. But please don’t criticize my Photoshop skills. Because, especially for things like HDR, I’m really out of practice.
I hope everyone has a great Sunday!
Great minds think alike, I guess. On the same day that I was thinking about this subject, my friends Monte Stevens and Paul Lester were also posting similar thoughts on their own blogs. In fact my reply to Monte’s post became the basis for this post, and if I hadn’t read Monte’s post first I might have posted the same comment on Paul’s post!
Monte talks about how the most emotional images aren’t necessarily the ones that exhibit technical perfection. Paul related an experience with a co-worker who didn’t appreciate Paul’s photograph that his daughter appeared in because it was “blurry.”
We sometimes lose track of the fact that “technical perfection” is that technique that adequately expresses our vision. That doesn’t always mean sharp or even “properly” exposed. This past weekend I took pictures of the children of some friends. They are mostly candid shots of the kids playing, swinging, hanging from monkey bars, etc. Some of them are horribly overexposed and many of them are blurry or misfocused. On my first pass through the photos I marked a lot of them as Rejects. But I went back later and decided that some of them had merit, so I processed some of them and think that a few of them – happy accidents they may be – really express the emotions and energy of these 2 1/2 year-olds. And at that point, exposure, focus and sharpness take a back seat to the feeling that the photo portrays.
While we always strive for technical excellence, sometimes the shots that show the emotion we are trying to capture are not the ones that are “perfect,” but they end up being the ones the express our intentions “perfectly.”
A great subject for a Friday – inspiration for the weekend!
Several weekends ago, Kathy & I were having an interesting discussion about why someone should or should not shoot in Program or Auto mode on their camera instead of using one of the “serious” modes such as Manual, Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority, and what might be right or wrong with that. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that, actually.
Kathy knows more about the workings of a camera than a lot of people I know who have spent much more time in photography. But she also knows that trying to remember all those things can sometimes take the fun out of just going out and making photographs. So she asked me, and we talked about, “what’s wrong with just shooting JPEGs in Program Mode?” What’s wrong, indeed? Kathy & I were talking more in terms of the camera, in many cases, being smarter than we are. And to a certain extent, she makes a very, very good point.
My very first SLR was a Konica TC that I bought back in the late 70s, and while it had a meter, it was Manual everything, so when I set the aperture, a little needle would tell me whether my shutter speed was high or low, so I adjusted until I had it where I wanted it. And I learned about things like exposure compensation the hard way, after I got the film back and tried to remember what I did! But because I first learned photography with a camera that only had manual controls, it’s pretty easy for me to think in terms of aperture or shutter speed on the fly – I have “Program Mode” in my head!
I put the Konica away sometime in the 80s then shot for years with a number of different point & shoot cameras while the kids were growing up. This worked fine until I decided to get back into photography more seriously and bought a Nikon N70 around 2000. It had auto-focus and auto-metering! But I mostly shot it in Manual and Aperture Priority because that’s what I was used to. I would venture to guess that most people buying that camera, however, probably shot it in Auto mode.
Shortly after buying the Nikon, someone suggested that I needed to buy a medium format camera, so I went out and bought a Mamiya 7 rangefinder and a 65mm lens. Soon after I added a 50mm lens and a 150mm lens. That camera was manual everything with a funky little meter that, once you learned how to use it, worked pretty well. Again, I was perfectly comfortable with the manual exposure controls and manual focus, because that is how I learned. I eventually ended up trading all that Mamiya film stuff in toward a Canon 5D. And I’ve wished for that Mamiya 7 back until recently, when I got my 5D Mark III. That is the first camera I can say is better than the Mamiya 7, but that’s a story for another post.
In a recent post on his blog, Paul Lester talks more about how people are perfectly satisfied with photos they are taking with their phones. No controls, no exposure compensation, no thought, just point and shoot. Paul recently met and talked with photographer and teacher Ibarionex Perello who told him that he no longer teaches aperture in his classes, because no one wants to know about it. Students can’t be bothered learning about depth of field or the effect of aperture on shutter speed. They just want to take pictures. I’m sure some of them will eventually drift into the World of Manual as they explore various creative options, but most of these students will be perfectly happy using their cameras in Program mode, and if they want to get creative with their photos, they can always do that later with software.
Along this line, some of the commentary surrounding the recent Canon EOS-M camera has fascinated me. Like the Nikon mirrorless cameras, they are designed to shoot primarily in Program or one of the various “custom” or “scene” modes. While they do have the ability to shoot in a manual or semi-auto mode, those controls are menu-based instead of accessed simply by turning a dial or two. This has fostered some real debate. Hardly anyone has actually touched one of these cameras yet, let alone shot a few photos with one, but immediately the analysis and commentary began. People started using words like (and you can find them easily) “crippled,” “mundane, run-of-the-mill, off-the-shelf-with-spare-parts,” “uninspired,” No EFing Viewfinder!!! Well that is a deal-breaker for me.” Every camera that is introduced inspires its share of forum jockeys who are too busy making excuses about every camera that comes out that they never get around to actually taking photographs. Give me a break!
Do you honestly think that a company with the research and marketing budget that Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Olympus, Sony and others have is going to bring out a brand-new camera that is such an immediate failure that no one will want it? Probably not. It’s just that so many of these photographer wannabes think that no one else in the world could possibly want to shoot in Program Mode. In truth, I think these cameras are aimed squarely at a very clearly-defined market. It just ain’t us, sorry. Canon will probably sell millions of those cameras. And that will fund the next 5D megacamera that I’ll want!
There is absolutely no reason that a person with a basic level of interest in photography has to shoot in anything but Program to be serious about their photography. Granted, for a lot of us more serious folks, the ability to control exposure and depth of field is critical. But we often forget how long it took us to get to the point where we were comfortable with manual controls. I shot in Manual for years before I really learned how to control background blur or balance exposure between a bright sky and a dark foreground. But today, some cameras can figure that out for you, and for all the money we pay for our equipment, we might do well to just let it!
So anyway, someone who is starting out and just wants to let their camera take pictures will do perfectly well over 98% of the time. And if they shoot JPEGs and learn how to properly expose their shots they won’t need to work on their photos in software. What a deal! I know a number of successful commercial photographers who shoot everything in JPEG and beat the snot out of a lot of people who shoot RAW. Granted they are probably using manual controls and are sometimes using studio lighting, but if you know what you are doing, it’s no different than shooting slide film. Remember that?
In many ways, photography is like riding a bike. We don’t start off riding the fanciest machine that a Tour de France participant would ride. As kids we start off with a single-speed bike with training wheels. As adults getting back into cycling we might dust off the old “10-speed” and ride it around for a while. Eventually we will decide that we could be more comfortable, ride faster or generally be happier with something newer, lighter or more advanced. If we get really serious we buy the shoes, the jersey and the spandex shorts so we really look the part.
The same holds true for photography. Those starting out will use their phones, their point & shoot cameras or their SLRs – all in “P” mode. And for most people that’s as far as they’re going to get. A few of them will start experimenting with things like depth of field and shutter speed and realize that the camera they are using might not suit their needs. At that point they might move up to something with more manual controls, or they might just make do with the camera they have.
Kathy understands a lot of the mechanics of photography, but wants to spend more of her time looking at the scene in front of her and pondering composition and expression and less of it on figuring out the right f-stop. And I support that. If she gets turned off now by all of the technical stuff and gives up the camera entirely, than how is that success? If she can enjoy what she is doing now, and later gets to the point where she wants to do more with the controls, I think that is perfectly fine. And if she never moves beyond the “P” setting but enjoys her photos, that is perfectly fine and I support it! There are many ways to do this photography thing, and very few of them are wrong!
Three conversations over the last several days have gotten me thinking about the things that influence our preferences and perceptions. Bear with me while I elaborate.
Scenario One:
Kathy & I enjoy dining out, and this past Friday and Saturday nights were no exception. Friday night we went to a restaurant we have only been to a couple of times but have really enjoyed, and on Saturday night we went to a restaurant we had never been to before but had wanted to try.
The Friday night restaurant experience was exactly what we expected based on previous visits. The place has more of a sports bar/pub atmosphere and is generally a lot noisier than we prefer, with lots of televisions, this night showing NCAA basketball. Definitely not my idea of the ideal restaurant experience, but it is close to home, the food and service are good and the prices are reasonable, so we are willing to overlook a few less-than-ideal factors.
Fast forward to Saturday night. The place was a restaurant we had never visited before, but they had good reviews on Yelp and UrbanSpoon, so we figured it was worth a try. The restaurant’s website confirmed that the chef had lots of experience in other restaurants we have previously enjoyed and suggested that his approach mirrored our preferences and we went with an expectation of an excellent and enjoyable meal.
It wasn’t terrible, but a number of missteps left us with a very mixed first impression, to the point where I’m not certain we’ll return. They didn’t have a table ready for us despite having a reservation, the first two bottles of wine I requested were not in stock, despite being on the list, and my steak – one of the “features” for the evening – was tough and undercooked and my vegetables were practically raw. I know from well-proven experience that there are not many places that can do steak to my satisfaction, but I ordered it anyway, and the result proved my rule. On the other hand, Kathy’s dinner was good and she ate every bite.
Afterward, our discussion centered on how our prior experiences and our own biases influence our first impressions. We have been to some very good restaurants over the years, and while we are certainly not snobbish or opinionated, we generally know what to expect. And I’m not talking just fine dining – we have had excellent meals from casual diners to fancy, high-priced restaurants. Are we spoiled? Perhaps we are, but there are noticeable differences between a good restaurant and an average restaurant regardless of price, and there are enough good restaurants that there is little reason to bother with the average ones.
To be fair to this place, however, I recognize that had I ordered something different I might have had an experience that was 180-degrees opposite from what I had, and I may have been able to overlook the miscues. And had there not been the miscues I might have been more able to overlook a disappointing meal. As it turned out, a lot of little things contributed to a disappointing experience. We concluded that, considering the price and knowing the many other options available, this place would not be high on the list of restaurants to return to.
Scenario Two:
During our lunch in Salisbury last weekend, Paul, Earl & I talked about why we write and what we hope to get out of our blogs. We talked about the mutual followers we have and talked a lot about the number of photography blogs we enjoy and how those writers have a similar philosophy and approach to their photography that we have with ours, and how they often commented on our blogs, just as we comment on theirs. I was not too surprised to find that there are a few blogs we don’t especially care for. There is one blog in particular that we mutually dislike (“despise” might not be too strong a word) for a number of reasons, and that discovery led to a rather amusing conversation, as we all felt that this blog was the antithesis of our own blogs and those of our friends. Also interesting was the common observation that most of the people who follow that blog – or at least those who comment on it – had similar philosophies to the writer and were not the type of people we would find commenting on our blogs. It was an interesting discussion.
My take from all that is that people of like minds tend to gravitate toward each other, and the people who take an alternate or opposing viewpoint tend to stick with each other too.
Scenario Three:
I spent some time on Sunday afternoon working with a good friend on getting some prints made of his photographs. This person is a long time friend and I admire his photography. His photos have traditionally been very quiet and introspective. But lately his images have taken on more on an “urban decay and chaos” theme, and the difference is fascinating. The particular photographs we were printing were from an old store that he has been photographing. The store is long closed, but the photographs show an interior with lots of clutter and chaos. This friend has had some chaos in his life recently, and it seems that he is expressing this through his photography. I wonder if he realizes it?
Coincidentally that same day a number of other friends had been posting photos on Facebook from several other another outings, and Kathy & I had an interesting discussion about how those photographs often reflected my view of the personality of each photographer. We speculated about how or whether a person’s subject matter reflected their profession, their current emotional state or some wished-for or desired outcome!
So what do these three scenarios have in common, other than friends and food? For starters we have an exploration of why we feel like we do about things that matter to us. Our prior experiences determine how we react to and feel about everything, from meals in a restaurant, to which photographers we follow to why we write what we write and why we photograph what we photograph. And a lot more, these are just a few examples.
Secondly, our reaction to what we see and what we experience shows in our work. Whether it shows up in the choices we make about what we do for fun, in the photographs we take or in the words we write, how we feel about things drives what we do. If we’re generally happy and positive, I think that shows in our work. If we are calm and at peace, our photographs reflect that. If our lives are filled with chaos and confusion, that is going to come out in the words we write.
Last but not least, we gravitate to those subjects, experiences and relationships that most represent our own feelings and share them with those who most appreciate them. We photograph things we have some kind of connection with. We go to restaurants that provide the kind of food we like and deliver the level of service that makes us return. Mostly, the friends we make and the people we share with are typically those who we like to spend time with and those who appreciate what we have to say as much as we cherish what and who they are.
One of our challenges as photographers is to try and expand our horizons a bit in order to grow our skills and refine our vision. Often that involves getting outside of our “Comfort Zone.” Hopefully is doesn’t take us so far as our “Panic Zone” but that is always a possibility. Coincidentally one of the topics of our workshop this past weekend dealt with just that – getting outside our comfort zone.
This was already on the schedule before the workshop and ensuing discussion, but the manager of our favorite restaurant told me that he needed new photos for his website, Facebook page and Open Table and wondered if I was interested in giving it a go. After a big “gulp!” I told him I’d love to do it, we just needed to set up a date.
As it happened, the weather forecast for this past Sunday was perfect, Tim (the manager) was available and the time change the night before made sunrise a much more hospitable hour than it would have been just the previous day. So off I went at 0-Dark-Thirty to shoot landscape photos in a restaurant. No problem, right? Actually it was no problem at all. Tim had gotten there early and had everything set up, and just like with a landscape shoot we just had to wait for the right light. Once it got good, I rattled off a series of shots and it was “in the can” as they say in show biz.
It was a great creative exercise for me, and stretched my boundaries just a bit. Not all of the shots are as great as I (and the client) think these are, but they will be a huge improvement over what they had been using. I don’t think there’s any danger of me becoming an architectural photographer any time soon, but it has gotten me thinking about looking for a tilt-shift lens!
I attended one of Les Saucier’s “Refining your Photographic Vision” workshops this past weekend. I think it was the third or fourth one I’ve attended. I seem to always get something out of Les’ workshop that makes it worth the time and cost. This time was no exception. The thing that I find most fascinating though is that a lot of the things I learn don’t always come from the instructor or even the other participants. Sometimes the best “nuggets” are things that I learn about myself.
Part of the day’s activities involves a critique of images we have selected and brought in to share. Les goes through everyone’s images and comments on what he sees, how they might be made better and he usually has some good suggestions on things to work on and look for the next time. One of the participants showed an image that, while it was not taken with an iPhone, it was processed to look like it was done with one of the popular apps. Les’ comment was that – and I’m paraphrasing – the effect should not be the subject, that the software effects used in processing our images should be used to obtain or achieve our vision for the photograph. The photograph should not be “about” the effect. I found this interesting, because I feel that too often an image is shared to show off a technique, rather than to show someone what the photographer saw or how the photographer felt. I wrote about this several years ago in a post entitled “Don’t Make It About the Technique” where someone had suggested something similar to me about my use of camera movement to show motion in an image. The same concepts hold true here.
During the introductions, one of the participants mentioned that they were using all the latest Nik and Topaz software. Les asked how that person knew when to use what software, since the software is a tool to achieve our vision, not a vision in and of itself.
Several people in the class mentioned tools or software or equipment that they had purchased but “hadn’t had time” to use, hadn’t learned how it works or hadn’t even taken it out of the box. The problem I have with that is that too many people buy stuff without really understanding whether they need it. They just think that if they have something then they can take pictures just like the person who sold it to them. That may be true, and it may be absolutely OK if that’s what you want, but the best tool in the world won’t help a bit if it doesn’t help you achieve your intended result. And it does nothing for you whatsoever if it never comes out of the box. We spend way more time searching for recipes and magic buttons than we do actually figuring out what we want to say. Unless, of course, “look at all my stuff” is our message.
At another point in the day there was a discussion about tripods. Les gave us his “Good, Better, Best” talk and showed us his choices for Better and Best tripods. He told us that he couldn’t recommend the Best tripod because it costs too much. But the Best one is the one he uses, and also happens to be the one I use. I realize that there is a point at which we all have to determine what our needs are, and that helps us decide what price represents an appropriate amount to spend for a given tool. But when I ran those numbers for my own purchase several months ago, I decided that Best was what I needed and wanted, and while the difference was fairly significant in dollars it was relatively small in terms of my overall investment in equipment. Now that the money is gone, I never ever question my decision to buy the Best tripod. It is exactly the tool I need and has made a noticeable improvement in the sharpness of my images (notice that I didn’t say that it has made a noticeable difference in the quality of my photographs!). Again, we all have to make a choice, but for something as important as a tripod, I’m not sure the Better is good enough when Best costs only a little more.
The best nugget for me was during the critique of one of my photos when Les suggested cloning out a few distracting elements. I agreed with him and had actually thought about doing that when I originally processed the image. I thought about his comments later and remembered that the reason I hadn’t cloned them out originally was because I couldn’t get the result I wanted in Lightroom. Lightroom’s healing brush doesn’t work well on larger areas and to do it right I was going to need to use Photoshop. My desire to do everything in Lightroom (a nice way of saying ‘my hard headedness’) makes me avoid Photoshop obsessively except for the few things that I just can’t do in Lightroom. But as I thought about it I realized that it was foolish of me to allow my choice of tools to influence my artistic decisions. It’s no different from someone else using a tool or software indiscriminately to determine their vision. If I need to use Photoshop to get the results I want, then I just need to use Photoshop. So as soon as I have time I’m going to go back and re-work that photo in Photoshop to get the result I should have gotten to start with.
Overall it was a great session. I learned some things that I think will be valuable. Les’ biggest lesson is that we need to get our cameras out and go practice. So Sunday morning I did just that. This had already been planned before the workshop, but I stepped out of my comfort zone, got up well before sunrise and went out and shot some commercial photographs for a restaurant in Charlotte. But that is a story for another day.
Alan Ross recently posted an article entitled “Too Close To Home – Even for Ansel Adams” in which he discusses how he (Alan) rarely makes interesting images close to his home and how Ansel Adams had the same “problem.” Check it out.
It would be easy to read such an article and think, “Gee, I have something in common with Ansel Adams!” Not so fast. I agree that most of us do our best work in places other than where we live. But why is that?
Perhaps the biggest reason we don’t shoot close to home is that we have too many distractions at home. Whenever we’re home we have our “to-do lists” and other chores that make it hard to change gears and just go out and shoot for an hour or so. Maybe we’re too busy planning our next adventure away from home that we forget about what there is to shoot nearby.
I think shooting close to home can potentially result in excellent images, images that only those who take the time to know a place can make, because if we really get to know a location we can go there when the conditions are perfect for whatever we choose to photograph. But we have to work at it and be open to the possibilities because our subject matter is not as clear-cut as it would be if we were shooting somewhere “iconic.” And the great thing is that we have an opportunity to shoot someplace where no one else has photographed. True, it might not be Yosemite, but we can do some truly personal work in a place where you aren’t influenced by others’ photographs.
Why do we seem to make better photographs when we travel to new places? Think about it, and I think you’ll agree that it has to do with several main things: (1) when we travel to photograph we “give ourselves permission” to put our other obligations aside and just go shoot, (2) when we visit a new location we are usually excited, and shooting things that excite us generally results in more personal photographs, and (3) when we’re unfamiliar with a place, we work harder at finding things that interest us, because we have put our distractions (and our preconceptions) aside. There are many more, but I think those are the top three.
For many of us, we live where our jobs are. If we lived in the Caribbean or Alaska or the Rocky Mountains one would think it would be easier to shoot close to home. But that’s not necessarily the case. We get so used to things we see every day that we lose sight of how wonderful our home is. I used to work with a woman who grew up in Hawaii but always talked about how beautiful North Carolina is. She told me that since she had lived in Hawaii so long she didn’t think it was anything special. Wow, I can’t imagine that!
I’ve spent the last several years shooting on the greenway that runs through my neighborhood. It’s been a fun project, documenting the change in seasons in different weather conditions and different times of the day. But even when all I have to do is walk out my front door, it can still be a hard thing to do. For a while I tried doing a regular shoot there for some of my local photographer friends, but turnout was generally pretty low. Those who came out enjoyed it, and I had some regulars, but it’s just hard for people to get excited about shooting somewhere so close to home.
To be sure, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with traveling to other places to photograph, and I certainly do my share! We love to travel, and there is nothing better than going to a new place, returning to a place we haven’t been in a long time, or even going to a familiar place in different conditions or at a different time of the year. I’m planning to do my share of traveling in the coming year, too. But I think if we work at it we can see our home the way we see new places. Try it and see, and let me know how it goes!
Kathy & I were talking the other evening about her experiences photographing this year, and she mentioned how much she enjoys just walking around with a camera, taking photographs of things she sees and things that interest her. She seems to have the most fun – and does her best photography – when we are just wandering around with our cameras, no tripods, no bags full of gear, just a camera and a lens.
There are obviously times were a tripod is simply necessary to get a photograph. And when I need one I’ve got a couple to pick from. But the biggest problem with a tripod (besides having to carry it) is that it’s another piece of gear to think about. Just like carrying extra lenses, a tripod gives you more choices to make, another bunch of problems to solve. Adjusting, leveling, making sure the feet don’t crush some unsuspecting lichen, etc. takes time and attention away from the task at hand. It’s like carrying a bunch of lenses. The more lenses I carry the better the chance that I’ve got the “wrong one” on the camera. Of course I can solve that by walking around with multiple cameras slung Pancho Vila-style over my shoulders. Yikes! No thanks.
Some people handle all that just fine, but for many of us and certainly for me, having to fuss with the equipment distracts me from the flow of creativity. That’s what I love about the simplicity of using a compact camera or an SLR with one lens. I start out seeing based on what I have with me, I stop worrying about whether I’ve got the right lens on the camera or whether the tripod is the right height or not and I just go out and shoot. If I need to get lower I get down. Sometimes I lay on my back on the ground. I’d never bother with that if I had to adjust a tripod to get that low.
Admittedly there are some concerns with shooting hand-held. Concerned about precise composition? It’s perfectly OK to crop a little if you need to tidy up an edge or straighten a horizon. I can’t get straight horizons on a tripod with a built-in level in my viewfinder! I might get a little softness from camera movement so I have to be careful with shutter speed, although with today’s cameras cranking the ISO up a stop or two (or more) isn’t a big deal. And most of the handheld shooting I do is in daylight so that’s not too big of an issue. And you know what? If you use good technique and don’t try to make huge prints they’re probably sharp enough! I find that the best cure for soft photos is often to just stop looking at them at 100%
The tripod is definitely a great compositional tool. If you ever want to see how unsteady you are at hand-holding, switch your camera to video mode and try to hold a composition. That may convince you to use a tripod! But there are times when leaving it at home allows you to fully engage your creativity, to just go out and shoot. You may be a little limited in what you can do, but I firmly believe that if your shooting style allows you to respond to the things that “call your name,” you can react to them in a way that shows through in your photographs that a razor-sharp, technically-perfect but clinically emotionless photograph just can’t match.