Photography Isn't As Easy as It Looks

[Ron Texas]

Today's cameras are technological wonders. With quick feedback inherent in digital photography anyone can master can be getting correctly exposed, sharp pictures in very little time. It also makes photography more competitive. What's not so easy is subject matter choice, lighting and composition.

One of the things photography instructors warn about is triteness. I've had two university level instructors tell me the tritest photo anyone can take is a close up of a flower. None the less, I see gazillions of them posted in Flickr groups and getting lots of attention in the form of "faves" and comments. I guess it's all the floral photographers patting each other on the back because they aren't getting any help from me.

Let me throw out the definition of snapshot. If you don't like it, treat it as a working definition for this discussion. A snapshot is a photograph of no interest to anyone but the photographer or any persons pictured in it. Looks like all those trite floral closeups aren't covered here. What a mystery.

Do you want your photos to be memorable? MIT did a study and concluded the least memorable photos are landscapes. I don't know why because landscapes shot by Ansel Adams are some of the most memorable photographs around. Should I stop shooting the beautiful alpine scenes in Colorado or the red rocks of the southwest? It's depressing. The most memorable photographs were of people, interiors and familiar objects. There are a lot of stock photographers earning money taking pictures of familiar objects like jellybeans.

Photographs of people are in a special class. The very idea makes some people uncomfortable. I believe a lot of it has to do with varying standards regarding privacy and sexuality. I don't want to go any further in this direction other than to point out that some have a problem with it. There are both religious and political underpinnings. If you are taking a lot of photos of people as I do, you have to both be careful an have a thick skin.

Well, it's a bit of a ramble, but that's what I have on a Monday.

 

[eddantes]

If you want memorable -> "F8 and be there"... The rest you'll figure out in editing and post. With digital - the only reason not to come back with 100s or even 1000s of pics from a shoot, is the time needed to sort and find the needle in the haystack. If you are a pro and are interested in profit - yeah - not your strategy. But as a hobbyists - just shoot.

 

[pma]

Hi. Greetings from Prague to New World.

 

[GradyBeach247]

The best photos tell a story, pull on your emotions, and cause you to think. One photographer that I follow in the Big Bend area of Texas is James Houston Evans https://www.jameshevans.com

 

[paulraphael]

Photography is just a medium. Like painting. If you have paint and a surface, you can change the color of house, put racing stripes on a Trans Am, make a portrait of some self-important CEO in a suit, illustrate the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, or construct a semi-abstract, 3-dimensional Anselm Kiefer-like canvas. It's a question of what you're trying to do with the medium. I don't think any of that prescriptive advice can mean anything if it's not addressing your intentions.

I spent a couple of decades photographing urban landscapes, because that was an art project that meant something important to me. Why would I care about MIT research on what's memorable? If only 1% of people are interested in landscapes ... well, that just narrows down my audience.

Also ... what's the point of denigrating a snapshot? Art historians think of snapshots as images that are significant to people who have a particular shared context—like knowing the person depicted, or having been at the event depicted. This is a perfectly honorable use of the medium.

And, you might accidentally make something that's interesting to people outside that small group. Photographs have never been bound by anyone's intentions or expectations. John Szarkowski, photo curator at MoMA from the 60s to the 90s, acquired thousands of snapshots for the museum's collection. In most cases the photographer would have been amazed by this. But it makes sense when you see the images in their new context.

 

[Wes]

 

[artburda]

I also had to make the discovery that photography is much more difficult than it looks like. Learning to operate the camera? Check. Learning to edit a photo? Check. Learning how lighting with speedlights, strobes, light modifiers works? Check. And that‘s when I realized I had no clue what photography is really about. Then I started to analyze photographs, read about visual composition, how to overlay different elements and where to place them. Every millimeter counts. How the eye has to be led through the frame. Since I have no artistic background this stuff is extremely difficult.

 

[Ron Texas]

Also ... what's the point of denigrating a snapshot? Art historians think of snapshots as images that are significant to people who have a particular shared context—like knowing the person depicted, or having been at the event depicted. This is a perfectly honorable use of the medium.

I'm not denigrating snapshots. However, your argument seems odd to me because the images you refer to were interesting to people outside of the definition of a snapshot. As I mentioned, if people are finding the image interesting when it is uploaded to a site like Flickr it falls outside the definition. It it's truly a snapshot, it's forgotten. There had to be something special about the curated images even if those of similar subjects are destined for the dustbin.

Lots of my photos have been called snapshots, but they keep getting faves, comments and views.

@pma that image makes me think of the work of HCB with the lone man encased in an urban landscape.

 

[eddantes]

Here's a blog with (arguably) 20 most famous photos... Of these, how many of these look like anyone cared about the lighting, composition, or exposure? How many simply exist because someone had the werewithal to be a witness and to allow us to witness? I'm not saying that Karsh with portaits, or Adams with nature, are not great artists, who are masters of a complex skill; I'm just saying that art can "just happen", so be sure you are the condit of that lucky opportunity and press the shutter. Too many people worry about all the things they "don't know" and don't take the chance. Photography is a medium that allows anyone to be a hero *** if stars align ***... but only if you shoot.

 

[Ron Texas]

Here's a blog with (arguably) 20 most famous photos... Of these, how many of these look like anyone cared about the lighting, composition, or exposure?

There is a saying, f/5.6 and be there. These photographs are great not just because of the subject matter but they were taken by great photographers who were able to get the exposure, composition and lighting right. You may wish to believe these images just happened, that's your choice. The only thing that just happens is a winning lottery ticket or a mistake.

 

[artburda]

Here's a blog with (arguably) 20 most famous photos... Of these, how many of these look like anyone cared about the lighting, composition, or exposure? How many simply exist because someone had the werewithal to be a witness and to allow us to witness? I'm not saying that Karsh with portaits, or Adams with nature, are not great artists, who are masters of a complex skill; I'm just saying that art can "just happen", so be sure you are the condit of that lucky opportunity and press the shutter. Too many people worry about all the things they "don't know" and don't take the chance. Photography is a medium that allows anyone to be a hero *** if stars align ***... but only if you shoot.

Almost all of those follow common techniques of ‚visual grammar‘ otherwise they wouldn‘t work on a graphic level and no one would look at them for longer than a few seconds. Obviously, you have to get lucky sometimes so that everything comes together. But often times even the great ones had to work the scene and take multiple shots with slight variations. There‘s a great series called ‚Contacts‘ Vol. 1-3 like this one

Or

 

[artburda]

Or this one, Koudelka, one of my favorite photographers

 

[amirm]

Definitely food for thought. Let's test the theory a bit. Which one of these photos of mine are more memorable?

1.

2.

 

[LTig]

#1 - but I like them both.

Edit: the longer I look the more I tend to #2. I see too many flaws in #1, the biggest one being the sharpness on the hat instead of the face.

 

[LTig]

Mastering the technical side of photography does not help if you have no clue what you want to show to the viewer in the first place.

My wife and me took part at a week long workshop held by famous mountain photographer Jürgen Winkler in 2010. It was a very revealing experience. We learned to "see" and how to use photographic techniques to emphasize the motive over other parts of the photograph (the problem is that the photographer sees his motive in 3D while the viewer sees 2D only). We both became much more critical to our own photographs.

One nice example that technique loses against being able to "see" was another couple. The husband carried a large bag with very expensive photo equipment while his wife used a cheap point&shoot digicam, yet her pictures were visually more appealing than his.

 

[artburda]

Definitely food for thought. Let's test the theory a bit. Which one of these photos of mine are more memorable?

1.

2.

I guess neither one is really memorable, we‘ve all seen similar pictures many times before. Maybe we need to add that a picture has to tell a story to be more memorable plus all of the above mentioned. Or maybe when they lack a story they need something very special visually, a concept, something very intentional that shows that the photographer put a lot of thought into making the photograph.

Edit: more than just being a nice picture

 

[eddantes]

That's a great landscape, @amirm ! Great mood.

 

[Arstein]

 

[JeffS7444]

I won't claim to understand some of his works, and maybe there's nothing to understand:

Daido Moriyama: Near Equal

 

[amirm]

I guess neither one is really memorable, we‘ve all seen similar pictures many times before.

You have? The first one? You must get out more than most people. Those are young girls that dress that way in counter culture clothes near Meji shrine in Tokyo. Despite the softness of the image, I can study the look in her eyes forever. While some of the girls like to have their pictures taken, some have the look of resentment you see in her eyes as I shot that image very quickly.

This her when she is good mood, posing for someone else: