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From: haapanen@watdcsu.UUCP (Tom Haapanen [DCS])
Newsgroups: net.rec.photo
Subject: Re: New technology worth it?
Message-ID: <1073@watdcsu.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 5-Mar-85 08:41:57 EST
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.1073
Posted: Tue Mar  5 08:41:57 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 6-Mar-85 02:48:17 EST
References: <641@asgb.UUCP>
Reply-To: haapanen@watdcsu.UUCP (Tom Haapanen [DCS])
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 59

In article <641@asgb.UUCP> mike@asgb.UUCP (Mike Rosenlof) writes:

>> Is the new technology in cameras (like the new Canon) really worth it?

>I suppose it really depends on what kind of photography you want to
>do.  In my opinion, REAL photography requires lots of patience,
>thought, and attention to detail.  REAL Photographers (with a capital
>'P') must consider all of the variables in exposure, composition,
>lighting, and (preferably) processing and their effect towards the end
>result of an expressive Photograph.
>
>Lately, the trend in 35mm photography has been toward a different
>capital 'P'.  It stands for 'Programmed', 'Point and shoot', and 
>'Push the button, we do the rest'.  Many of these machines are really
>very high quality Instamatics.  They do a wonderful job of recording
>events, but all of their programs and motors and auto-everything do
>little if anything to advance the Art of Photography.
>
>On the other hand, I'll very quickly acknowledge that the
>auto-everything machines are fine tools for the Art of
>Photojournalism. - Please note the distinction between what I refer to
>as two different Arts, in the same medium.

Cameras were originally conceived (in the 1800's) as a recording
devices.  Photography was not considered an art form until much later.
As you define Real Photography, I believe that you're putting much
more of yourself in the picture than you are of the subject matter.  I
pass no judgement on whether that's good or bad, but it does result in
a completely different result from (what could be called) Real
Photojournalism.  In the latter form, the primary concern is the
subject at hand (be it a hockey game, a natural catastrophe or
children playing in a sandbox) and the second concern is composition.
The exposure and lighting you would usually (though not always) want
to be *correct* rather than *expressive*, and programmed (as well as
shutter-preferred and aperture-preferred) cameras go a long way in
helping you achieve this.  About the least useful combination in this
type of photography is a match-needle camera with built-in metering; a
view camera with an external meter just won't do.  Hence the two types
of photography professionals --- the ones carrying F-1's and the ones
that have Hasselblads.

However, I suggest that the two types of photography can both be
called photography.  They could be compared to, say, expressionism and
realism in painting; they're both art, but any given painter will work
with only one of them.  So I submit that a Real Photographer *can*
carry around a Canon A-1 or a Pentax Super Program.  Such a camera
will not force him to *think* about lighting and exposure, and he can
concentrate on the subject and composition, catching dynamic subjects.
It can still be art, can't it?

Not that I mind the label of a Real Photojournalist that much...


				   \tom haapanen
				   watmath!watdcsu!haapanen
Don't cry, don't do anything
No lies, back in the government
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President Gas is up for president		 (c) Psychedelic Furs, 1982