Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site watdcsu.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!watdcsu!haapanen 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 No tears, party time is here again President Gas is up for president (c) Psychedelic Furs, 1982