A comment like this shouldn't make you feel prickly Jim. It's actually a fair comment. The science of photography is important. But it doesn't make an artist. Equally the science of paint is important, but it doesn't make a painter. Not sure where you get horses and water from, it's totally irrelevant.
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I used the Zone System for years for 4x5 and 8x10 work, even some 6x6 work. Once you get it down, it doesn't take long per shot. Meter three or four things, or just look hard at the scene and meter one. With a glance you'll know if it needs N, or N-1, or N+1 development. If it needs something more extreme, it might take a little longer, but the exposure planning for a shot takes less than a minute, usually. It takes far longer to set up the camera and tripod, and to focus. And once you've got the basic exposure for a series, it's easy and quick to modify it if the light changes. If the light deosn't change, you can use that exposure over and over again.
Today's cameras are a lot faster, but we got pretty darned good results before run and gun became fashionable.
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Erm that's possibly the most insulting thing I've read !!
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Yes I agree, but we're still talking about "reasonably" controlled lighting, or at least a minute or two to adjust. That bears no reality to a working photographer like me who might emerge from a dark indoor room to a garden in bright sunshine in 5 seconds. We set our cameras up to get out of the way, not for us to get in the way of getting the shot. For my work, knowing the theory and then knowing how to ignore it is a virtue :)
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Many artists have made better art by paying attention to the tech. I've listened to painters go on and on about brushes and paint. You are saying you can't learn anything from this. Fine. But that doesn't mean that others can't.
The expression is, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." We can lead you to information that you could use to improve your photography, but we can't make you learn it, or tell you how to apply it to your work.
At the beginning of this thread, we had a photographer who claimed to be nailing the exposure present information from RD that indicated that he wasn't. He should be able to learn something from that. I hope he has.
If this kind of discussion is something that you can't learn anything from, I suggest you stop reading it right now. But part of me thinks that would be a shame.
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I would submit to you that there are many working photographers who have different assignments, goals, and ways of working. You're painting with a broad brush here.
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My website is on my profile, nothing to hide and nothing to show off either. I wouldn't mention it, but you've pulled me up on it, so I have to reply. I cant seem to find your website though?
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I will always ascribe to "know your tools". Control over one's medium is critical to making the rendition you intend, be it for art or doc...
Adams has a good "run and gun" story in the making of Moonrise over Hernandez. Saw the fading light, screeched to a halt, set up the gear and got one one exposure before the light was gone. I'm pretty sure that exposure was winged with the extensive heuristics he gathered in years of studying his medium.
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And it was the wrong exposure. Later, AA and one of his assistants -- I forget which one -- intensified the foreground of the neg. By then they knew the value of the neg, so that must have been one scary moment.
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And these days, unless the raw is wildly off, a few slider adjustments and local adjustments do the same thing.... which is why these endless debates get a bit tedious, or at least over amplified in their relevance to real world photography ;-)
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You misunderstood. Sure your Website is in your profile. But you recommended that others use images to illustrate their advice. I'm suggesting you do the same. Looking at your site doesn't give anyone any insight into your philosophy of working.
I haven't listed a Website. I may, in time. But I have and will continue to post images here. I usually give a lot of information about the making of each.
Rich
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Why? Per se means intrinsically, i.e., there are event photographers who are artists, but being an event photographer does not qualify you automatically as an artist. Do you disagree?
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I don't know, tekhnē means "art, skill, craft in work; method, system, an art, a system or method of making or doing" :)
Seriously, though, I think event photographers are artists, if they are good at it. I was shooting a lot of simpler things, like groups of tourists in front of the bronze duc in Odessa and it took some art to make it look good and memorable. -
Ahh ok I understand you now :) Ok, if I ever start a technical thread here it will ONLY be if I have my own photographs to back up what I am trying to say. Because a thread without such photographs to illustrate it is a load of waffle IMO.
As for my own website, as a photographer I post photographs. Nobody give a flying fcuk about the tech aspects of them when they visit my website, (outside of forums like this)........ ;-)
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That is what I was trying to say (per se). Not all artists are event photographers and not all event photographers are artists. Artist and event photographer are not interchangeable terms, though there can be overlap. @BurnImage was using the terms as being identical.
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I recall visiting a gallery in Santa Fe years ago that had several copies of "Moonrise"; the interesting thing was how different they were.
But the print I would really like to own was a large "Clearing Winter Storm". Simply stunning; too bad it was fabulously expensive!
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The Andrew Smith Gallery?
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Hey, you literally said “Event photographers are not artists, per se.” Word for word!!!!! Don’t try and drag me into fault without any reason whatsoever for your words!!!!!!! Sort yourself out ffs!!!!!