2 Views of Photography

People who know me understand that one of my passions is photography. I have more than 12,000 shots on my Flickr site. Last night we went out to dinner with some long time friends. He is a budding professional photographer. And he has a series of contests with his son and now his wife to go to a place and then shoot photos pick their X number of favorites and then have people judge them. It sounds like a great game.

I take pictures for two reasons that are ultimately often contradictory. The first is to record an event. When I travel I want to remember where I have been or what I have done. The second is to see something I might not have seen with my naked eye. Sometimes, in very rare settings I can do both in one shot but not often.

The attached were taken by my friend or his wife. The top photo is what was sent to me on his Picasa Site. There are several that a really interesting depending on the picture was taken.

Admittedly, the distinction between recording and recognition is not an original one. But it is important.
A good number of the photographs on my site are of flowers. Something I have tried to do since I first got a digital camera, before my first SLR, was to try to isolate individual images of flowers. There are pictures from Mexico, my own backyard, Palau, Japan and Ireland (and lots of other places).
There are two other principles of digital photography. First, as opposed to film (I did a lot of film in the 1970s) the Kevin Kelly theory of 10 New Rules for the New Economy – digital photography requires a photographer to “embrace the free.” With film you set up a shot for hours. In digital you take hours to and lots of photos. My friends chose the 20 best from their more than 700 that they took on their trip.
The second principle was true in the film era too. But it is more true now. The photo is only half the game. Composition is critical to good photos but great composition does not make great photos. One of the great things about digital photography is post production. The most popular way to do that is with Adobe’s Photoshop. The software allows you to alter reality in wonderful ways. Apple has a better product, called Aperture, which is simpler to use.and has some features which Photoshop misses.

The final point here is that technology both pre-and-post photograph has offered anyone a lot more variety.