Learning Photography
From PhotoblogsWiki
Contents |
How Have Others Started?
Everyone has a leaning to either the left or right side of the brain. To be a good photographer requires that you be able to use both your technical and artistic nature at the same time. The technical and the artistic are the yin/yang of photography. When you begin to approach photography this is akin to learning to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time. Think back to learning this trick of dexterity when you were a kid. How did you learn to pat your head and rub your stomach simultaneously? You began doing one of the activities until you didn't have to think about it, then you introduced the second activity and you found yourself doing the impossible. Also, do you remember how, when you inevitably start to think about what you were doing, everything would go to pot? Photography is a lot like this.
There are two approaches to learning photography and they, in part, dictate the kind of camera you should begin with;
The Traditional Technical Approach:
This is the approach often encountered in formal photography classes. The technical approach comes from the point of view that you must learn all the basic photographic lessons before you can even think about taking a picture. These classes nearly always dictate that you begin with an all manual, mechanical, 35mm SLR with the Pentax K1000 with a standard 50mm lens being the archetypal 'beginners' camera.
The Artistic Approach:
They . . . asked me: "How do you make your pictures?"
I was puzzled . . . "I said, 'I don't know, it's not important. -Henri Cartier-Bresson
This more liberal approach to photography suggests that you should develop your eye and indulge your artistic enthusiasm first and then learn the technical aspects that you need as you go. This approach suggests that you begin with whatever camera you have to hand right now; automatic exposure and focus are encouraged. Digital or film, SLR or point and shoot, it doesn't matter as long as you use the camera in an artistic way to portray the world how you see it.
Neither approach is right or wrong; you will need to know both the artistic and the technical before you become proficient and it is up to you which one you start with. The advantage of the traditional approach is the disciplined way it deals with each subject means that at the end of each subject you should have the technical skills for a given situation. The disadvantage is there is quite a bit of dry, technical information to get through before you can start taking photographs. This can knock the enthusiasm for the subject out of you, especially those without a technical bent. Technical teachers will often tell you exactly which camera you need to learn on - you can often pick up second hand K1000's "used for only one semester" as a lot of technical teachers seem to believe that the student has to struggle and suffer with the technical aspects before they can do anything 'fun'. Most photographers 'move up' from the K1000 to another brand and model once they feel that they have learnt the basics.
The advantage of the artistic approach is that you are encouraged to explore and experiment which often maintains your enthusiasm for the subject. The disadvantage is that you may find yourself in situations that you technically don't know how to solve. You may also produce results you really like without knowing why they worked or being able to reproduce them. If you start in the artistic camp you can use any camera you already own or can borrow. Once you have learnt what your enthusiasms and working style is you can then buy a camera system that compliments your style.
Which ever stance you begin from you have to remember that to round out your skills you will have to learn the from the other point of view at some time. If you remain entrenched in the either the technical or artistic camps you are cheating yourself as a photographer. The technical should become second nature so that you can apply yourself to the artistic. The artistic should become instinctive so that you can check on the technical elements. If you remain purely technical you are doomed to hang out on web forums arguing about the benefits of one model or brand over another, or conducting resolution tests on all the glass you own rather than really using it. If you remain purely artistic without learning something of the technical perspective of the subject you are going to constantly find yourself in situations you don't know how to address. In both cases your results will be disappointing.
Just as there is more than one way to learn photography, there are many cameras of various formats that you can begin with. This may sound like a cop-out but it is probably worth postponing any major equipment purchase until you know what your working style is going to be; you want your style to dictate the camera system not the other way around. Until you know your own style, work with whatever camera you already have, or can borrow, or can buy cheaply.
Links
- There is a discussion in the blog in which photobloggers write about the cameras they learnt on.
