When the Book weighs more than the Camera has digital photography gotten away from the basics?

Okay, I’m all for progress and technology. I’ve had a computer since the late 70’s and I’ve always been on the “bleeding edge” when it came to new and cool things. But lately I’ve been thinking about the cameras we use for our photography and the size of the manuals that come with them. Yes, I love digital photography for a number of reasons, but at the same time I really have begun to wonder where it will all end.

Years ago you had to have some concept of the controls on the camera to take a photo and have it come out exposed correctly. And if you wanted to get creative you had to know a little more such as the relationship between the aperture and the shutter speed to create what you were thinking of creating – DOF/Stop Motion. If your camera didn’t have a meter in it you needed to have one with you or know things like the “sunny 16” rule. It took a little understanding to do things right. Today’s cameras come with manuals that can take days to digest so that you can set the camera up to shoot like you want it to – in my case, like some of the older cameras did. And even if you don’t want to read the manuals there are modes on the camera that can help you bypass the reading all together. I know some people who have never taken the mode dial off of AUTO – not even to try out Program mode. 🙂

Today there are cameras that can tell if someone wasn’t smiling or ones that know if the person blinked, and even ones that compose the scene for you. They figure out everything and make you an instant success at photography – or do they? In my humble opinion when you take the “photographer” and personal creative thoughts out of the equation you don’t end up with a photo, just a snapshot. Yes, technically it may be perfectly exposed, everyone is smiling, no one has blinked, and the scene is perfectly balanced according to the rule of thirds or whatever the camera has built into it’s processor, but have you really created it or have the engineers at the camera manufacturer done that? There are times when you just want to capture the moment, but I really feel that most people think that’s all there is to photography.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the digital cameras we have here at Casual Elegance Photography ® and we don’t often use the film cameras we have, but I’m just starting to feel like there is something missing as cameras get more and more automated. It’s sort of like going from assembler code to C++ or something. Yes, it takes the mundane work out of it, but it also takes the cool tricks away from you. I’m all over technology but I like to get back to basics to create things. I even use filters on the digital cameras. Lots of people I know have said why not just add the filter in Photoshop? I guess I like attempting to create the image right out of the camera.

Where did I come up with the thoughts for this blog? Well, we just got a Nikon D700. The book and the
“pocket guide” together are about 1.5″ thick – yes, it comes with a pocket guide that you can carry with you so that the heavy manual can stay back at the shop. That’s a lot of information compared to the book I have for my Nikkormat Ftn that I bought back in 1971. It’s been a couple of weeks since we got the D700 but I haven’t gotten the camera fine tuned yet. I admit I haven’t had a lot of time to play with it, but my goal this week is to get it set up the way I like to shoot with it. There are certain things I like to have set in the camera for my style of shooting and my D200 has them exactly like I want them. So the D700 will be my challenge to do this week – make it a basic camera that takes exceptional images.

So what are your thoughts on the progress of cameras today? Do you think the future of photography will be automated to the point that the camera becomes the photographer and the photographer of today is the tripod of the future? It’s an interesting dilemma that we face, and in my opinion, a change we are going see whether or not we are ready for it.

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Nude and Boudoir Photography – Casual Elegance Photography

If you have read our blog so far you will know that I started out taking portraits of families, children and models.  But the business evolved over time into a nude and boudoir venue of photography because that’s what our clients wanted.

Just today, while shooting a male art model, we talked about the whole business of nude and boudoir photography.  He was telling me that new art students are almost embarrassed to look at the naked human form.  We talked about how the words nude, erotic,  and boudoir  have certain meaning in people’s minds.  But we also talked about the art that we create when photographing or drawing the human form.    As an art model he could relate to the sculptures, drawings and paintings of the great masters.  Our print of Rodin’s sculpture “The Kiss” (one of our favorites) caught his eye, and we talked about lighting, shadows and he told me that when he poses for art students he always makes sure that his hands are visible because students have a hard time drawing hands, and it obviously is a neccessary part of the whole.

As a photographer, I enjoyed shooting with him because I love texture!  The veins in his hands, the hair on his arms and the definition of his body just screamed BLACK AND WHITE.  And even though I’m shooting with color digital, I’m envisioning what the image will look like in black and white.  In my opinion color is “eye candy”  but in black and white, it’s all about texture.

It was a great shoot and some images may end up on the website because he was thrilled with the results we were getting, and said he’d be happy for us to use the images on our site.

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