In Ain't About the Camera

How many times have you heard someone say, "If only I had a good camera then I could take pictures like Anne Geddes" (or words to that effect)? Then those same people run out and buy an expensive digital SLR and—guess what?—the pictures still don’t look so hot.

Bad camera? Nah. Here's the deal, it ain't about the camera; never has been, never will be.

Don’t get me wrong, cameras are important, particularly in the digital age, where the quality of the digital sensor does make a difference in the final image, but there are very successful professional photographers out there who still use … get this … pinhole cameras. You know: an oatmeal box with a tiny hole in it and a piece of film taped to the inside. No electronics. No lens. No “camera” at all in the way that term is normally understood. Don’t believe me? Check this out: http://www.pinholeimpressions.com/index.html.

So, if it’s not the camera, then what does matter?

First, composition. Most cameras produce a rectangular image: a snapshot. A little piece of the world around you, and—here’s the fun and interesting part—you get to choose what to put inside of those four corners and, more importantly, what to leave out. As Anne Geddes, perhaps the most famous child photographer ever, has observed, “The hardest thing in photography is to create a simple image." So, we have Rule #1: keep it clean, keep it simple, keep it uncluttered. Don’t include things that detract from your subject or what you want to say.

“What’s that?” I hear you say, “Pictures don’t speak.” Oh yes they do, or at least the good ones do.

Second, the quantity and quality of light. The word photography means “writing with light,” and, once you’ve selected a subject, most good photography starts and ends with an understanding of light and the effect light has on your subject. Modern cameras do, generally, take care of the quantity of light, but, no matter how smart the camera, no matter how expensive the circuitry, cameras do not, as a rule, appreciate the “quality” side of things. That’s where a photographer’s own instincts and experience come in.

Good photographers appreciate keenly the quality of light, and their heart starts to do a little pitter patter when they find the perfect light for their subject. In an outdoor setting, such opportunities for great lighting often come on overcast days—where the clouds diffuse the harsh rays of the sun—where light is reflected, like on the shady side of a building, or early in the morning or late in the evening, where the earth’s atmosphere acts, again, like a giant diffuser, and the angled light of the sun often takes on a soft, warm glow.

A photographer faces a similar challenge with indoor lighting. Most indoor lights create a different sort of light from the sun, and, as a result, show up differently on film or as a digital image, often with a distinctly yellow or greenish tint. And an automatic, on-camera flash creates its own set of problems: red-eye, that “deer in the headlights” look, harsh highlights, deep shadows. No surprise then that serious studio photographers use soft boxes (off-camera light sources with some kind of material over the light that softens or diffuses it) or reflected flash.

So, now we have Rule #2: look for soft, even light. Avoid the harsh, squint producing light of the mid-day sun and, for heaven’s sake, turn off those horrible on-camera flashes that turn those beautiful little faces into flat, white, featureless masks. Yuck!

And that’s basically it. Really. Master those two principles and you will take better pictures than many a photog lugging around a big, fancy looking camera.

More later.