My friend boarded the helicopter, ready for a tour of the largest of the Hawaiian islands.  It really sounded fantastic - flying over the jungle, around volcanoes, canyons and waterfalls.  He enjoyed it, all right, but with one complaint.  There were three other tourists in the helicopter, and two of them took a lot of pictures.  According to my friend, “how could they enjoy the ride with a camera in their face?”

About a year later, my friend took another little vacation.  He took a cruise ship through the Panama Canal and again it sounded fantastic.  But this time things were different.  My friend had bought himself a small, point-and-shoot camera.  And guess what?  He took a boatload of photos!  I was not surprised to hear him say that this trip was more enjoyable because of his camera.

After that trip through the Canal, we met and he showed me all his photos, reliving the adventure one day at a time.  And boy, did he have a lot of photos!  My friend had discovered the documentary power of photography - to record conditions and events in great detail.

But mixed in with these documents of his trip were some photos that were quite good artistically, and I commented on them.  The photos I chose for comment surprised him, as did the reasons why I liked them.  Having been through this before with people who had never really thought about photography as a creative outlet, I expected him to be surprised.

But his biggest surprise of all came at the end, when I told him which photo was my favorite. I picked a photo my friend had almost deleted because he thought it was trash!

He had been standing on deck when a seagull flew near the ship, but below deck level.  The photo was taken looking almost straight down at the bird, which had its wings outstretched.  The background was ocean, all ocean as the camera was pointing down.  The photo was blurry.  The seagull was close enough to the camera that it was clearly the subject of the photo.  It was off-center, and by accident in a very pleasant position in the photo.

As a document of what the bird looked like at that time, the photo was not well executed.  The blur hid a lot of details, and my friend had almost deleted what he assumed was a very poor-quality photo.

But as an artistic expression of the events, to me, it was priceless.  This photo was beautiful and simple: white seagull against dark blue ocean.  The camera angle - looking down at a flying bird - was unusual. The blur added to the photo’s impact.

My friend had never really thought about photographs as art, or anything other than documents.  But at that moment, while he relived the experience of taking the photos, his eyes were opened to the combined documentary and artistic power of photography, and to the creative process of making a photo.

Most photographers, no matter how advanced they become, at some time in their lives were just like my friend, just like everyone else when it comes to cameras.  They were just regular folk who happened to have a small, point-and-shoot camera, and took a picture now and then, mostly on vacation trips.  They couldn’t tell you the relationship between f-stop, shutter and ISO speeds, let alone what an Exposure Value is.  And they didn’t care.

Then something happened.

Someone whom they trusted told them that some of their photos were good, and why they were good.  They got the idea that they really liked the creative process of making photographs, and they really liked making good, artistic photographs.  And they decided that they wanted more.

Then trouble began.

They decided to upgrade to a “real” camera, a camera with more power, more control, more adjustments.  Usually people upgrade to a 35 mm format SLR camera with interchangeable lenses.

What happened next is the downfall of many would-be good photographers.  With that big, new, powerful camera - with all those settings and options - their photos got worse, not better.  In fact, they got a lot worse!

What the heck?  Shouldn’t their photos get better?  Yes, they should, and they will.  But first there is a learning curve.

The new camera introduces considerable power over the creation of a photograph, power far beyond that of a point-and-shoot camera.  There is the ability to change perspective by using vastly different focal lengths, control depth of focus, override and fine tune the exposure, control blur, use much more powerful on-camera flash, use off-camera flash, and more.

The new camera has the potential to be a tool that can be used much more creatively.  But what happens at first is that all these previously unknown technical aspects of photography interfere with the creative process.  People get distracted by f-stops and shutter speeds.  They want to point and shoot, but first they need to make some technical choices, like focal length, metering mode, focus point, and much more.  Instead of using their emotions to create a photograph, their brain suppresses emotion while it thinks about technical issues.

So all that new-found power, unfortunately, comes with a price.  The price is that people have to learn how to use that power.  They have to practice until the technical aspects of photography become second nature.

The price for all that power is study and practice.

Photography is not unlike many other art forms in this respect.  Attempting to get past the beginner stage can be overwhelming.  Many would-be good photographers give up, and return to their point-and-shoot camera.  Or they take that big, new camera, set it on “full automatic” mode and use it like a point-and-shoot.

Those who persevere will find that only after a period of struggle and study will their photographs begin to approach the quality they achieved with their little point-and-shoot camera.  And with more work there is the potential to greatly surpass it.

One of the great powers of photography is its ability to document, in incredible detail, conditions and events.  It is also an art form easily accessible to almost everyone.  Whatever your relationship with photography, there is an obstacle of great magnitude that must be navigated before you can move past the beginner’s bracket.  But once you move past it, you may find new outlets for your creative energy.

- RAP

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 at 3:26 pm and is filed under General Photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.