Category Archives: Ideas

Ethics, Ideas

Talent, Tools, or Time?

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This is another in a series of posts lifted from something I posted in a photography forum elsewhere. For some reason there has recently been a larger than usual number of discussions about the relative importance of “gear” versus other things when it comes to making good photography. I certainly do not think that equipment is unimportant, but I think that people often focus more on this aspect of photography than necessary, often at the expense of some other things that really have far more potential.

In any case, here is a lightly edited version of what I posted. (Do keep in mind that forum posts do not necessarily represent fully edited and carefully considered work – they are more like a sort of written conversation.) I’ll start with an italicized excerpt of the message to which I was responding. My comment follows that.

All the talent and the world and all the equipment in the world isn’t going to overcome a lack of time to practice… 

Absolutely true. This has always been clear to me from my background in music where a thing called practice was the most important tool for becoming very good and maintaining that state. And it was also very, very clear that no amount of “hardware” (e.g. – “better instrument”) was going to replace that or even make more than the tiniest, insignificant difference without that fundamental thing that results from practice. Continue reading Talent, Tools, or Time? →

Commentary, Equipment, Ideas, Technique

Thoughts About ‘Backup Cameras’

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Recently I read a post in a photography forum in which a poster asked for advice concerning selection of a back-up camera body. If you do a lot of photography, eventually you will have gear fail on you. The last time this happened to me, my EOS 5D developed a shutter problem with no prior warning. In the middle of a night photography shoot the camera simply stopped working. I had no backup camera at that point, so my shoot was over – after driving nearly two hours to the location and making two exposures I packed up and drove two hours back home. If you shoot in remote locations, as I often do, or if you find yourself in other situations in which being unable to shoot isn’t an option, you need a backup camera strategy. (You might also want to consider how you would deal with a lens failure, too, though there are more ways to work around that possibility if you usually carry more than one lens.)

Rather than re-writing the whole thing, what follows is the text of my reply to that forum poster – with just a few contextual edits here and there. Note that I refer to Canon products, since that is what I use, but that equivalents from other manufacturers could replace those I mention.
(The original poster’s message/question is not included here, but he was essentially musing about whether to use an existing camera as a “backup” body, buy a second copy of one of his current cameras, or use some other strategy.)

I wrote, more or less…

This gets at what I regard as the primary question here: “What is the role of the back-up camera in the [your] shooting?”

The term “backup camera” can mean different things to different people. Continue reading Thoughts About ‘Backup Cameras’ →

Commentary, Ideas

The Significance of Very Small Things

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I thought that I would use today’s photograph (posted lower on the home page if that is where you are reading this) to again illustrate an observation or two about certain types of photographs. The photograph is a of a landscape scene in California’s Central Valley, photographed during in the evening during the winter migratory bird season. Its primary feature is a group of trees silhouetted against an evening sky, with the sky and the silhouette reflected in the water of a pond. The tree is centered, for several reasons perhaps, but largely to create a sense of stillness and balance.

But there is a small element in the scene that, I think, makes a huge difference – two small owls perched high in the branches along the right side of the trees. To see what I mean, take a look at the photograph, and then place a finger so that it just covers the owls without hiding much else in the frame. Think about how the absence of the owls transforms the scene… and then uncover the owls and think about how this very tiny bit of black changes the effect of the photograph. (I could also say something about how the fact that there are two tiny owls is also significant. And on Valentine’s Day, no less… ;-)

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not arguing that landscape images should necessarily include people or other creatures in this way. Sometimes that is appropriate and at other times it would not be, and most of my photographs do not include them. However, I continue to be amazed by how significantly a very small figure of an animal or a human can completely alter the way we respond to the scene.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Commentary, Ethics, Ideas

Locations: How Much Info is Too Much Info?

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A forum discussion in which I recently participated (it involved an ethical question related to providing GPS coordinates for a photography destination) has me thinking today about how much information to reveal about photography subjects and locations and the factors that we might want to consider as we share such things. With that in mind, here is a link to something I posted on this topic after a conversation with a photographer friend who is a retired Yosemite ranger.