Tag Archives: aesthetic

Commentary, Morning Musings

Misplaced Focus (Morning Musings 12/3/14)

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Family Portrait
Family Portrait

From time to time I adapt things that I wrote elsewhere and re-share them on the blog. The following is something I contributed to a discussion about a question from a newish photographer who wondered how important it would be to upgrade his camera. 

I’m all for better image quality — which contemporary cameras, software, and printing processes provide in spades. And there is no question that, all else being equal, a photograph captured on a larger film or sensor format can potentially resolve more detail, and may improve other image parameters including dynamic range and noise.

As they say, “So stipulated.”

But the question (which was about choosing a sensor format) deserves a more nuanced and contextual answer than that. Fortunately, the most accurate and useful answer involves quite a bit of that nuance. I think it really comes down to something like, “Will replacing my cropped sensor camera with a full frame camera make my photographs look better?”. The best answer begins with, “It depends.”

As to the question (which also came up in the original discussion) of what is important in a photograph, image sharpness is not unimportant in many cases. (Though there certainly are photographs whose “goodness” is perhaps at least partially because they are blurred — softness and blur are not always things to be avoided.)

I think the issue in photography discussions is frequently about the balance among issues that affect the quality and effectiveness of a photograph. Here, it is not uncommon for some folks to exhibit a misplaced focus on the technical stuff, accompanied by insufficient attention to other things that are more important to their success as photographers. Continue reading Misplaced Focus (Morning Musings 12/3/14) →

Commentary, Ideas, Photography and Music

Music and Photography: Technique and Interpretation

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(I accidentally published this draft post earlier today while doing some site maintenance. Shortly afterwards a friend contacted me to say that he had composed a response… only to find that the article had disappeared when he finished writing. My apology! Even though the article is not perhaps final – for example, the title is not quite right for the content – I have resurrected it. I intend this to be part of a longer series of posts.)

There have been and are quite a few photographers who also have backgrounds in music, and in quite a few cases these individuals could have had – or actually did! – have careers in both fields. The story of Ansel Adams supposedly making a choice between being a photographer or a pianist is well-known, and there are plenty of other examples. I don’t presume to put myself in the same category as Adams, but I’m also one of these people.

When I talk with other photographers who either share this dual background or who are aware of the number of other photographers who do, the conversation sometimes turns to the question of why this is the case. What points of contact are there between the practice of music and the practice of photography? The differences seem to me to be quite obvious. Clearly one medium deals primarily with sound and the other with visual images. In addition – and I think this is even more significant – music uses the element of time in a way that photography rarely can.  Photographers almost never tell you in what order you must view photographs – though they may suggest – nor do they insist that you move on to the next image after some specified interval of time. While the photographer may intend for you to follow a particular path through some images, there is no way to ensure that you do… and you probably don’t! But the musical composer relies completely on controlling the flow of events in time. It is emphatically not OK to switch sections of a piece and so forth.

So, what is similar?

I think that there are several points of contact between music and photography. I have no illusion that I can say everything there is to say about this in one post, so let me start with a single very basic idea having to do with the relationship between technique and interpretation or expression. Continue reading Music and Photography: Technique and Interpretation →

Ideas, Reviews, Technique

Review: “Light & Land” by Michael Frye

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Over the past few weeks I have had the chance to go through Michael Frye’s new ebook, “Light and Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom.” Many are no doubt already aware of Michael’s reputation from his photography, his workshops, and his other publications including his “Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite” and “Digital Landscape Photography: In The Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Masters.” I have the .pdf version of “Light and Land”, and I understand that an iPad app version may also be available.

Light and Land - Michael Frye
Light and Land - Michael Frye

It is typical for photographic “how to” books to focus on specific techniques, and to be organized around a presentation of these techniques – perhaps with a section on curves, a section on black and white conversion, and so forth. This approach has its place, especially for certain types of learners and at certain points in the learning process. It is important to understand the basic techniques and operations that are available in the “digital darkroom” of such programs as Photoshop, Lightroom and so forth. That said, the bigger and more important issue is how to call upon these techniques creatively and effectively and appropriately in order to make photographs. Not all “how to” books do an effective job of illustrating this.

Michael’s “Light & Land” takes a different approach, and one that more accurately and realistically reflects the thought process of a photographer who is calling upon this arsenal of techniques in the service of creating beautiful photographs.  He writes:

“The digital darkroom gives us tremendous control over our images. We can make them lighter, darker, add contrast, change the color balance, increase saturation, turn a color photograph into black and white, remove telephone poles, blend exposures with HDR, combine ten images to capture infinite depth of field, or put a winged elephant in the sky.

But what do we do with these choices?” Continue reading Review: “Light & Land” by Michael Frye →