On Photography Part II: The Tools of the Trade

Photography tools are not limited to the cameras, lenses, tripods, filters, flashes, lighting accessories, computers, and software, but let’s start there.

First of all you don’t really NEED most of that shit.

What you NEED to be a photographer is a camera. Any camera. A plastic Brownie camera will do just fine, as will a $9,000 digital SLR.

What the higher end stuff does is allow you flexibility. Flexibility to make an image look the way you want it to look. With a variety of lenses and tools, and computer programs you can take the image you saw in your head and make it appear in the final product. Sometimes that takes just a snap of the shutter, sometimes it can take hours of work after the fact. It is understanding how you want the image to look that takes time. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

All those cameras and lenses and things are the hardware, but isn’t the end of the photographer’s tool box. The technical know-how is just as important. A couple of examples:

1. A wide-angle lens will not only show you a broader scene, but will also make the elements in the frame appear further apart. Background elements appear smaller and further away. Distances expand. Telephotos have the opposite effect, everything is compressed.
2. The smaller your aperture, the shallower your depth of field. If you have two identically framed images shot with the same lens, but one at f2.8 and one at f11, the image at f11 will have a much more in focus from foreground to background, while the f2.8 shot will show a narrow focus, drawing the viewer’s attention to a certain portion of the frame. Both strategies have their uses, one is not better than the other.

There are hundreds of examples I could use along these lines and each is a tool. The more tools you possess (particularly the mental ones) the more likely you will be able to create the photos you envision.

After shooting seriously for 15 years, I feel like I’ve got a pretty decent grasp on most technical aspects. But there is always more to learn. Right now, for example, I am spending a lot of time experimenting with artificial light. I’m learning about off-camera flash, how distance from light to subject changes the quality of the light, I’m practicing with multiple flashes, balancing light power, and how to integrate sunlight and natural light with my strobes. There is a ton to learn.

Never, never, stop learning the tools.

Next in the series we move onto subject matter: Recognizing Interesting Things.

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