Re: Message VS Medium--It Ain't the Camera

[Donal Philby <donalphilby@earthlink.net>]

Oddmund Garvik wrote:

> I don't think 'learning to "do" business is the hardest photographic skill
> there is', but never mind. I must be born in another world.
> 
> More interesting is the position of W. Eugene Smith who used to tell how he
> every day learned new things about photography.  But I learned more about
> photography working as a carpenter, as a sailor, as a cook on an oil rig, as
> a fisherman in Greenland, as a school teacher, as an Army officer and UN
> observer, as a NGO volunteer in Africa. 
SNIP
> I am a 'concerned photographer', I am not a good businessman. I still learn
> something every day. I think it is important to find your personal way, your
> own version. This takes time, perhaps a lifetime. Life is a complex story
> and it is difficult to know exactly why and how it becomes your life. There
> are no rules.

Oddmund:

No arguments.  I, too, have learned more from life than school.  My
comment about business was based on needing to make a living from my
photography.  If you did that full time, you might, in the end, agree
with me.  Part of doing business is creating the resources to let you do
projects.  Sometimes, though, I wonder if we wouldn't be better off
doing things your way, creating fewer, but maybe more heartfelt images,
less beholden to clients.  I think of novelists who have gone through
careers much as you have to get enough experience to write about.  In
some ways, we have lost the "depth" photography that takes heart and
soul and experience to the trendy, "creative" images we see in magazines
like "Wired," with lots of glitz, but not much substance.

Yesterday I was showing a young art director some photos of boats I
recently shot.  One of the topics was wakeboarding, and many of the
people doing it are into the surfing/snowboarding/skateboarding
mentality.  I shot some beautifully lit beach shots of people, water,
mountains and boards, and for a few, because of the market, I twisted
the camera with wide angle, tilted the horizon, put a model's foot out
one corner.  "Wow, cool, man" said the art director.  If I had missed
both focus and exposure he might have been even more excited.  But I
haven't learned that skill yet.

Is that "P" mode on my camera for "Professional?"  Maybe I should be
using it.

Donal Philby
San Diego