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Showing posts from June, 2010

Hold the camera at arm’s length so it is easy to see.

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This is the third in a series on the biggest myths in photography. Number 8... "Hold the camera at arm’s length so it is easy to see." I am not sure where this came from, but for some reason or another people, decided that they could see the image better on a little screen than could looking through a viewfinder. Camera manufactures quickly saw that they could save some money by eliminating viewfinders all together on lower priced camera. Today we find ourselves back to the same place where we were 100 years ago with the need to throw a dark cloth over the back of the camera to see the image for framing. LCD screens are very difficult to see in bright light and often impossible to see on a sunny day with sunglasses. Since the beginning of photography, photographers have known that holding the camera steady is the secret to sharp pictures. Without the ability to brace the camera against your face, holding the camera steady becomes very difficult. People often ask me questions

My pictures are just for fun. I don’t care what happens to them in a year, much less fifty years.

This is a second in a series of 10 posts about the biggest myths in photography. Number 9. My pictures are just for fun. I don’t care what happens to them in a year, much less fifty years. Part of my business is restoring old photographs. A common comment I hear is, “I wish my parents (aunt, grandparents, fill in the blank) had taken better care of these pictures. I guess they didn’t know they would be important.” The best known photographer of the twentieth century was Ansel Adams. He was also a musician. He considered making a photograph the equivalent of writing a song – the composition. (Funny how the same word applies to both music and photography.) The print and its display is then the performance. Both were equally important. His photographs now sell for tens of thousands of dollars largely because he put care and technique into making his photographs. We may not be Ansel Adams, but we can value photographs for what they are and take care in the making and keeping of them. The

If I take enough pictures, some of them are bound to be good.

This is a first in a series of 10 posts about the biggest myths in photography. Number 10 - If I take enough pictures, some of them are bound to be good. This is related to the old saying about given enough monkeys, time, and typewriters, they would eventually write all the works of Shakespeare. Maybe. But it would take a LOT of time and they would go through a lot of typewriters. Photography is a learned skill. It is not hard, but like any other skill such as woodworking, playing a musical instrument, or public speaking, it is not automatic, and therefore requires a little bit of training. Professional instruction is not necessary, but would certainly go a long way. If I decided to build a table, I could go out and buy a saw, some wood, and start randomly cutting wood and gluing pieces together. Given enough time I might end up with something that looks like table. But I would save a lot of time and trees if I did a little research on the details of table making. It is the same with p