The Three Stages of Photography: Stage Two (Repost)

 

Chicago Skyline

Olympus OM2n, 35-70mm f3.6 Zuiko lens, Fujichrome 100

 

Blog note: This is the second installment of an article I originally wrote for Rangefinder Magazine more than twenty years ago and posted on this blog in January, 2020

The second stage of progression in photography is involvement with photography itself.  For the more senior among us, it may have been learning to develop film and make prints. More recently, many have come into photography by way of computers and software. Either way, there's a whole new world of things to learn and do. Some people begin at this stage, rather than at the equipment stage, perhaps hooked by the magic of seeing a print come up in the developer for the first time or the gift or impulse buy of a digital camera. They may partially or completely bypass the involvement-with-equipment phase, intuitively understanding that equipment is only a means to a end.

At this level, pictures become more than a by-product.  Good photographs are an earnestly sought goal, and occasional successes whet the appetite for more.  We attend workshops, read books, and find it all endlessly fascinating.  Influenced by photographers we admire or who we have been told are masters of the art, we try to make photographs like theirs. There's a lot of emulation, imitation, and even some outright copying as we seek to master the medium and find our individual place it.

 

As our skills increase, we may find ourselves making photographs which are considered excellent by others.  They may even win prizes.  Yet, in the deepest sense, they are not really our own.  "Son of Cartier-Bresson," maybe, or perhaps "The Return of Arbus."  Excellent, but not spoken with our own voice, as it were.  Many technically-capable amateurs and not a few professionals arrive at this point and never go any further.

In fact, it could well be argued that professionals are especially susceptible to topping out at this level.  We are involved with photography on a daily basis, most of us are deeply in love with photography,  and some of us find that we can be reasonably successful by producing photographs according to rules and formulas.  In addition, any number of seminars and workshops stand ready to teach us to make photographs just like the hot photographers of the hour.  Imitative photography is actively encouraged by trade associations such as the Professional Photographers of America, with its print judging system which awards merit points to photographs made according to the standards they have established.

 

My Brother Steve

Olympus OM2n, 85mm f2 Zuiko lens, Kodachrome 64

A skillful promoter/salesman with moderate camera skills can have a financially successful career as a professional photographer without ever having an original thought or making an original photograph.

But that's okay.  It's all good fun, and harms no one.  Even if a professional sells hack work, what of it?  Are his customers harmed?  No, they're pleased.  Kathy the new bride is happy because her wedding pictures look just like Jennifer's and Karen's.

Involvement with equipment and with the photographic process itself  are necessary stages in the development of most photographers, but they are not what photography is about.  To learn the true meaning of photography, to come to a place where we can make photographs which are truly our own, we must advance to the third level. (To be continued.)

If you like my photographs, you can see more of them in my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and, who knows? You might find something you want to keep.

The second edition of my book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia will be released in June, 2023. 

Photograph and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

(Repost) The Three Stages of Photography: Stage One

Canoes, Cumberland Mountain State Park, Tennessee

Olympus OM2n camera, Olympus Zuiko 60-200mm f4 lens, Fujichrome 100 film

 

Blog Note: Because of the number of comments on my previous post, I'm reposting in three parts an article from the early days of this blog. It was originally published in Rangefinder Magazine more than 20 years ago.

 

While some undoubtedly take up photography because they are attracted by the possibilities of the medium, I suspect most of us go into photography bass-ackwards: we fall in love with the equipment first.

No question, of course, that photographers have a deeper involvement with their tools than practitioners of most other arts or crafts. It's probably necessary in the nature of the case. Only in music is the art so inseparably linked to the instrument used to produce it.

I'm sure painters talk shop from time to time about brushes and paints, and writers may sometimes compare notes about their word processors. But nobody, except perhaps computer geeks, talks so endlessly about equipment as photographers. We have a love affair with cameras that just won't quit.

And that includes me. I love cameras. I can easily count more than 200 of the critters I've owned in my lifetime, and I'm not even a collector. (Well, maybe a little bit.) I like using cameras, handling them, playing with them, even just thinking about them, imagining what I could do if I had a Fuji GFX100 with a hundred megapixels, or even a 100-400mm zoom for my X-H1. But c'mon, tell the truth. Wasn't it plain old love of gadgets and tinkering that first got a lot of us hooked on photography? I mean, who could resist those miniature mechanical (or electronic, nowadays) marvels with their enticing whirs and clicks? A real grown-up toy for sure.

 

 

Christian woman, Madras, India

Olympus OM2n, 85mm f2 Olympus Zuiko lens, Fujichrome 100

In our equipment-happy stage, we search the internet and visit brick-and-mortar  camera stores, if we're lucky enough to have one nearby, to find the best camera for our money. We eagerly learn which lens does what. We search out blogs, online fora, and books to learn how to use our new cameras and master the technical aspects of photography, including learning to choose and use the necessary software. We believe the camera manufacturer implicitly when he says equipment makes the photographer. And fun...!? A little expensive, maybe, but man, what fun! In fact, it's so much fun that some stop right here and never go on to become photographers. We would never admit it, even to ourselves, but sometimes the pictures are only the by-products of the real fun: playing with our gear. There's a name for this phenomenon: it's called GAS -- Gear Acquisition Syndrome.

And there's nothing wrong with that. The people who make and sell cameras will love you and the money you spend keeps the ball rolling for all of us. To be fair, probably most photographers are at least slightly infected with GAS, and playing with photo equipment is good, clean fun.  But it's not photography. Photography is something else. (To be continued.)

If you like my photographs, you can see more of them in my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and, who knows? You might find something you want to keep.

The second edition of my book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia will be released in June, 2023. 

Photograph and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

How good does it have to be?

Civil War Bugle. Photographed in 1975 with a Nikkormat and Kodachrome film.

 

Twenty years ago I got my first digital camera. Before that, I was a film photographer for 35 years. At least half the photographs I show on this blog were originally shot on film, then scanned on a Minolta-DiMage 5400 scanner, making files 13 x 19 inches (5704 x 3885 pixels) in size. A scan from a sharp 35mm slide will make a very satisfying 24 x 36 inch print.

A digital file from even a six-megapixel camera will make a 24 x 36 inch print that is even sharper. But you would have to look very hard to see the difference. Some of my best photos of the last 20 years were made with the 12-megapixel Canon 5D Classic. The architects who commissioned me to make large prints of their buildings had no complaints about the 5D's sharpness.

But different photographers have different needs. Some of my photographer-friends, including my brother Phil, are investing in cameras with very high pixel counts because of the type of photography they do, especially wildlife and birds. I wish them all the best, but the kind of photography I do does not require that much firepower. I have two Fujifilm cameras, each with a 24-megapixel sensor. They do everything I want and need to do. In fact, I could probably dig out my old Olympus OM2n and lenses, load it with Fuji slide film, and make photographs that would satisfy me and my clients just as well. How good does it have to be, anyway? 

If there's a moral to this rambling, it's this: learn who you are as a photographer. Learn what you want to say with your pictures. Then choose the equipment that will help you express your vision. The newest, shiniest toys are not necessarily the best -- for you.

If you like my photographs, you can see more of them in my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and, who knows? You might find something you want to keep.

The second edition of my book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia will be released in June, 2023. 

Photograph and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

What Is a Rock City?

Swingalong Bridge at Rock City Gardens spans a deep crevasse.

 

 Traci asked, "What is Rock City?" To answer her question, here's an excerpt from my book Rock City Barns: A Passing Era.

"Probably the third-most-asked question by travelers south in the 1950s and '60s (after "are we almost there yet?" and "When do we eat?") was "What the heck is a rock city?" Tempted beyong endurance by the pervasive message of the ubiquitous signs, millions made the pilgrimage up Lookout Mountain to see for themselves what it was all about.

            What they found was a ten-acre tract of massive stone formations (hence the name "Rock City") on the eastern cliffs of the mountain overlooking Chattanooga, Tennessee and the North Georgia countryside. Laid out with flower-bordered trails winding through deep crevasses and along cliff tops, Rock City Gardens is an oddly pleasing blend of magnificent natural beauty and a charming naïveté. The naïveté comes in the form of trailside elfin figurines, walking "storybook" characters (Mother Goose, Humpty-Dumpty, Rocky the Rock City elf) and Fairyland Caverns, a man-made cave featuring black-lighted dioramas of nursery rhyme scenes. This is what family entertainment was like before Disney World and video games, and the place still holds a special fascination for kids of all ages.

            Although the rock formations have been there for a long, long time, Rock City as a tourist attraction is the brainchild of a freewheeling, cigar-smoking entrepreneur named Garnet Carter and his wife Frieda, a lover of beauty and folklore. During the 1920s, while Garnet was developing a fashionable 100-acre subdivision called Fairyland on Lookout Moutain and inventing the game of miniature golf (which he franchised nationally under the name "Tom Thumb Golf"), Frieda was making Rock City, which was a part of Fairyland, into her own personal nature garden. She laid out trails and planted their borders with hundreds of wildflowers and shrubs indigenous to the southern mountains. For her efforts she was awarded the Bronze Medal of Distinction by the Garden Club of America in 1931, the first Southerner to be so honored.

            In the meantime, the Carter fortunes had changed. The stock market crash of 1929 put an end to the building boom of the '20s. And while Tom Thumb Golf was doing very well, Carter foresaw the end of the miniature golf craze and managed to unload it in 1930 at a handsome figure. Unfortunately, he invested the proceeds in U.S. Steel stock at $298 a share, which promptly dropped to $30.

            Finding himself not exactly broke, but feeling some pain, Carter turned his full attention to his wife's little garden. Motivated both by economic possibilities and by love for his wife, who was then in the beginning stages of a debilitating disease, he began to expand upon the improvements she had begun. The trails were widened and paved with flagstones and suspension bridges were built over chasms. Statues of gnomes and storybook characters, which had adorned fhr Fairyland neighborhood and the original Tom Thumb golf course at the Fairyland Inn (now the Fairyland Club) were moved to Rock City. On May 21, 1932, the park was opened to the public.

            Unfortunately, the country was in the depths of depression and the tourism industry was still in its infancy. In spite of intense promotion, only eighteen hundred people came that first year, and things did not improve substantially until 1935, 36, or 37, depending on whose memory you trust. Clark Byers says 1937 -- or maybe 1936 -- was the year he began painting "See Rock City" on barns around the Southeast, and things began to look up for the attraction.

            "I couldn't figure out how in the world Garnet Carter could afford to pay me $40 a sign," says Byers. "But boy, I went up to Rock City one day and the parking lots was full and people parked all around, and the signs had brought them in there. And I realized really, how smart he was, y'know."

            Whether one can actually see seven states from the sheer cliffs of Lover's Leap will continue to be debated, but Rock City is a place that's easy to like" 

If you like my photographs, you can see more of them in my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and, who knows? You might find something you want to keep.

The second edition of my book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia will be released in June, 2023. 

Photograph and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.