It is not uncommon to hear the argument that automatic-everything cameras take the "real photography" out of the proceedings.
And I can sympathize. It is fun to learn about process. I had a lot of fun with manual-focus cameras and in darkrooms in the seventies, eighties, and nineties. It can sometimes be necessary to know about process, in case the automatic functions don't work perfectly, as is wont to happen.
And not the least, it's irritating to have used hundreds or thousands of hours learning a craft, only to see new generations being able to do the same thing without all that work!
There are many aspects. For example, 90% of the time, when doing walk-around photography, I'm happy to have the camera use Programmed automatic to decide aperture and shutter speed. (Especially with small-sensor compact cameras, where you rarely see a real difference.) But if I want to make a professional-looking portrait with a nicely blurred background, I need the right lens/camera, and I need to know how the aperture works and how to use it to get the effect I want.
Part of the questions are, do we do it for art? For business? Or for fun? And if the latter, what matters most, the result or the process? What do you enjoy most?
To a mountaineer, taking a helicopter to the top of the mountain is "cheating" and uninteresting. To somebody who just wants or needs to get to the top quickly, doing it the hard way is silly.
Regardless of art or illustration, there are certain situations that require more user control than auto program. Probably always will be, as those situations that require manual are the same as usual, difficult light, focus control.
ReplyDeleteI have no angst about auto; I set my cameras on auto usually, just in case Elvis does land in the back yard in a saucer.
I know that I can do a better picture, because I know the equipment, and how to use it, either auto or manual.
To somebody who just wants or needs to get to the top quickly, doing it the hard way is silly.
ReplyDeleteIt sure seems silly to risk your life climbing a big rock. Or risk it sliding down the side of a snow-covered big rock (skiing).
About the cameras though, I remember reading how you used to have to do it with glass plates and that. It's the picture that counts, but I kind of wonder...I mean, people I know go on vacation and take hundreds of pictures. In the old days you'd never do that because it was actual film, but with digital...
My father is a construction engineer by profession. Among several other fields, like mechanics and hydrology.
ReplyDeleteTo quote someone who's worked with him once: "People like you, who have TOUCHED the water and the concrete, are very rare today."
Too many engineers nowadays have a completely "virtual" formation. I sure hope we never witness this with Doctors, even if we CAN perform remote surgery through the internet now. (Well, YOU can, that is. I'm still using dial-up! ;-)
Just yesterday, I was once more confronted with the irreplaceable necessity to BE there in order to heal, the need to see and hear and touch. And sometimes smell too. (Naaah! It's not always gross. Ever smelled over-ripe apple breath in a diabetic person? If you do, call a colleague, pronto.)
Also yesterday, I had a fascinating conversation with a veteran of the Lebanon war, now retired from the Army. I think I've already mentioned this, our National Army is perhaps the only institution that's never compromised with its integrity and selfless dedication (in contrast with all the militias!!!). I don't like the principle of war, but THESE folks, they've always strictly defended and protected their people's survival. When you don't have a choice...
He told me lots of things about what makes a "true" soldier, like those who survived Alamo-like battles every Lebanese has heard of. He was there. And simply told it like it is, matter-of-fact, zero bragging.
He also met U.S. instructors, because the military cooperation isn't something recent. Well, typically, and rather sadly, these instructors lacked the nerve, the mental attitude, the cool head that makes a good soldier once on the field.
What's a good soldier? One who stays alive and wins the battle. Also one that's always careful about sparing civilians. Even virtually "enemy" civilians in a bitter civil war.
Talking with this man who's "been there", and has "done it the old-fashioned way", and after what I've read on the Iraq fiasco and its analysis BY AMERICANS themselves, I understand many things better. The U.S. Army today is made up of theoretically-formed amateurs who don't know how things work in real life. And then they mess up.
Messing up doesn't get "you or someone" killed in ALL fields like warfare or Medicine. But the fundamentals of knowledge and competence are universal.
Technology and its modern comfort are useful as much as they're convenient. More efficient, yes. Provided we KNOW.
Technology doesn't dispense you of knowledge. "Fool-proof" is a myth. Artificial intelligence can't compete with natural stupidity. Or crass ignorance. Same difference.
One of the Darwin Awards winners was a Texan who tried to play Russian roulette... with an automatic gun! Thanks to technology, he "won" immediately. :-P
Yup, technology sure made THIS more efficient and quick than in the Old West!
As for enjoying something you do well "for the sake of it", it's seldom "efficient" in the modern sense of the world, but it's most natural. Has a noble side to it. On occasions, I sculpt wood or make paper craft. (Sometimes, they're paper CRAFTS. Planes that fly. ;-)