Journey into the realm of photography – A resumé

A few years ago I started to explore the art of concept illustrations. Not just out of curiosity but because I wanted to do something more creative than the things I do everyday and started to illustrate my RPG campaigns.

Bringing scenes to life by means of illustration or painting is a
fantastic challenge, intriguing and very rewarding. Once you have achieved certain skills a world
of incomprehensible wonder reveals itself to you. A world where imagination is your only constraint.

But normally you work on your own. That is the dark side. Now I like to work with others, share knowledge and shape ideas together even in my spare time.

So I picked up the idea to reach out into the realm of photography. There you can work with other people, create beautiful images, perhaps make new friends. Or so it seems. Probably a little blue eyed but here we are …

After years of venturing forth I feel disappointed.

In comparison to painting or concept art photography is in fact awfully limited. I knew that of course. And certainly it has its own virtues and can deliver
great experiences but mostly … its been a disappointment. And specifically due to those beings that in today’s terms make up The Community …

Of course this is only my personal opinion though derived from a number of sources and evidence. Of course my experience is limited and I met people who were absolutely friendly and professional. The majority however was definitively not what one would like to expect … here is why …

When you delve into the world of photography your cannot miss to recognize several things and those do very quickly start to annoy you:

Photography is a divided realm

On the one side there are the so called professionals who make a living as photographers, models, whatever. They usually dislike outsiders and many deem themselves knights of the round table superior to everyone else. The times however they are changing as they always did and tend to ignore such petty ways …

Professionalism is a desideratum, especially among models

One might expect that in a creative business a certain level of professional communication is a skill you cannot afford to miss. In fact many people in this business obviously did never learn good manners nor do they communicate professionally or even consistently.

It is normal that models in particular do not reply to your messages, provide impolite answers or cancel communication somewhere in between just so. Now I got to know some who are wonderful people and it feels inspiring to have them around but more often they are entitled and repulsive individuals. What do we expect in a world of narcistic and shizophrenics patterns ?

Honestly … even with “well established” models you rarely get good results. They only want your money but are not willing or able to add value to your work. Sometimes they are outright annoying.

Most of them are are struggling with everything. They have no idea on how to work on a real project, have no inspiration and commitment and the posing is mostly mediocre at best.

Worst of all they contact you to ask for sessions but barely speak English so that you cannot really connect. Its really tiring … what do these people expect when they offer to work with you but do not bring anything good to the table ?

Not only models are negative however and victims of our badly socialized world. In forums on the other hand (mostly visited by amateurs to be honest) you encounter a tone that is truly embarrassing and sometimes outright hostile. People asking for advice in a very polite and friendly way are often banged down openly while others applaud.

Technology rules

Technology rules not creativity nor quality. The better your equipment the more
worthy you are. And … most photo enthusiasts are zealots when
it comes to comparing equipment.  Visit the Photokina in Cologne or browse through the
relevant forums to see what I mean.

You really need to invest heavily if you want to join this kind of competition. In the end it will not help you to make better photographs but its of course heresy to say that.

What most people do not recognize: Technical progress has grind to a halt. The only thing left is “having
more Megapixels” which produces more data but not better quality. But wait … ignorance is coming to the rescue.

Esoteric believe is more prominent than real knowledge

Making photographs is a relatively simple thing based on not so simple physics. I am an engineer and had to learn those elemental physics during my studies. Getting hands on information on the other hand does never hurt so you start to look into books, forums etc.

In fact there is more than enough learning material out there to spend the rest of your days reading it. But it is rather difficult to find the incredible grains of gold ( yes they do exist … ) among all those mountains of the more useless stuff.

Most of what so called experts blurt out into the world is merely esoteric and advertises a breathtaking level of ignorance or even the will to fool people into buying useless stuff. Surprisingly they do still find legions of followers spreading the word eagerly.

This pseudo knowledge is of course backed up by an entire industry profiting from it. They do what they can to spread even more confusion hiding some simple facts along the way:

• Even the simplest gear can create great results
• Many a thing that is thrown into the market as ground breaking is old wine in new bottles, an iteration of what is already there. Expensive but not better.
• Most of this stuff is not only useless but totally overpriced.

It is all a fake

The shining world of photography is a Potemkin village and the truth behind the facade is most often rather disappointing.

Having bought a decent camera many people wonder why their photographs do not look as fancy as the ones they have seen in famous magazines or on the internet.

While a bad motif or incredibly bad skill may be responsible you will more likely have missed one other thing and that is remastering. Even in the days of analogue film photographers spent countless hours polishing their images in the darkroom.  Some of them so heavily that it is difficult to recognize the original ones.

The brilliant portrait of a person may have been shot in a shabby studio but you will never notice thanks to the skills of a decent digital artist.

So having a good camera is only a small step forward. Knowing how to fake your products competently is much more important. This does not mean to simply apply only a preset in Lightroom of course. Its more complicated than that.

The times they are still changing

Quality pays off … or does it ?

In the analogue past it was relatively easy though very expensive to distinguish oneself as a professional photographer. Only few could afford the insanely high prices of Medium and Large Format cameras required to produce images of a certain technical quality.

The difference in quality to other camera systems was incredibly high and visible to everyone. Yes … some top guys did still use smaller formats for their images and with great success. But it was not the rule.

Modern top of the line DSLR cameras have almost closed the gap and a lot of photo enthusiasts can afford to buy them. Consequently it is getting harder to make a living from a photography business. Today everyone is a photographer … well no but that is part of the dilemma and one prominent reason why so called professional photographers often dislike their counterpart the petty amateur.

In fact many of the so called professional photographers generate a considerable income out of workshops where they teach amateurs to improve their skills. Thus they are actually helping to close the knowledge gap as well. Which in turn will make it even more difficult to stand out as a professional.

But do they close the gap ? Well partly. Mostly you learn things that are rather common and if you would like to know the more advanced things you find yourself amidst a sudden burst of smoke more often than not. Try to ask someone to teach you how to emulate natural sunlight with artificial light and you will see what happens.

What is a professional anyway ?

Answering this question spawns heated discussions. Some while ago however I read an article by someone working in Hamburg. He is a well known Blogger named neunzehn72. He presented a totally consistent approach but most professionals will not love him for it.

A professional photographer is a person who is able to produce photographs of an outstanding /   professional quality and is professional (that means exceptionally good) in all other aspects relevant to this craft. Sounds simple but true … can be adjusted to any other craft of course.

An Amateur is someone who has not yet mastered the peaks of craftsmanship required to be a professional. Equally simple … well yes, you might have guessed that I rather belong to this group … Not totally stupid but still trying to improve.

A commercial photographer is someone who runs a photography business and probably makes a living from it.

I like this because it means that everyone can be a professional and not every commercial photographer (the one who runs this photography business) is a professional by definition.

Those definitions are much closer to reality than some people might want to believe. This means that the knights of the round table are disinherited … and that you are not stuck with being a fool with a camera. No … in fact everyone can be a pro photographer someday. Does it make things bettery ? No …

Resume

Now all of this rambling and for what ?

This means that if you want to be a photographer you only need to understand some very few and relatively simple facts to use the mechanics of photography itself successfully.

You do not need to be a knight of the round table to make good photos, nor do you need to use black magic or own expensive gear. In fact photography is simple and extremely limited at the same time. So there is not much to learn really.

It more the ability to envision a good image before you make it and find the right connect to the people involved in your project.

But …

• Do not expect to be welcomed when you want to travel the realm of photography in earnest
• Remember that even the best camera cannot outperform scientific rules what ever vendors and so called evangelists try to tell you.
• Remember that all that tech stuff is only a poor substitute for your own imagination.
• Creativity and great ideas are the true key to success. Those may not come easily though, sometimes not at all.

Now sports …