Irrational and illogic excuses sometimes block us to achieve the results we want. I call it the "If only..." syndrome and it influences all human activities, photography included.
I often talk with people that would like to improve the shots they take and most of them really are in the mindset to put the effort and work required into it.
But the "if only..." syndrome sooner or later kicks in: "If only I had that xxxx piece of gear I could be a better photographer." "If only I could shoot during daytime my shots would be a lot better."; there's no really end to the excuses we can create out of nothing to justify our laziness or lack of patience.
The first thing we should do is to acknowledge these excuses as what they really are: excuses. And put them in the right place: it's a very common, and human reaction to difficulties, you're no strange monster and everyone has been into your shoes at some point. Add to it the "consumistic" world we live in that at every step tries to persuade you that you need to buy some new product that will miraculously solve all your problems.
But let's make some pretty common examples of photographic situations that I frequently heard.
The "I don't own a good enough camera" excuse
This is the more blatant lie we could tell to ourselves. It could be true (to a point) in the past but nowadays is really laughable. It's true that not any camera is good at any task, but you don't have to spend a fortune to get what you need, it's just a point to know what you need and the compromises you want to accept.
Let's talk for example about the branch of photography I'm most involved into: food. I already explained in another
post why you should use a reflex camera to take some decent food shots. As I expected a lot of people soon came out telling "ahh but I have just a compact digital camera. Then the photo I took are the best I could do."
Excuses.
If you just want to take your food shots for the web you don't have to buy the most recent, full-fledged, admiral camera that would cost you like a car. What you just need is a good used digital camera produced some years ago and a decent 50mm lens. We're talking about 150$ for a camera and 150$ for a lens, and I'm a bit exaggerating the prices as you could probably find something cheaper with a little patience and research.
300$ is about or below the price of most newly released compact digital cameras and it will allow you to enter a complete different world. If your desire to take good photos worths more than this sum acknowledge the excuse you created and go shopping.
The solution is also easier if you just want to take good, professional looking shots that don't need to be in a digital format. Film is not dead, a roll of film would cost you about 5-6$, development included, and film cameras, even recent ones, are practically a free ride, you could buy them for real peanuts.
And if in the future you want to have these shot in a digital format to be used on the web all you need is a cheap scanner that would cost around 100-150$.
Example: I took the shot above with a 30$ Zeiss Nettar medium format camera, produced in the '50, the film (Fuji Provia 400) and development did cost me other 8-9$ while I scanned it with an Epson v700 (500$) that gave me an image with a resolution that puts my Canon EOS 5dMkII (2500$) to shame. A 150$ scanner would have produced more than acceptable results for the web and anyway with film you can always scan them again later with a better scanner, the quality in in the film itself, not in the scanner.
The "I don't have enough light" excuse
when I hear this my first thought is "Oh my! Again...". Let's put it clear and simple, unless you have to shoot some moving, animate subject light is not a problem. Spell it with me "It... is... not... a... problem".
This is because I hope you have spent some bucks on a tripod. You don't have a tripod? Buy one. Do you think you don't need a tripod? Ok, bear with me: good quality pictures needs light or time. Since light isn't always at hand you need time, and time means that you need to keep the camera still at least for a second divided by the focal length of the lens you're using. For example if you use the common 50mm lens you need at least an exposure time of 1/50 of a second (if you use a digital crop camera you have to multiply the focal length with the crop factor, usually around 1.5x).
But when a tripod is really priceless is when you have to shoot with artificial or low lighting. Even a small window or a not so powerful lamp can be enough if you have a still subject and a tripod. You have all the time in the world, enough to make the night a bright day in your shots.
Example: the only lighting I used in taking this picture is the couple of candles in the background. Of course I used the tripod as, even at full lens aperture, the time needed to achieve a good exposure was of some seconds.
The "I don't have a good eye" excuse
This is the ugliest fear that could stop us, and probably also the most untrue. I never met any good photographer who was born with "good eye".
"Good eye", alas the ability to compose a meaningful and attractive picture in the frame, is an ability that just need to be nurtured through exercise and exposure to good images, not just photographic ones.
For example go to your city museum and start to analyze the paintings you like more, look at how the painter placed the elements on the frame, which balances he managed to create, what are the qualities of the painting that really catched your attention and interest.
Photography hasn't different rules than painting, it's just a different medium.
So your better investment is buying books about painting and photography and expose yourself to good images every time you can. Did an advertisement poster catch your attention? Stop for a moment and study how the image depicted on it is composed, how the light falls on the subject, which kind of meaning or mood the image try to express to the viewer.
The "trick" to take good shots is to recognize, through your experience, that a scene can have interest, visualize it in your mind and at the end you'll realize that the action of taking the shot is the easiest and almost mechanical part.
Also a robot can press a shutter, a computer can calculate exposure better than the greatest photographer, but only a human being can own the culture and intelligence needed to fill the frame meaningfully.
Example: studying and analyzing a masterpiece of a great painter (in this case Cezanne) can give you a lot of insights on how to compose a subject in a photographic frame.
(
Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)
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