“You Don’t Have to be a Great Photographer to Take Great Photos”

A marketing slogan used in a commercial promoting one of Panasonic’s latest cameras. The commercial shows a man presenting some beautiful images he took at some sort of exhibition. People start asking him questions like “what was your aperture?” or “what shutter speed did you use?”, to which he responds “uh, really big” and “uh, like really fast,”  betraying his ignorance when it comes to photographic technique. Seems that the camera did all the work for him. I imagine many photographers might take one look at this slogan and get really offended, as if the commercial is somehow dismissing the importance of the skill, discipline, and artistic ability that so many photographers today work so hard at developing.

The reality? This is just a commercial targeting a specific audience. Is there absolute truth in marketing? Does that Big Mac you bought for lunch today look anything remotely like it does in the McDonald’s commercials? Of course not. McDonald’s knows it and so do their consumers, no one’s getting fooled. If you’re an artist with a passion for photography, you already know what it really takes to make a great picture, and Panasonic does to. They know they’re not selling an idea here, they’re selling a camera, and they’re using an exaggerated idea to do it.

While more serious photographers would be better off just getting a good laugh from the commercial, aspiring photographers should also be careful not to take such marketing too seriously. I love how legendary photographer Joe McNally puts it in his latest book:

“Good pictures demand care, and truly good pictures are hard to make. The manufacturers are out there selling us the digital dream, telling us that the camera does it all. And some of these machines almost do; they are marvelous contraptions. But no matter how fancy the gear, photography itself, at the end of the day, rules. Just like Mother Nature, the photo gods are mercurial indeed and smile upon us only occasionally and reluctantly.”

Truth is, today’s cameras are more sophisticated than ever before. They automate processes that were once completely cumbersome and manual, allowing you to focus more on things like composition and aesthetics while thinking less about what exact settings you need for the exposure you want. This does not mean that you don’t need to know how shutter speed, aperture, and ISO relate to exposure. It does mean, however, that you can approach a scene with today’s cameras without your very first thought being “I wonder what my shutter speed or ISO should be,” because your camera could very well make that decision for you, and in many cases, make a better decision than you would. Besides, aperture, ISO, and shutter speed are not the only factors involved in making a good photo.

In itself, does the knowledge of how a camera works and how to juggle aperture, shutter speed, and ISO with ease make you a great photographer? Of course not. There are so many other factors to consider in making a compelling image, like how you see and interpret a scene, how you compose, what you decide to include or exclude from the frame, using texture, using color, understanding how light behaves, deciding what to put in front of your camera, and hey, just being in the right place at the right time. As Joe says, at the end of the day, photography, and all it entails, rules.

So, getting back to this Panasonic ad. To me, the fact that people are asking about the man’s camera settings in a situation like this seems, in itself, unrealistic and absurd in the first place. Personally, if I showed someone a photo I took and the first thing they say is, “so what was your shutter speed?”, I’m pretty sure my response would be, “uh…I don’t know, can’t remember.” Why? It’s not important enough to remember! I got the shot, period. Knowing what my shutter speed is won’t tell you anything about what conditions were like on-location when I hit the shutter release, what I was thinking at the time, or what look I was trying to convey in the final image, including any post processing decisions I made. To me, the people in the audience asking questions in this commercial appear just as ignorant as the photographer. Who cares what exact shutter speed he used?!

The key to using today’s cameras is not to believe that the camera will do it all for you, but to understand how your camera thinks and nudge it in the right direction in order to accomplish your vision. The camera can’t do it all. It’s smart, fast, and sophisticated, but needs input from you in order to create art. The amount of input from you varies from one scene to the next. In the image above of San Francisco’s China Basin during sunset, I started by letting the camera do its thing. I saw a beautiful scene, and knew the lighting wasn’t too crazy for my camera to sort out exposure wise. So I walked over, found my composition, and with my camera on Aperture Priority Auto, took the shot. The result looked a little dark for my taste, so I went +1EV on my exposure compensation dial. The camera automatically chose the corresponding shutter speed to get me a stop of over-exposure, and the next image was exactly what I wanted.  The camera gave me its best guess, and I simply gave it a little input based on that guess.  What was my shutter speed? Beats me. Couldn’t tell you without revisiting the image’s EXIF.

So, do you need to be a great photographer to take great images? I suppose that depends on how you define a “great photographer” and a “great image”. New camera technologies have made photography much more accessible than ever before, and today’s cameras are truly amazing. Panasonic seems to have taken that fact and stretched it into a funny ad, but any camera, no matter how advanced, is just a tool. It helps you get the job done. How well the job is done will always depend on a whole lot more.

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Image: Nikon D700 + Nikkor AFS 24mm f/1.4G

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- Words and pictures by Richard I’Anson

The ability of light to transform a subject or scene from the ordinary to the extraordinary is one of the most powerful tools at the photographer’s disposal. To be able to ‘see’ light and to understand how it translates onto the sensor and how it impacts on your compositions is the fi nal building block in creating striking images.

The majority of travel pictures are taken with the natural light of the sun, but you’ll also use incandescent lighting indoors or at night, and flash light when the available light is too low.

There’s light and there’s the ‘right light’. The keys to the right light are its colour, quality and direction. Once you understand these elements you can predict the effect they may have on a subject. This will help you decide what time of day to visit a place. The trick to shooting in the right light is to fi nd a viewpoint where you turn the conditions to your advantage, rather than struggle against them.

Pilgrims, Bodhgaya, India. I always scan a crowd looking for an interesting person to base my composition around. In this case, I just followed the last rays of the setting sun to one of the pilgrims and waited until she gently swayed into the light with a perfectly appropriate contemplative pose. 35mm SLR, 24-70mm lens, 1/30 f4, Ektachrome E100VS

Natural light

The colour , quality and direction of natural light change throughout the day. As your eye settles on a potential subject, note where the light is falling and select a viewpoint that makes the most of the natural light to enhance your subject.

There is an optimal time of day to photograph everything, so be prepared to wait or return at another time if you can’t find a viewpoint that works. However, most subjects are enhanced by the warm light created by the low angle of the sun in the one to two hours after sunrise and before sunset. At these times shadows are long and textures and shapes accentuated. If you’re serious about creating good pictures, this is the time to be shooting the key subjects on your shot list.

Harbour, St Tropez, France Just before 3pm on a warm summer’s day, head out to the sea wall overlooking the harbour at St Tropez and stand there for around 6½ hours to get a crash course in how the colour, quality and direction of the light impacts on the photos you take. These four pictures were taken at 3pm, 6pm, 9pm and 9.30pm respectively. The colour variations captured in these images are repeated every day (weather permitting) on outdoor subjects all over the world. (Top left) 35mm SLR, 24-70mm lens, 1/250 f8, Ektachrome E100VS (Top right) 35mm SLR, 24-70mm lens, 1/60 f11, Ektachrome E100VS, tripod (Bottom left) 35mm SLR, 24-70mm lens, 1/8 f11, Ektachrome E100VS, tripod (Bottom right) 35mm SLR, 24-70mm lens, 1 sec f11, Ektachrome E100VS, tripod

Colour

The colour of the light changes as the sun follows its course through the day. On a clear day when the sun is low in the sky (just after sunrise or just before sunset), the colour of the light is warm and subjects can be transformed by a yellow/orange glow. This light enhances many subjects and it’s worth making an effort to be at a predetermined place at the beginning and end of the day. As the sun gets higher in the sky, the colour of daylight becomes cooler and more ‘natural’, or neutral.

If heavy cloud is blocking the sun, the light will be even cooler and photographs can have a bluish cast. This will also happen on sunny days if your subject is in shade.

Direction

As the colour of light changes through the day, so too does its direction. Considering where light strikes your subject will improve your pictures signifi cantly. Although the direction from which light strikes a subject is constantly changing, there are four main directions to consider: front, side, top and back. If the light is in the wrong place your options are to move the subject, move yourself, wait or return at the appropriate time of day.

Yachts moored on the Caribbean Sea, Gustavia, Saint Barthélemy (Top) Front lighting: this gives clear, colourful pictures. However, shadows fall directly behind the subject, and can cause some photographs to look fl at and lack depth. 35mm SLR, 70-200mm lens, 1/125 f8, Ektachrome E100VS (Middle) Top lighting: this occurs in the middle of the day and is rarely fl attering, giving most subjects a fl at, uninteresting look. However, skies and seas will often look their bluest. 35mm SLR, 24-70mm lens, 1/250 f16, Ektachrome E100VS (Bottom) Back lighting: this occurs when the sun is in front of your camera. Silhouettes at sunset are a classic use of back light. Back light has to be carefully managed or your subjects will lack colour and detail. 35mm SLR, 70-200mm lens, 1/250 f11, Ektachrome E100VS

Village elder demonstrating traditional fi re-lighting technique, Tanna Island, Vanuatu Side lighting: this brings out textures and emphasises shapes, introducing a third dimension to photographs. 35mm SLR, 24-70mm lens, 1/25 f11, Ektachrome E100VS

Lens Flare

When shooting directly into the sun, watch for lens fl are caused by stray light entering the lens. This reduces contrast, and records as patches of light on the sensor. With DSLRs, bridge cameras and when composing with the LCD screen on compacts, you can usually see lens flare (if you’re looking for it) in the viewfi nder. It can be highlighted by stopping down the lens with the depth-of-field button.

A slight change in camera angle or viewpoint will usually solve the problem. Lens hoods help prevent fl are but shading the lens with your hand may also be required (don’t let your hand enter the field of view), or try placing the sun directly behind an element in the scene.

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