Technical versus compositional excellence.

[Wayland]

Have to agree with last two posts. I'm rarely thinking about the technical stuff while I'm shooting landscapes.

I work from a tripod 99% of the time so shutter speeds are rarely a concern unless I want a long one in which case I add neutral density.

Unless I'm really struggling I work at 100 ISO. ( Native.)

I usually want good depth of field but work with ultra wide angles 80% of the time so the aperture is almost always set to f/10 to avoid diffraction issues.

With aperture priority set I shoot a couple of images to chimp the exposure with the histogram (ETTR) which I tune with over/under exposure dial. I stay on auto so the camera smooths over slight changes in the lighting.

The rest of the fancy computerised features on my camera are entirely irrelevant to the way I work.

[thetraveler]

For me, the ideal situation is to have technique so solid that you don't ever have to think about it - you brain just knows what you must do with the camera to create the image in your head. This is the way a top musician works - years spent in the practice room playing scales so that the fingers know exactly where to go.

The more intuitive my use of any camera the less barrier to taking the shot I want when I want.

[Wayland]

The problem with most modern cameras is that they are not designed to be understood intuitively.

There are so many damned menus and submenus that I defy anyone to know them all.

The best you can reasonably do is know how to use the bits you need and just ignore the rest.

My old ETRs. That was a camera you could understand intuitively. No auto, no meter, no computer. Just shutter, aperture and focus.

Most of the pain involved in changing over to digital was learning how to turn all the rubbish "features" off.

[Donald]

Nailed It

Absolutely.

[ionian]

On the issue of using the bells and whistles on the modern camera, my life has been changed by going mirrorless as opposed to DSLR. It has a massive array of features, many of which I don't use, but the ones I do use (such as live histogram, focus peaking, long exposure view) make a world of difference to my photography.

A large part of the fancy menu stuff seems to be for jpeg shooters or those that do minimal post processing - I prefer a base file that I can play with in post as I wish most of the time, although I have been experimenting with some of these functions in recent weeks.

I didn't cut my teeth in film, so for me the camera as a computer is quite normal. I understand it would be different if you were used to something different.

[Mike Buckley]

The title of the thread is about technical competence vs. compositional excellence. Keep in mind that that's not what Lew's post referenced in the other thread was about. Instead, it was about technical competence leading to artistic competence rather than technical competence being the end goal.

Personally, I've never been able to make a helpful distinction between the importance of technical and artistic competence. That's because the two are so inextricably intertwined. It's not enough for me to say that if I could only have one, I would rather have such and such. I'm not limited to having only one competence, so it's a waste of time for me to consider the hypothetical circumstance of not having both.

[thetraveler]

I guess I must be missing something, but I really suspect that with some people just like taking pictures and either can’t be bothered with the details or don’t want to admit that they don’t know how do things well. Or perhaps, all they really want to do is take pictures… I guess there will always be photographers like Garry Winogrand or Vivian Maier who shot tens of thousands of unprocessed images, that were discovered after they died.

Different endeavors have different ways of weighting technical competence and artistry (or any other end point). Olympic weightlifting is a very, very technical sport because of the risk but there is no mark for looking good. In this sport, technical competence is critical but is ignored in terms of achievement.
Figure skating judges both, speed sking cares only about speed.

Photography has both competences but if one treats photography as art, then the technical competence, while important, is just something that's needed - like weightlifting - to get to where one wants to go.

My attitude is that I try not to buy into the 'street' ethic of low IQ, smudged, oof, too contrasty, over-moody images. I think those are affectations that try to trade on the memories of the old guys.

So I try to have my pictures be as technically good as possible but always in support of creating something.

"either can’t be bothered with the details or don’t want to admit that they don’t know how do things well. "

I don't see many people who are considered as 'good artists' who don't have a good technical background and have actual skills.

These are early Picasso worlks




In my situation, I can do other stuff besides street-style ephemeral scenes, it just doesn't interest just because things like flowers and landscape are so do-able.

They just sit there and let me putz around until I get it right. And then they sit there until someone else comes along so both can end up with approximately the same shot.

For me the challenge is not so much the technical doing it but the challenge of seeing a shot and catching it before the situation disappears.

If I'm faced with a landscape and there's not much else around, I shoot what's there.



So my advice to someone is to get as good as he/she can and then use the technical in search of finding one's own vision.

That was longer than I expected but that's a issue which I've thought a lot about and have changed my equipment specifically to accomodate my interest - exchanging FF Nikon for Olympus m4/3.

[Round Tuit]

Manfred's choice for the title of this thread puzzled me at first. After reading his opening post, I realized that he was comparing technical excellence to artistic expression and not to compositional excellence. Most of the posts in the thread also seem to equate compositional excellence with artistic expression. To me, the two are distinct.

Yes, the choices that one has to make to create a good composition are a form of artistic expression but I don't think that this is what Manfred, nor I, don't understand when we say that we don't "get" art. What I, for one, don't usually get is artists who deliberately degrade the technical or compositional quality of their work to express their artistic vision. Not that this is not a valid thing to do but it usually does not appeal to me.

What I used to find mildly annoying was when some of these artists claimed that their works were somehow at a higher level. Now I realize that if they are blind to the beauty of a well composed and executed picture, it is their loss - not mine.

Andre

[xpatUSA]

Manfred's choice for the title of this thread puzzled me at first.

Puzzled me too because it is open to interpretation (or even misinterpretation) as has already been seen in this thread.

A true Pedant such as myself would have written "Excellence: Technical versus Compositional"

[Manfred M]

he was comparing technical excellence to artistic expression and not to compositional excellence.

Actually Andre - I chose the wording deliberately to avoid the concept of "art" so as to not confuse the issue I was writing about.

There are two reasons for that, because in my view, not all photographs are viewed as art. One person might look at an image and feel it is art and would love to hand the photo on his / her wall while others might view the same image as nothing more than a snapshot documenting a moment in time.

The second reason I deliberately chose to avoid the term is that the term is often used to cover up poor composition and poor technical excellence.

[William W]

. . .You need to understand how to take a picture but you also need to know how to make a picture.

- PLUS -

. . . have technique so solid that you don't ever have to think about it - you brain just knows what you must do with the camera to create the image in your head. This is the way a top musician works - years spent in the practice room playing scales so that the fingers know exactly where to go.

Sums the whole discussion up for me.

WW

[Shanghai Steve]

Many good points have been raised in this thread, but one subject has been notably missing: the subject.
We have all seen photographers who could take a shot of a postage stamp and make it look special. Talent is talent; there is no replacing that. But something I've never really understood in photography circles is how The Subject of the Photograph is so often replaced with ideas of the artist, that what's in front of the camera so often is merely a template on which to hang the ego of the "artist". At no point have I read anyone talking about that. I personally don't want to intrude on the subject. The subject of the photograph is what's in the photograph, not myself. Whenever I read someone talking about "my vision" it seems like a prissy way of saying "This is what I came up with." As far as I'm concerned, my job is to present the subject and get out of the way. The better I get, the more technically proficient I am, the better I can do that. My first photographic love is Street Photography, which is a lot more technically difficult than most photographers realise. Ambling down a strange street in the middle of Asia as a relatively wealthy Westerner, my job is to negotiate between interaction and discretion, naturalism and involvement, intrusion and respect, waiting for those fleeting moments which can define a time or place or person. I have never, ever subscribed to the "f/8 and be there", slapdash, its-street-so-its-ok-to-be-grainy-as-hell-and-out-of-focus schol of thought. While the skills I have tried to develop are very different and in fact often inapplicable to other genres, one aspect of this shooting discipline is to be remembered above all else: be true to your subjects.

[xpatUSA]

Puzzled me too because it is open to interpretation (or even misinterpretation) as has already been seen in this thread.

A true Pedant such as myself would have written "Excellence: Technical versus Compositional"

Following on from that thought, I question the implied exclusiveness. Why can there not be a shot that is both technically excellent and excellently composed and why would such a shot not be "better" than the implied exclusive alternatives?

[William W]

^ Hey friend - you'll end up very dizzy if you keep spinning in circles by quoting yourself and then answering . . .

[James G]

This is probably somewhat 'off theme' for the thread, but somewhere downstream I think someone mentioned Vivian Maier.

Apart from the fact she was unpublished, she never bothered to process/print much of her captures. This has intrigued me greatly and I do wonder how she would respond to this thread.

Posthumus criticism puts her amongst 'the greats', (which do not challenge), but I do wonder what she looked for in her work, what she considered to be 'good', 'indifferent' or simply 'bad'. And more importantly I do wonder what we are entitled to conclude about what she considered valid photography.

Over many years, I have been shown photo's that obviously mean something to the people who took them. Quite often they qualified the conversation that followed with " of course, it's nothing like the work you do".

My immediate response to that,was and is... " Do you like it?" followed (sometimes), by "What is it you like about it?", and finally... "As long as it genuinely gives you pleasure, or says something to you, then it is a good photo".

If someone has the photography bug, I believe they will always be dissatisfied by their efforts. But, as long as their work delivers some satisfaction/pleasure, it is worth persisting and trying to improve. I think we often forget this when considering others work (particularly where C&C is actively requested).
I do wonder how many more Maiers' there are out there we will never get to know.

[John 2]

This is probably somewhat 'off theme' for the thread, but somewhere downstream I think someone mentioned Vivian Maier.

Apart from the fact she was unpublished, she never bothered to process/print much of her captures. This has intrigued me greatly and I do wonder how she would respond to this thread.

Posthumus criticism puts her amongst 'the greats', (which do not challenge), but I do wonder what she looked for in her work, what she considered to be 'good', 'indifferent' or simply 'bad'. And more importantly I do wonder what we are entitled to conclude about what she considered valid photography.

Over many years, I have been shown photo's that obviously mean something to the people who took them. Quite often they qualified the conversation that followed with " of course, it's nothing like the work you do".

My immediate response to that,was and is... " Do you like it?" followed (sometimes), by "What is it you like about it?", and finally... "As long as it genuinely gives you pleasure, or says something to you, then it is a good photo".

If someone has the photography bug, I believe they will always be dissatisfied by their efforts. But, as long as their work delivers some satisfaction/pleasure, it is worth persisting and trying to improve. I think we often forget this when considering others work (particularly where C&C is actively requested).
I do wonder how many more Maiers' there are out there we will never get to know.

I have and I have read John Maloof's book on Vivien Maier. On thinking about it afterwards, two things occurred to me. Not for no reason, the book is called "A Photographer Found", the reason being that unlike many of her contemporaries, photography was certainly a passion but none the less, no more than a hobby. It wasn't just that she remained unpublished, she never sought to expose her work to the world at large. Talent apart, this makes her more akin to people on this forum than say the likes of Annie Leibovitz or Dorothea Lange who became established photojournalists. The second thing that occurred to me was that it is interesting to put her into the context of some of the discussions that have taken place on this forum on the subject of Post Processing. Since a large body of her work that has since been published was found in an unprocessed state (undeveloped film), by definition, what is now accorded so much merit, is straight out of the camera. Perhaps I should say no more since that has the potential for another endless discussion.

[xpatUSA]

The problem with most modern cameras is that they are not designed to be understood intuitively.

There are so many damned menus and submenus that I defy anyone to know them all. [ ]

The best you can reasonably do is know how to use the bits you need and just ignore the rest.

My old ETRs. That was a camera you could understand intuitively. No auto, no meter, no computer. Just shutter, aperture and focus.

My old Practika manual-only did have a meter but it was one of those CdS things and only metered the whole scene, as far as I recall.

Most of the pain involved in changing over to digital was learning how to turn all the rubbish "features" off.

A man after my own heart . . .

My first Sigma DSLRs were raw-only, no scene modes, no JPEG embedded in the raw file apart from a couple of thumbnails - what a refreshing change from the Nikon D50.

Like you, my ISO is super-glued in the 'base' position - anything more than that usually rewards me with the dreaded Foveon blotching in the shadows.

[xpatUSA]

^ Hey friend - you'll end up very dizzy if you keep spinning in circles by quoting yourself and then answering . . .

Ya got me there, Bill.

It was poorly put: I meant to address the exclusiveness implied by the thread title, not by my interpretation of it, duh.

[William W]

. . . I meant to address the exclusiveness implied by the thread title, not by my interpretation of it, duh.

I knew that.

***

Also, if I were you I wouldn't be too concerned about answering yourself . . . Some of the most heated (and also productive) debates I have had - were with myself.

It's all part of the nature of good quality and best practice Pedantry.

Do you play Chess? (with yourself) . . . I find it a very good pastime to achieve quality Pedantry: but I refuse to use a clock and the game can go on . . . forever - very time consuming.

[thetraveler]

This is probably somewhat 'off theme' for the thread, but somewhere downstream I think someone mentioned Vivian Maier.

Apart from the fact she was unpublished, she never bothered to process/print much of her captures. This has intrigued me greatly and I do wonder how she would respond to this thread.

Posthumus criticism puts her amongst 'the greats', (which do not challenge), but I do wonder what she looked for in her work, what she considered to be 'good', 'indifferent' or simply 'bad'. And more importantly I do wonder what we are entitled to conclude about what she considered valid photography.

Over many years, I have been shown photo's that obviously mean something to the people who took them. Quite often they qualified the conversation that followed with " of course, it's nothing like the work you do".

Vivian Maier had a unique opportunity. She shot at a time when photography was not in everyone's mind so people didn't pay as much attention to her so there wasn't as much negative response (no pun intended) to being photographed. She was a woman and therefore of less 'importance' on the street. She shot a waist level camera and was less conspicuous for that.

Street photography, unfortunately, is sort of a cultivated taste; look at many of Garry Winogrand's photos and individually to an uninterested, unfamiliar eye, they look like nothing. Even more than that, people like to think that, independent of their content, street photographs should look a certain way. That evolves into thinking that pictures that 'look' a certain way are 'street photos' regardless of their content.

The nadir of this concept are presets to make any photo into a 'street photo (http://fstopspot.com/main/free-resou...t-photography/)

Ugh