Everything in photography is a tradeoff

Testing Grounds an experimental ARI near the NGV City Road Southbank
2019-08-01 11:01:56

When I teach students photography I try to stress that there is no perfect fit technically, especially when dealing with natural light and analogue materials. Studio lighting can be “perfect”, but I personally prefer natural light. Of course ideas and concepts go though all kinds shifts and changes as they evolve.

This saying gets trotted out at least weekly. The students enjoy it and by the end of the school year it has been known to illicit groans from them as well.

I originally got the saying from one of my teachers way back at University. In those days making analogue pictures was the only way to get your ideas into a concrete form. Which were usually them exhibited. Although if you were a commercial photographer they could end up as advertisements or billboards or any other form of visual communication.

Analogue photography has many compromises attached to it. Film choice, film format choice, speed and ease of use of cameras based on anticipated outcome, and on and on.

Digital has broadened the horizon somewhat, as you now can for example just ramp up your ISO on your digital camera to achieve a successful result in low light situations. Then use contemporary software to reduce the noise in the file. Still digital sensors are no match for the human eye or brain so some compromise will always occur when making pictures when using a conventional camera and especially when using a smart phone camera.

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Emmet Gowin on Ralph Eugene Meatyard

A quick image search on 12/07/2019 at 11:00am

produces a plethora of  images by Ralph Eugene Meatyard

I recently purchased a book/catalogue of an exhibition of Ralph Eugene Meatyards work. The exhibition was held at the University of Kentucky Art Museum, from the 8th of September to the 9th of December 2018. The book contains images of his work that I had not seen before. It also contains short pieces of text by other artists who respond to or knew him. Emmet Gowin is one such artist.

This is the image from page 103

and is the one refereed to by Emmet Gowin

He is one of the few modernist photographers from America who I have the good fortune to spend a little time with. He came to Australia in the mid 1990s, and ran a seminar and gave a lecture. I was privileged to be able to attend both.


Here is his quote from page 102.

“This time the mask is in here hand. This tie the mask isn't needed, nature has provided the transformation.

Normally, the female adult in Gene’s pictures is his wife Madelyn. This time I’m unsure. And still, i think it is. For there is a rare level of intimacy in this image, of warm flesh, the whole body is ready and moving forward. And there is a ripeness, a willow thinness, and the sensuous curve of her jaw and chin and the fullness of her breasts. Thisis a real women fully alive.

In 1966 when this image was made, Gene was at the height of his visionary powers. We first mt the next year. I had just finished Graduate school and was beginning to teach in Ohio. Even before we settled in, a postcard arrived from Gene: “We hear you are ging to be good, send me your thesis, I want to show it at Eyeglasses of Kentucky.” Happily, I already recognised Gene as one of the three most important visionary photographers in America, so I did not hesitate.

Over the next five years we met at least a dozen times. In 1970, Gene travelled to Dayton to meet photographer-philosopher Frederick Sommer. Each recognized the other as a Master Artist. In spite of the many differences there was a genuine kinship. Both were visionaries of the fist order.”Life itself is not the reality. We are the ones who put life into stones and pebbles.” Sommer tells us. “If we did not dream, reality would collapse.”*

The work of Ralpg Eugen Meatyard is the work of an American original. Everything about his photography speaks for and of the right and importance of human imagination,If we did not dream, life would be less interesting.
*Frederick Sommer, “Frederick Sommer: 1939-1962 Photographs: Words Not Spent Today Buy Smaller images Tomorrow,” Aperture 10, no, 4[40] (1962): 163

The images in the book are finely reproduced even though many I have never seen before.

To hear a story about the relationship between two of my favourite photographers being described in such glowing terms make me glad I do what I do.

Roger Ballen also has a quote, along with Duanne Michals & Marvin Heiferman.

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Are Digital Cameras Computers?

I agree with Mike Johnston, from the Online Photographer. I only considered teaching students to use the auto focus settings on digital cameras once 1.8 lenses became cheap enough and I understood the implications of how shallow DOF is on digital cameras.


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Exposure Triangle?

I am currently the teaching Certificate IV Students how to use their digital cameras more effectively. One task revolves around using a simple calculator to work out a series different exposures. All ‘correct’ but some giving different outcomes based on shutter or aperture choice. I don’t allow the students to change ISO in this task. This idea is often referred to as the exposure triangle. In the days of teaching film the ISO was always locked in a single place. Students then only needed to understand the relationship between image brightness and aperture and shutter.
I was unhappy with the way the students responded to this task.
In an effort  to find another way of explaining or teaching it I opened three books. Those books were:- 'Reframing Photography Theory and Practice’, 'Photography 4.0 A teaching guide for the 21st Century' and 'Digital Photo Assignments, Projects for all levels of Photography Classes'. None of these excellent books draws a string around the 3 principles involved in image brightness and exposure? Is this a deliberate choice? Do the editors and writers of these books not consider the relationship meaningful enough for a section or a paragraph?
A quick google returns an enormous amount of information. It seems I will have my work cut out for me formulating a new way to teach this idea.

[edit 2019-04-03] I found two more books in my library that could offer some interpretation or explanation. These are, Langford's Basic Photography and Horenstien's Black and White Photography, a  Basic Manual. Both are pre-digital books and as a consequence approach the idea from a film angle. That is; that it, exposure is fixed at the ISO level. In good news. I took my students out to practice. The idea may be sinking in now. we shall see?

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