Photography or Something Else. An interesting link

I have followed Mike Johnstons TOP Blog for many years. This post struck a chord. . It is about a question that I have asked myself many times. Am I interested in photography, or am I more interested in what I am photographing?

Maybe in the early days I was interested in photography and the process of making a picture. When I did a lot of hiking in our Apennine mountains, I often wondered why I was here. Was it to make pictures, or to make pictures to document my hike, and serve as a memory of a day out? I made some nice Blurb books of my hikes, so photography was just an accessory.

But when I did performing arts photography for our provincial theatre, I believe it was mostly the technical and artistic challenge I enjoyed. But it was fun learning about the inner mechanisms of Theatre, Dance and Opera. Jazz was a bit different, I enjoyed photographing my some of my favorite artists and discovered others. My Jazz photography is my strongest performing arts photography, because I already loved the subject and was already quite knowledgeable bout the music and musicians.

A couple of years ago I became curious about medieval architecture, after a chance visit to a Pieve with some strange carvings. I enjoy the technical challenge of documenting these old historic buildings to a level beyond the mostly horrible cell phone type image we see posted to web, when I research a site.

So I quess it it a variable answer to the original question.

I didn't get into serious photography until I started fixing and selling wrist-watches on eBay. I was instantly plunged into the world of DOF, macro, sharpness, color accuracy and fancy lighting because a really good image helped to sell the product. First I bought a Nikon D50 and their 60mm G model macro. Somehow the D50 was never really sharp so I moved to a Sigma SD9 and their 70mm true macro.

So, back then, my primary interest was in the subjects and photographic interest was secondary.

I have mostly stopped reading gear reviews, I think I have all the lenses I will ever need, maybe more than I need. My present Z7 D850 do everything I want them to do and the more upmarket cameras have nothing to offer, for my photography. Progress in software is still interesting. Capture One HDR combinations give me the DR that no camera sensor can achieve. The HDR software I use, even makes nice composites of hand held pictures, as long as I am careful with the framing.

We seem to have come to a full stop with camera development, for most practical purposes.

On the technical front, I am interested in the possibilities shift lenses give me to photograph architecture. I am interested in delving into those areas where textbooks never seem to go, such as diagonal shift. I hope after 40 years, I have got all the settings stuff down to second nature, as well as a lot of compositional concepts.

At the moment I am somewhat bored with photography for photography's sake. I have become fascinated by medieval art and my Romanic documentation project is as much about appreciating this often strange art, as it is photographing it. I spend a lot of time reading and researching.

Hi Fi is were my GAS is at right now, the search for the perfect set of headphones still illudes me. HiFi GAS is far more dangerous than photography GAS as perfection is far more nebulous, and snake oil flows freely in this sector.

Maybe it is like a see saw. on one side we have an interest in documenting something that interests us or maybe just documenting a place we are visiting to make a reminder of a nice day out. On the other we are interested in learning about and experimenting with the technical issues that make our picture more interesting and presentable, this includes leaning what new gear can do for us.

The see saw rises and falls on each side.

For me, the equipment is a means to an end. However, I'm not always interested in what I'm photographing. Usually, my interest is the emotion the scene instills in me. That is, I'm usually interested in creating a photo that recreates the emotion of why I wanted to take the photo in the first place. Thus, I understand that the vast majority (if not all) of my photography holds little appeal for people aside from myself, because they were not there seeing the same scene and experiencing the same emotions as I was.

I mean, sure, some may like a few of my photos simply because they appeal as "eye candy", and others may like a few of my photos of "interesting" or unusual things. But, on the whole, I don't think my photos have much appeal to most people, except for those times that a photo I have taken "inspires" an emotional response in them based on their experiences and "emotional makeup", which are likely all together different than mine.

This is one of the reasons I'm such an "IQ whore". When looking at other people's photos, I don't have any connection to them -- I wasn't there, never had been there, don't know anything about the scene (aside, perhaps, from the photographer's account, but those are their thoughts/emotions, not mine), and don't necessarily care about the scene at all, to be honest. However, a photo with "High IQ" displayed large allows me to appreciate the photo better as "eye candy" or gives me more to work with in terms of creating an "emotional response" to the scene.

Anyway, I'm not a commercial photographer. I take photos for myself, not other people. I'm always happy to share my photography, of course, and pleased when people like my photos. But when people don't like my photos, I'm not bothered by it at all -- in fact, it's expected.

It is funny, though -- because on DPR I almost always posted on technical subjects (DPR is, after all, a technical site) people always assumed that I had no interest in photography aside from nerding out on the equipment and science behind it, as if one can't appreciate photography from more than one angle. The irony, of course, is that my interest in photography is far more in the artistic sense than the technical sense! 😂

The Sigma 70 / 2.8 macro, both the original and the "Art" versions (I own both), are seriously underrated lenses.

Looking at others peoples shots is another can of worms.

I enjoy looking a well photographed sets of pictures of places and things I am never likely to see. Bird pictures mostly turn me off, but they are good to look at when the photographer has the skill and knowlege about the subject to di it well. This goes for other genres as well.

William Eggleston type photography of fragments of everyday buildings and stuff leave me cold. Most of this photography, just like most conceptual photography is just bullshit to my eyes.

I can often learn a lot from looking at photographs by photographers at the top of their game, who shoot things like Architecture, which I like to shoot too. I look how they composed the shot, and sometimes I can pick ot errors too.

Probably among one of the best uses of photography. Photography at the service of some other interest.

Absolutely! If you want to sell photos of Skye then set up a gallery in Skye and sell to those who have a memory they wish to take home, portrait sessions are for the memories of close family, weddings the same. I do buy the photos of others, there are some exceptional photographers, but I tend to buy the books, the collections, (Mann, Weston, Strand, Adams, Emerson, Curtis, Smith, etc... Oh why are the Tish Murtha books out of print!!).

Yes, photos resonate with memory, and so there is not objective truth that is an absolute property and contained within a photo. We use our memory to make sense of a photo, what it means to us is attached to our memory. So if your memory of photography is mainly a dispassionate scientific analysis based on a scientifically correct analysis of how a camera works, then you will tend to form a habit of looking for and categorising that photo by those very metrics you understand.

This is pretty much the opposite of how you develop an emotive understanding. The two are not exclusive, but to develop an understanding of emotive response to images you must stop trying to rationalise them by logical process. The problem with image IQ is that it's defined entirely by the camera and not by human memory or emotion, same as aperture, shutter and ISO. So take a portrait of someone you know and care for, do it with ramdom settings, use P-landscape mode or something, but forget about it. Just take photos looking only at the subject you care for. Then review the images and see if you can do it without rationalising which is best in terms of correct dof/sharpness/noise, see if you can do it entirely by which facial expressions are the ones that resonate most with your memory. I'm not saying you can't do it, just that it's a skill we very quickly forget and get out of the habit of using. We prefer to make sense of things, and prefer the reason to be logical, so we look for the logic rather than the emotion.

Often works the other way around, if you leave gaps or create ambiguity then we often make sense by resolving that and the only place we can go to do that is our memory. Say I wanted to write a song about a painful break-up, if i included precise details about my break-up I make it unique to my memory and my memory alone. If I want to appeal to a wider audience then I need to make the story more generic. If I go a stage further I can deliberately abstract, swap the odd word by throwing a dart at a dictionary, change words around in sentences. That abstraction allows us to connect with our own memory.

If people listen to the song when having their own break-up and it resonates then that melody is also associated with emotion. And so the vocabulary of pop is created, certain musical sounds have emotive meanings, some fit and resonate better than others, become more universal.

A photo of Skye will resonate best with someone who has a fresh memory. You can use the tried and tested universal language and your audience will be larger, or be more experimental where it will resonate with a smaller audience, and you need to know how to achieve this. But you also need to be able to view the results with your passion alone, you need to be able to view a photo and discover how you feel without rationalising by any metric. If you measure by how a camera works you inveriably end up along the lines of the camera's measurable performance dictating the form of the image rather than the photographers understanding of how to engage an audience.

Oh why are the Tish Murtha books out of print!!

Why? I was amazed at this photographers work. A working class photographer who recorded a working class area from the inside. Why is she not more famous should be the question? I have to compare her work with that of Martin Parr, who gives me the impression of a middle class guy sneering at the lower orders at times, especially with his most famous set of pictures.

Photographic fashion has migrated towards conceptual photography, it is a safe choice for gallery shows, you can be edgy, without asking questions or disturbing consciences. Documentary photography as was practiced by Murtha is a little too uncomfortable for todays society.

Compare the first two photos here. Poor IQ absolutely ruins the first photo, even though one might have otherwise preferred it due to composition (the Moon was in the frame of the first, but not the second). Aside from the first photo, the photos in that set have more or less the same IQ, so one can more easily choose based on scene/composition.

My point is that IQ matters. How much it matters depends on the scene and composition, of course, and "High IQ" does not automatically mean "Successful Photo" just as "Low IQ" does not automatically mean "Unsuccessful Photo". For example, here's a "Low IQ" photo I took that is one of my personal favorites:

In some cases, a photo may be "successful" in part due to its "Low IQ". This photo might even be an example of that:

And, of course, each person has their own "Quality Threshold" where "Higher IQ" beyond that point does not influence the "success" of the photo even when IQ is an important consideration. For example, one might be hard pressed to discern an IQ difference between a photo from my 5D ("ancient" 13 MP FF) and my R5 (modern 45 MP FF) were I to take a photo of the same scene and display them at web size, depending on the scene, of course.

Anyway, for me, IQ typically matters -- at the very least, it gives me more processing options (I've processed "High IQ" photos to have "Low IQ" for "artistic" reasons). However, I have long said that the IQ of modern cameras (and many not-so-modern cameras) is well beyond the "good enough" point for the types of scenes most people show at the size they show them.

I believe it depends on the subject and what the viewer expects. Thre are situations and types of photography, where image quality takes a back seat.

Robert Capa's, picture of D Day, is grainy, blurred and out of focus. Most photographers would consider it a failure. But it is probably the defining picture of the D Day landings. Coming back to my OP, this is pure interest in subject over photography as a process.

Pictures of my near and dear, as well as the various cats we have owned are probably the pictures that get most appreciation. I made an album after our last cat died. Its a mix of pictures that range from careful FF shots, through to iPhone snaps. It's the only one of my Blur albums that my wife and son ever pull from the bookcase. They like the content, even if some of the pictures have pretty bad IQ. Family snapshots are all about content and memories.

Image quality is important in other types of photography. Bird photography were you cannot see feather detail is generally considered to be a fail. Peole want a top notch description of a bird or other wildlife.

Right now my obsession is architectural photography. Again coming back to the OP. I enjoy the process. I find it relaxing, setting up the camera on a tripod, getting all the technical things like focus, depth of field right. Also deciding the technical choices like wether HDR is needed, come into play. Obviously making a good composition is the most challenging part. But with this type of photography anything even slightly out of focus or blurred, or with burnt out highlights or blocked shadow is a fail.

Pictures of building with keystoning, or which are out of focus, or even well framed shots with random people wandering through the frame are failures.

Not really my point:

Ok, so to the photos you linked to (yours?). I am absolutely not making any critical judgement on the photos, their success, or the methods employed, all things are valid and I'm simply making observations.

IQ is defined by the level of light, if it is low IQ will be affected. There is not really a lot you can do about it, if light levels are low you will be making compromises and there are two questions that arise from this:

1) How will this affect my photo?

2) How will my audience respond to this?

Your technical knowledge answers the first question, but not the second one. The linked photos, and again I'm not making any critical judgement, purely observation. I've seen a sunrise or two, and taken a photo or two, so it's obvious to see that the images have been processed. They are shot with IQ in mind and so highlights are not clipped and the resulting images have been heavily tone-mapped. Shadows, sharpness, contrast, all adjusted. Take a look at the blue sky in the 619 and 622, there is quite a shift in colour. The interesting point is not about the success of the photos or any critical judgment on them, the interesting point is that we are looking at a series of highly edited photos and treating them as though they represent an objective reality of what was actually there.

"524AM, the camera was starting to pick up colors that I couldn't see with the naked eye"

Why do photographers try to link the photos to an objective truth? In a highly edited photo the colours are also highly edited, if you didn't see them then the edit is tuned to your "emotive response", simply it looks nicer. Where does the truth of the colour come from?

The problem with IQ is that it is defined by the camera, if you edit for the best IQ then the way the camera works and your understanding of it is absolutely defining the outcome, it is creating the limits within which you work.

We are still only on question 1), we have not addressed question 2).

The important point about the Capra photo is not about relating the success to a measurable quality (question 1), but in understanding that it's emotive impact is the result of a random "abstraction", an accident that was neither planned nor expected (question 2). I find there is a resistance on photo forums to accepting the random nature of emotive response, there is a reluctance to let go of the rational framework, that precise control gives precise results that communicate a truth. It's not about abandoning that knowledge, but understanding that question 2), emotive response, is random and abstract by nature. Measurinng photos with physics will not reveal the answer.

Absolutely, agree with your whole post.