I remember being really fascinated with my dad's old mechanical rangefinder. I must have been five or something. Perhaps it has to do with being a boy after all, cause I remember that I kept on cocking the shutter and firing it over and over again, studying the mechanics of each and every part of the camera.
Robert Capa, The Falling Soldier
Sometimes I'm looking into the viewfinder, playing pretend that I was taking a snapshot of something, anything, as I whiled away those long lazy weekday afternoons in my grandma's house in Taman Midah. (Because it's a rangefinder, it had a lens which focuses - how fascinating!)
Sometimes I'm peering right into the lens from the front, trying to see what happened when I fired the shutter. And more often than not, I opened the back of the camera to see how it all works, poking my little fingers here, there, everywhere there're moving parts. I would wiggle my finger into the centre of the shutter and let the diaphragms of the shutter close on it! (Gasp! - if Dad knew, he'd kill me.)
Henri Cartier Bresson, Behind the Gare St. Lazare
At the end of its life, I remember the cheap orange plastic cover on the shutter was well-worn to the point that you're actually just pressing a piece of metal the width of a clip. But hey, at least it was well worth its weight in gold having provided a five-year old with countless hours of wonder, eh?
My fascination didn't end there. Many a times I found myself behind a point-and-shoot camera, entrusted by the adults in the room (or whole dinner banquets) to be the photographer. Many a times, I've climbed up onto chairs or slid down onto the floor to "cover a shot". Many a times, I've been asked to help load up a new roll of film.
And I often wondered to myself then -
What was so difficult about taking a picture?
How come the adults can't just seem to grasp the simple concept of holding it still, and peering into the viewfinder, examining each side and corners to see what you're covering to compose?
Don't they know that you should actually press the shutter down halfway first to focus, even on a cheap point-and-shoot?
And what was so hard about loading a roll of film?"
Perhaps I've got a bit of a talent for it (or I thought I did anyway). Nevertheless, I didn't pursue this passion any further until we had photography classes during my college years. With the transition to digital cameras then (a whopping 1.6 megapixels!), film cameras were on the brink of getting obsolete.
Much like what still happens to amateurs all over the world today, a friend who bought an SLR (and didn't spend little on it) lost interest and wanted to get rid of it to buy a compact digicam. So for a mere RM500, I got myself a beginner's film SLR. A Canon 500N, if I remember correctly.
And I then found myself being able to do what the 'pros' do - shallow depth of field. I would make shallow depth of field in every picture. Even when the picture doesn't justify it. Even when you needed more details in the background. Even on boring subjects like a stick of Chapstick on a table smack right in the middle of the picture.
It was so bad, my own pictures bore me.
I thought I had talent. Surely, with an SLR, I should be getting better? Yet, I was worse off.
And it couldn't get more obvious when I had a chance to go to HK back in my uni days. I snapped away a few rolls of film. When I had them developed, nothing stood out. Nothing.
Sure, there was a pic of the HK night lights with long exposure taken with a tripod which wasn't too bad. But you could just as well bought a postcard shot by a pro which looks at least 10 times more amazing.
"So what was the point then?" I asked myself. I don't have the money for the equipment that the pros use, so how could I ever be as good?
And so I gave up. The SLR was relegated to back of a cupboard.
What opened my eyes later when I got to join a photography class as an elective in the final semester at RMIT.
They didn't teach me how to use a camera. They didn't talk much about apertures and shutter speeds. Didn't bring up anything about lenses or f-stops either.
Instead, we were taught about Henri Cartier Bresson. Robert Capa. Ansel Adams. Arnold Newman. Dorothea Lange. Martin Munkacsi.
Arnold Newman, Igor Stravinski
Dorothea Lange, Migrant Woman
Martin Munkacsi, Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika
If you fail to appreciate great photos, how would you know if you had taken a good one?
You see, photography isn't about shallow depth of fields. Or the sharpness of a picture. Or what is currently now very trendy, lo-fi, overly blue/green/yellow colours.
Photography is a form of visual art. And as with art, it should have a purpose. And that purpose is to be conveyed within that 4 x 6 inch box (or whatever formats you're shooting in).
Is it to evoke a certain feeling? Is there a story about the person that you're telling? It is to awe your viewer with beauty? Is it to surprise with a point of view never before imagined? Is it to capture a moment for eternity, in Bresson's words - "the decisive moment''?
Pay attention to the form in your picture. To the lines and textures you're capturing. To the balance of objects within that 2D image. Note your framing. What are you leaving out of the picture? What are you leaving in? How "interesting" in this story you're about to capture? (Aptly, Flickr features photos based on "interestingness".)
That is why Bresson calls it "the decisive moment". Because in that one small instant when you release the shutter, you're making an informed decision about all these things in your mind.
If you're not thinking about all these things, you're just, in Ken Rockwell's words, "spraying and praying" - i.e. hoping for Lady Luck to be on your side and strike out with a somewhat good picture.
The camera is just the means to an end. It merely helps you create a great picture. It is never about the latest dSLR or the most expensive lenses (Bresson shot with one Leica all his life just because it was small enough for his purpose.)
I'm not saying that after I knew all this, I became a really good photographer. I'm saying that it is because I didn't know all this, that my interest in photography plateaued. Just like a lot of amateurs whose interest fizzle out and then leave their expensive SLRs to rot behind the cupboard.
I didn't get as good as I wish to be or I know I could be, and that's what frustrates me. I've quit once before because I didn't want to settle for mediocrity.
"Very Average Jeremy". Not too bad, but never great. Merely average.
Life's too short to spend it not trying to achieve greatness, don't you think?
So what would it take to become a great photographer?
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"Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple of years you make stuff, it's just not that good. It's trying to be good, it has potential, but it's not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And you taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get pass this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn't have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it's normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I've ever met. It's gonna take a while. It's normal to take a while. You've just gotta fight your way through."
Ira Glass (via Rabbit Write's interview on Gala Darling)