Let me explore each element in human terms. At one extreme we will find the Techno-Tubbies, whose unswerving devotion to the essential rightness of every technological advance is breathtaking in its thoughtless, naive simplicity. Bloatware bingers and feature-creepers to a man (and indeed exclusively male), many if not most are early adopters, eager to consume the latest and greatest even if it is barely teetering on the bleeding edge.
Technique is far less important than Technology, and Talent hardly figures at all. Why bother to learn the basics when you can rely on your whizz-bang, state of next-week's art, CaNikOny camera to do it all for you? Why concentrate on the essentials of getting a single shot right, when you can hose down your subject and pick the shot that works best? In the mind of the Techno-Tubby, quantity has a quality all of it's own, a bit like going large on your Big Mac – more must be better – mustn't it? Time spent at a location taking photos is kept to an absolute minimum in favour of time spent in front of Lightroom, Aperture or Photoshop, deciding on which shot is “best” and then “improving” it.
Our second group of extremists is the Techniquerats. To them, Technology is merely a tool and Talent something random, capricious and intangible and hence to be distrusted and downplayed. Like the Techno-Tubbies, they crave the newest and best, but only because it provides them with a platform to achieve a higher, purer state of nerdy Nirvana. The Techniquerats obsession is less with the tools and more with the sterile perfection of the end result. The Techniquerat spends hours poring over MTF graphs and debating which is sharper – a Global kitchen knife or a 50mm Summilux ASPH.
The Über Techniquerats of course eschew all forms of manufacturer or third party testing in favour of their own painstaking research, haunting hardware stores and stationers hunting down the optimum ruler to act as their unwilling subject in their quest for front (or back) focussing. Never as vociferous, as thin-skinned or as cocky as the Techno-Tubbies, a Techniquerat, if cornered, will adopt a pained expression and retreat to his shed with cries of “You just don't understand”
A splinter group of Techniquerats, the Bokeh Barons, obsess over out of focus areas, seeking the meaning of life, the universe and everything in each swirl and blur. The biggest frustration for the Bokeh Barons is that their particular fetish is in and of itself hard to quantify in objective terms so they are looked down on by the rest of the metronomically precise Techniquerat community. This causes them to sulk and to play with FSU lenses in fruitless attempts to prove them optically equivalent to Leica's finest.
Our third and final group, the Talent Scouts, are loathed and distrusted by the Techno-Tubbies and the Techniquerats in equal measure – and for good reason. The true Talent Scout lives in his right-brain to the extent of struggling with mundane and insignifiant matters like teabags, doorknobs and light-switches. Unworldly to a degree not seen since the glory days of Woodstock, the Talent Scouts make the capture of an eyeball-achingly beautiful image seem like child's play. It doesn't matter what camera they use – a Box Brownie, a Leica MP, a mobile 'phone or a webcam, everything is just – right.
A Talent Scout is always in the right place at the right time, blessed by lighting that Michaelangelo would have given Venus de Milo's right arm for. Every shot is pin sharp and perfectly exposed, except of course those that are deliberately and artfully out of focus or darker than an economist's heart. If you ask a Talent Scout what camera or lens or exposure he used he won't be able to tell you, simply because to him it really doesn't matter. Corner a Talent Scout and he really won't care.
Then there are the rest of us. The mere mortals that strive to balance all three sides of the equation in order to achieve an aesthetically pleasing end result. If we rely too heavily on non-existent talent, our images will turn out dull, uninteresting and as tedious to their audiences as a National Trust guidebook on the dry stone walls of England and Wales. If we overcompensate for our lack of talent with vast and expensive injections of technology we will end up with equipment that does everything for us including think. We will not learn, grow or improve because the technology will act as a crutch. Laziness will result, and will culminate in the watching of X-Factor catch-up shows on overcast Tuesday afternoons.
Consider for a moment the dubious benefits of “Auto-”; autofocus, auto-exposure, auto-iso, auto-color (sic), auto-levels, etc. Every element in an image averaged out, all randomness eliminated and with it all personality, verve, style and individuality. Or the levelling power of the burst-mode; no need to wait for the decisive moment, no need to concentrate, to observe, to develop a sense of timing – just put your finger on the trigger and pump away like an over-excited Bandido on Che's birthday. Pick the best later, eh, in the comfort of your own batchelor pad, with a Bud in one hand and a reheated pizza at your elbow.
The power of Three; keep them in balance, eh?
Technique – true technique – is something to be nurtured, practiced and perfected, and balanced with Talent and Technology. Learning how exposure works, either by using a basic camera or by turning your Hokey-Cokey 2000 to “manual” - is not just a liberating experience, it is a revelation. Learning to rely upon yourself instead of a faceless programmer in Osaka is part of growing up as a photographer and fulfilling your potential. In the UK, at least, it is possible to learn to drive on an automatic car only. Your licence is truncated, what you can drive is restricted. You can only ever have the gears changed for you by a CPU. Never will you feel that moment of adrenaline-fuelled satisfaction when you time a gearchange to the instant, dropping down at just the right moment to maximise the power of the engine as you sweep through that challenging set of curves, clipping the apex of each and powering out to the next straight. It's the same with photography – the sense of satisfaction that ensues when you finally see the photo that you made all the choices on is far greater than that when you pick from the lucky-dip SD card the shot that is infinitesimally better than the five before, and the 28 after.
Finesse is an art, not a range of beauty products. Timing is a skill, not a menu setting. A moment is singular, not plural. The true photographer picks his moment, plucks it from the stream of time, visualises it in his mind and captures it in his camera because he has decided, then and there, that it is special, worthy of preservation and of later display.
The lesson is simple – everything in moderation, especially moderation. Balance the triangle of the three Ts and satisfy your inner photographer.
- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.
