I had a new student in the studio this morning. The greatest challenge I face photographically is trying to distill down 30 years of learning and experience into 90 minute lesson plans that can immediately impact the student’s ability to realize their photographic vision. I am currently reading Within The Frame by David duChemin and identify closely with his philosophy that the technical aspects of photography are important, but as a means to an end. Mastering the technical side allows a photographer to seamlessly execute their vision without having to think about the settings.
For the image above I only had a brief window that the fisherman and his boat were going to drift into alignment with the early morning sun. Without taking my eye away from the viewfinder I was able to make the exposure adjustments to silhouette him against the morning fog and warm yellow light. Within mere minutes this shot was no longer available. The fog burned off quickly as the sun rose and heated the early morning air.
The lure of the gear is always strong, many of us love the technical aspects of this craft, but at the end of the day the best gear in the hands of someone lacking vision will yield high tech boring images. Don’t approach your photography with the attitude that “if only I had…”. The real challenge is to decide what moves you and how can you express it with your available resources. Some of my favorite images were created with a very pedestrian Minolta XD-11 and Rokkor manual focus lenses.
Challenge yourself to MASTER the exposure triangle – aperture, shutter speed and ISO. These three settings can make or break your images. More and more ISO is improving and becoming less of a factor. At the end of the day if you understand the impact of aperture and shutter speed on your images you have the power to craft images that will allow you to convey what it is about the subject that moved you to photograph it in the first place.
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