Garry Winogrand once said, “I photograph to see what the world looks like in photographs.” What? It looks like reality, surely. Isn’t that the whole point of taking pictures — to capture reality?
But most photographs, historically, and including Winogrand’s are in black and white. The world is not. And even if you used Kodachrome or a digital camera, the colors are exaggerated, more saturated than the colors your eyes see. And then, a photo of your house, for instance, is maybe 8 inches by 10 inches, while the house is immense. The photo is two-dimensional and the world is 3-D. And most of all, your photo has an edge, a frame around a portion of what you see in front of you. It is not reality at all, but a convention of how we picture the world.
This is one of the hardest lessons for the beginner, or the ordinary person to learn. Seeing photographically is imagining how an image will perform shrunk and separated from context. To see photographically is to see shapes, lines, colors, textures and not to see houses or people. Yes, they may be in there, but you have first to recognize the shapes, lines colors and all that. And be aware of them.
If you just see a subject, say, Aunt Trish, you may ignore the tree behind her looking like it’s growing out of her head, or you may take a picture of your car and not notice that half of it is blacked in shadow. You’re seeing a car, and not the patches of lights and darks that make the actual shapes your camera records.
Most people think in words, and so, they name what they see. That’s a horse; that’s a tree; that’s my Grandma Edna. The camera doesn’t understand words or names. It sees shapes, lines, patterns, textures. As artist Robert Irwin put it, “Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees.”
It takes some practice, some eye exercises, to train yourself to see. One online videomaker has suggested that whenever you have a spare moment, say, just sitting in your living room, to look around and see what may make a pattern, to spot contrasts of shape or color, to see abstract designs. You needn’t actually make a picture, but imagine things around you as if they were photographs. Make an imaginary frame.
I do this regularly. I take my point-and-shoot Canon and take as many photos as I can in a period of time, say an hour, and see how many of them, simple details rather than nameable items, and turn them into visual offerings.
Another photographer, Lee Friedlander, calls this “pecking,” and uses his camera to find possible images. Out of a roll of film (in the pre-digital days), he might wind up with only a few pictures worth showing the public, but the exercise keeps his eyes awake and noting the possibilities.
When I was teaching photography in the 1980s, I had an assignment I gave my students. I asked them to photograph something so that I couldn’t tell what it was. I warned them, I was really good at deciphering bits and pieces. They were not to simply make bad photos, out-of-focus or blurred images, but to see the shapes and lines extracted from context to hide their identities. (I can brag that only once in six years of teaching was I stumped. Usually, I spotted immediately the bits of clothesline, or the bottom of a teacup, or the stitching of a sole onto a shoe. To quote Captain Reynaud, “It is a game we play.”)
The world is made up of details. We assemble them into an experience we recognize — the neighborhood street, our children, the Grand Tetons, flowers in a vase — but each of these is constructed of details. Seeing the details vivifies the whole.
I have played with this exercise before, and even posted some of the images on this blog, when I spent an afternoon photographing all the circles I found. (link here)
I posted another on the patterns I found visiting my brother-in-law and “pecked” at the things in his house and yard. (link here).
And I did it again yesterday in the back yard and in the house. I’m sure you can guess the identity of the things in the pictures, but it is the abstract patterns I was seeing, ways to use shapes, lines, textures, colors to form an esthetic whole out of parts. I made 50 photographs in the space of about 40 minutes.
I don’t usually call these images art, although I don’t know what else to call them. They are ocular calisthenics, eye exercises, to help me focus on the seeing behind the naming.
Back when I was a teacher, and therefore knew nothing, so was able to pass on my knowledge to unsuspecting students, I had to teach a word I now only mention with contempt: composition. We all taught things like the “rule of thirds” and “focal point,” and where to place horizons or how much of a person to include in a portrait. We taught awareness of negative space, and keeping it interesting.
But long ago, it hit me that all these precepts had nothing to do with taking good photos. The word, “composition” implies a kind of blueprint or set of construction instructions. But I instead used the term “design.” And the secret to good design was never rules. It was awareness. “Design is your awareness of everything in the frame.” Want to chop someone’s head off at the top of the frame? Do it on purpose and it will work. Want to cut your landscape in half with a horizon? If you are aware of what you are doing, go ahead. Make that point.
Most people, making photographs, or drawings or paintings, focus on their subject, and don’t pay much attention to the backgrounds, or the framing, or the patterns of light and dark. They focus on what is named.
But if you look at all the great art of the past, and the famous photographs in your books, you see that the upper left corner, or the bit halfway in from the side, still has interest. It has not been ignored. Even a 17th century painting of a Dutch burger with a blank background has the precise color of that emptiness calculated and thought about. What a delicious blue-gray it is. Block out the rest of the picture and you will still get pleasure from the background.
Awareness is the secret to any art. Paying attention. The more you are aware of, the better your result will be.
I recently misplaced my camera on a trip. I don’t know where; I’ve checked and rechecked several places. So, it’s gone. These things happen.
Luckily, I have some older cameras stuck in a drawer and I pulled them out, went through an orgy of recharging all their batteries, and now have six working cameras, of various types and talents. Mostly, though, I was shocked to realize how many cameras I have bought and used over the years. Indeed, with all the newly recharged and working ones, the drawer also contained even older cameras that no longer can function at all — outdated technology. And all these were only the digital cameras. My history with the medium goes way back.
I have gone through scores of cameras over the years, including a bunch I had simply for the sake of collecting, including an old Kodak Medalist, the Super Ikonta B, and the Exa 1. I have bought at least a half-dozen Argus C3s — a camera built like a brick with a lens plonked on — that I habitually gave out to friends so they could make pictures for themselves.
But all that is just akin to collecting antiques. More immediately, it set me to thinking about a chronic disease I have suffered from through most of my life — a psychological problem. I have been a lifelong collector of cameras. But not just for the sake of collecting. It has been a lifetime of trading in what I had been using for what I believed would be a better tool. Of course, on the rational level, one knows perfectly well that the tool is only as good as the workman, and that a fancier camera isn’t going to make better photographs for me. Still, I constantly drooled over whatever was higher up on the photographic food chain.
And I started pretty low: When I was 10, I got a Kodak Hawkeye Brownie camera, a little plastic box with a tiny fixed lens. It used roll film and when I had shot my 12 pictures, I took the roll to the drugstore to have it developed and printed. What I got back were three-and-a-half inch, deckle-edged prints of fuzzy images with a tiny date printed in the margin. These were the standard family snapshots of the era — the late ’50s and early ’60s.
Then, over summer school vacation in 1965, I accompanied my grandmother on a trip across the Atlantic to visit her birth town in Norway, and I wanted a more “professional” kind of camera to take with me. This was truly the start of my neurosis. I visited the local camera store where the clerk — a doughy old smoker of smelly cigarettes — found me a used Praktica 35mm single lens reflex camera. This was the kind of camera with a flipping mirror behind the lens that popped up as you snapped the shutter button and exposed the film. Even then, most SLRs had a prism affixed so you could look through it to focus and frame. But my Praktica was of an older vintage. You had to hold the camera at chest level and look down into the ground glass viewfinder — a viewfinder exactly an inch by an inch-and-a-half, for a very tiny preview of what you were photographing. As you turned the knob to the next exposure, you also re-lowered your mirror.
In high school, I was a nerdy sort, and one of the AV team that set up projectors in classrooms for the teachers, or operated the reel-to-reel tape recorders. And I had a special job as the photographer for the school newspaper, and for that I had the school’s Crown Graphic — an old Graflex camera with the 4- by-5-inch plate holders. And I had access to the school darkroom, where I processed the giant negatives and made prints for the paper.
So, I knew I wanted a better camera for myself. My best friend had his own 35mm SLR, and it was a Miranda D. Oh, how I wanted one of my own, with its pentaprism on top, and a lever to advance the film instead of the windy-knob. I never got one. I couldn’t save up enough money.
But, with a trade-in of the old Praktica and some saved allowance cash, I could get a used Pentax Spotmatic, of the old, screw-mount lens variety. It got me through college. But there was always in the back of my mind this nagging need to have the best — the Nikon F, the top of the line in Single Lens Reflex technology. But they cost so much. I pined.
(I always seem to have had Pentaxes as a fallback. I’ve owned maybe a half dozen of them over the years and it was a Pentax that I took with me on our first trip through the West in 1981. A solid workmanlike camera.)
After I graduated, I got a job as a clerk in a camera store, working alongside a wizened old pro, who smoked (more accurately, chewed on) truly nasty cigars. And with my earnings, I was able to trade my Pentax in for the Nikon (used). You’d think that was enough. The prize with the Nikon came with the 55mm macro lens and the gorgeous 85mm long focus lens. Had to have those.
But I knew my photographic heroes worked with Leicas, and so, my heart was set on an ever-higher rung and I wanted, somehow to own a Leica. I magically came across an ancient Leica D, vintage 1937, being sold for a ridiculously cheap price (something like $50. The latest price for one on Ebay runs about $1500.) Mine came with the famed f/3.5 Elmar lens, and was an all-black model. I felt I had hit the jackpot.
The problem was such an old camera was missing some regular amenities, like a flash connection. And then one of our customers, a wealthy businessman who was a collector of Leicas, offered me a more modern Leica IIIf (“red dial,” ca. 1956) in an even trade for my old thing. It was chrome, not black, and had more shutter speeds and a flash connection. I took the deal.
The problem was that the then-current Leica was a bigger, better M3 Leica and I knew I had to have that. I also began collecting Leica accessories for my IIIf — telephoto and wide angle lenses, a light meter, a leather camera case — and I would have to give all them up for the upgrade.
And so, I upgraded. Then there was the M4, which was even better. Imagine how good my photos would be if only I had the Leica M4.
I had a new problem, however. The kind of photographs I wanted to make were highly detailed, sharply focused images, like those of Ansel Adams or Edward Weston, and the small, grainier 35 millimeter film I was using would never, ever achieve that look. I had to have a bigger negative.
And so began the climb up to the 120 film size with its two-and-a-quarter-inch square negatives. I got a Rolleicord, which was a highly respected twin-lens reflex camera (one lens above the other; one to focus with, one to make the image on the film). But, of course, the Rolliecord was the lower-price version of the even-better Rolleiflex. Huff and puff. More trading and I got the Rolleiflex with the f/2.8 lens. But while I got the bigger negatives, I had regressed to looking down to my waist into the ground glass on the top of the camera, where the mirror sent the image.
And so, the next insanity was to lust for the medium format SLR, and the top of the heap was the camera we all considered the BMW of cameras: The Hasselblad. This Swedish camera was what the Big Boys used. Avedon; Penn.
But by this time, I was no longer working at the camera store, and the Hasselblad cost as much as a Volkswagen (or it seemed like it). Eventually, I found a used one and felt I had reached the pinnacle. I owned a Hasselblad.
Unfortunately, just at that point, I went through the equivalent of a divorce, moved from North Carolina to Seattle, went unemployed for a bit and had to sell my Hasselblad. I went through some hard times, had to sell my darkroom equipment and was left with a series of Pentax cameras (newer vintage, with click-mounted lenses). My life was saved by meeting my second official wife (married for 35 years until her death seven years ago), moved to Phoenix and got my dream job writing for the daily newspaper and taking my own photos for my stories.
You would think that would be the end. But ye of little faith (or too much). The small 35mm camera was fine for my newspaper work, but for my personal photography, I began to think about large format cameras. Since using the 4X5 Graflex in high school, I had in mind to finally acquire a large-format field camera, and got a really nice Toyo, with the Super-Angulon lens that was my perfect idea of the perfect lens for the perfect camera. I dragged it around the desert to make landscapes.
But — you knew this was inevitable — Edward Weston used an even bigger camera, one using 8-by-10 inch film. This was truly a camera the size of a Volvo. It weighed as much as a set of barbells. I found an old, beat-up Deardorff with an uncoated lens and three film holders.
Of course, that is exactly when the photographic world went digital. And the whole stupid thing started all over again. I bought a 2-megapixel Nikon Coolpix 800. Which led to a 3.5-megapixel Coolpix 880, a Canon ELF (the size of a cigarette pack), and on it went. Manufacturers kept upping the megapixelage for sharper images at larger sizes, and I kept up with them.
I found what felt was the perfect camera, the Nikon Coolpix P300, with its 12.2 megapixels and a high-contrast black-and-white mode available, along with the ability to make panoramic images. I thought it was my final camera.
And it would have been, I believe, except that after several years, it stopped working. I needed to replace it but by then, it was no longer being made. I had to find something else. What I found was the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FV35 which was the smallest, flattest pocket-size camera I knew. It had an exceptionally wide lens and had a 10 megapixel sensor. I loved that camera. But then, for some reason, it developed a dark spot in the image, like a dust speck on the lens. But no matter how much I cleaned the lens, it wouldn’t go away. I bought the newer 12-megapixel Lumix DMC-FX 48, which was otherwise identical to its predecessor. It eventually got the spot, too.
I was taken by the idea that a larger sensor might improve the image (larger physically, not just in number of pixels), and bought the Olympus Pen E-PL1, a 12.2 megapixel box with interchangeable lenses. I also bought an Olympus fe 5020 point-and-shoot for my wife (also 12 megapixels, but about one-fifth the size).
I also needed a full-size SLR, and my old Canon EOS Rebel was quite outdated, and since my wife and I were taking a trip to Alaska, I decided to replace it with an improved model, with extra wide-angle and extra telephoto lenses to go along with it, and got the Canon T5, with its 18 megapixels. It is still my go-to camera for most important things.
And there it would have ended but for the my need for something smaller than the T5 or the Olympus Pen, something I could slide into my pocket. And so, I ended up with the Canon PowerShot SX610 HS (The names for camera models is just as insane as those for proprietary drugs). It was 20 megapixels. I say “was,” because that is the camera I lost. I hope that it will turn up some day.
When I was young, I thought that each time I upgraded my camera, my pictures would get better. And, you know, over the years, from 1965 to 2024, it was true that my pictures got better. Strangely, though, I now recognize that any improvement wasn’t because I got better cameras, but because, after tens of thousands of images, I became a better photographer, merely through practice. It never was the camera. (I’ve made some of my favorite images with a $10 Diana toy camera).
In fact, the fancier new model digital cameras get, the more bells and whistles, the less I want. If only I could find a point-and-shoot small enough for my pocket with a wide-angle lens (no zoom needed), and no extra “filters,” no face recognition, no video mode — just a very basic still camera — I would be very happy. I think.
Addendum: I know at least a couple of retired newspaper photographers who may recognize this pattern in themselves. I believe it is largely a male thing and extends well beyond merely photographic equipment. I know of men who start out with a Schwinn, have graduated to a VW Beetle, eventually to get a Ford Falcon station wagon (with a mattress in the back), to a Chevy, to a Honda, and on to a BMW and finally to owning two Porsches (one in the back yard for parts to keep the other one running.)
But it could be anything, from knives or guns, to audiophile stereo systems and expensive speakers. Since I do the cooking in the house, I have gone through something like it with cookware, finally owning top-of-the line skillets and mixing bowls.
Women may show a similar climb as they move on from husband No. 1, each time getting a better, more mature, responsible and thoughtful model, finally achieving what is usually called a “keeper.”
Richard Nilsen 