Photography

I have been meeting quite a few photographers these days. And there is so much diversity among them. I met a group for a photoshoot at dawn who were technically very well equipped. They had the latest DSLRs and an assortment of lenses. Some of them tended more towards wildlife photography. Their concern was deeply technical. For example, are the veins in the eye of the kingfisher clear enough? Is the bokeh behind some exotic bird perfect? Or, are we getting enough detail on the clouds while retaining colour in the shadowy foreground. All aspects of technical perfection. Of course, their equipment did help them achieve this.

But for me, as I might have said before, the technical aspects are only the underlying language of photography. They are essential and without an understanding, it might not be possible to make a diversity of good photographs. But photography is much more than that. It is a way of life. It is self-expression, the way we look at the world. The way the little ironies of life make us smile. The way we find relation amoung the most discrete of things. Photography is not about being textbook and trying to replicate something that is a benchmark.

Personally, I find the drive for technical perfection in photography constraining, and contradictory to the fabric of freedom that art is.