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Some Thoughts on Digital Photography as a Hobby |
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Introduction Since the word photography covers a wide range of possibilities, I had better start off describing the scope of this article -- what it will deal with, and what it will not. I work with a digital, not a film, camera. I am primarily interested in nature photography, though that is a big category, covering everything from scenic images of mountains, rivers, seashores, and so on, to living things, small or large, single or in groups. It may even include the more abstract forms and colors of the natural world. I surely don't feel constrained in my field of interest! This writing is not an explanation of "how-to" in the technical sense. My readers may have little in common in terms of interest, experience, know-how, and certainly in equipment. To dwell on technical details would be of little use in a short article. While we differ from one another in many ways, we all have in common an understanding that our attitudes and expectations do affect our enjoyment of life, and that what we bring to our experiences can add to, or diminish, their life-enhancing qualities. The present article is in the spirit of that understanding. * *
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Some Background I have been interested in photography since I was about 16 years old. Over the next 45 years, I had cameras of various formats and, in different circumstances, several darkrooms to process the film and paper in. There are some old photos left from those years, and the memory of the odors of the chemicals of the darkroom, and that is about all. More of my time was taken in dealing with images in other ways -- illustrated books of art, galleries, and drawing and painting off and on. But the desire to work with photographic images never left me. About three years ago, I bought a moderately expensive digital camera, and so entered into a new way of indulging in my love of images. For me, the main thing that makes digital photography superior to film photography is the change in the nature of "darkrooms". That is, instead of spending lots of money and time in a dark, dank, and smelly darkroom, I now do the same sort of work comfortably sitting at my computer. * *
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My Camera
My camera is an Olympus C 2100 Ultra Zoom digital camera. It can take an image of 2.1 megapixels (a megapixel is 1 million dots of color). While I have developed some grumpy opinions about it in the course of taking thousands of pictures, overall it has been a very satisfactory investment. On the negative side, it is physically somewhat clumsy. A "slip into a pocket" camera, it is not. Though one is seeing through the lens in the act of composing the shot, the view is digital, not optical. That means I never see a truly sharp image, especially when taking close-up shots. Serious digital photographers who can afford to do so now purchase true single lens reflex cameras on which they can mount the lenses they already own. Perhaps I'll win a lottery someday, and can get one of these fine instruments. But since I never buy lottery tickets, the odds are against me, I suppose. On the plus side, my camera has an optical zoom lens that is 10 power, or 10X. This is the range of magnification of the scene from the camera's widest angle setting to its strongest telephoto setting. However, if you are familiar with the resulting image of a normal 50 millimeter focus lens on a 35 mm camera, then imagine a telephoto lens of 350 mm on the same camera. This is about a 7X lens in terms of magnification. That 7X means I can get seven times closer to my subject without actually moving. I can "reach out" to the subject, and this is why I recommend having a zoom lens, or long interchangeable lenses. The technology of digital photography is changing so fast that my camera is already somewhat outmoded. * *
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Ruminations
Most people like taking pictures. Less popular is doing something useful with the pictures later, after they come back from the photo-processor. The images pile up in closets and drawers, sometimes to be brought out in a spilling handful to be riffled through, as one searches for one or two images that are remembered. Some more well-organized people keep neat photo albums. A few paragons, usually older citizens, carefully mark the names and dates of the images. These saints are lucky if friends and family ever look through their albums. Still, the hope renews like Spring in most of us that the days and years of our lives can be honored and recorded in some way, to enjoy, to hand down to younger generations the news of The Way It Was. This seems to me to be one of our most touching sentiments. I know of a person, now deceased, who made hundreds of video recordings to share with others. This rarely happened while he was alive, and and few people look at them now. Such is life, at least modern life. The qualities of patience and concentration and slow appreciation are no more strained than that of mercy. Why are such ruminations relevant? To have nature photography as a hobby is to return to a personal enjoyment of those qualities cited above because that's the only way it can be done. Maybe that is true also of most hobbies. They give a reason to slow down, to enjoy working with tools, to have small reachable goals, to simply devote the best of oneself to the task at hand. * *
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The Photography
Lessons
The first lesson is anticipation. Just as all good books are mysteries, though the mystery may not be "who done it", perhaps all worthwhile hobbies are a form of hunting -- thinking of and learning about the quarry, making preparations, being there in readiness, knowing the paradox of being in sympathy with the quarry to bring it to oneself. I do admit here it is one of the fine things about hunting with a camera, that the quarry goes on unharmed about its way, though its image is mine. Anticipation is an attitude and a habit of mind. I find myself falling into it when I am in the field, relaxed and feeling part of the time and place rather than being an intruder. Here is a photo that illustrates anticipation. |
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This bull House Sparrow and I were each perched on a wall one day. I was taking pictures of ducks, and he was checking out the area for food opportunities. I noticed him looking this way and that, and I slowly got into position to take his picture. I made my preparations and took two shots of him as he looked brightly about. But this is the image I wanted. I saw it in my mind, and when he finally glared at the big rude eye of the camera, I pressed the shutter. Not all good shots are taken as the result of anticipating the shot beforehand, but it definitely increases the number of successful photos. * *
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Another lesson is the importance of cropping the image to achieve the best composition for the subject. An image that works its way past the retina and burrows down into the feelings must be all of a piece; every part of it must contribute to the final effect. My guess is that very few successful candid images have not been cropped, however slightly. It is difficult, and often impossible, to perfectly frame a candid shot because it is taken in the midst of life with all its motion, its change. It is hard enough to get a decent image at all, let alone a perfectly composed one. Here is an image
sent to me by a friend who is learning digital photography. She has
a more recent camera that has a 3 megapixel capability, compared to my 2.1
megapixels.
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Her image is a snapshot image that records a scene. It shows the takins, which are goat-antelopes from the eastern Himalayas. But without a telephoto lens she could not "reach out" for the shot. Below is a cropped section I took from this photo. |
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See one of the little ones butting another as they play, learning how to be a proper takin? And most of the fence is gone, which distracts so much. There is now a greater visual simplicity and more punch in an emotional sense than before. There is another important lesson here, too. My friend's camera has a greater pixel resolution than mine; therefore, her photos can be cropped more than mine and still have a sharp image. This means that a higher resolution image can achieve much the same result as that from a camera with a telephoto lens. |
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The final lesson is in the importance of taking responsibility for the final product. Getting the picture is only the first necessary step toward the creation of an image worth presenting to others to view. Here is an image that, while it had promise, was not presentable as it was originally, nor did it come close to what was in my eyes and in my mind as I took the picture. |
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There are many things that needed to be changed in the above image. The primary subject is too small and the water is dull. The tonal range of the photo is too narrow, which flattens the scene and robs it of interest. In fact, the look of this was partly due to a deliberate underexposing of the image because this allows a more effective darkroom manipulation of the tones. The final picture is below. |
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By using the tools of the "digital darkroom", meaning image manipulation software, I was able to restore the original colors and gain a wider tonal range. A slight fuzzing of the image, due to cropping and enlarging, was corrected by using the software's "sharpening" function. The photo was cropped and composed exactly as I wished, to get the effect I thought would work the best. (There is some degradation of the image from the JPEG compression necessary for this website.) * *
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Summing Up
So if you are interested in photography, I hope these comments may be of use to you. But if your interests lie elsewhere, perhaps something in this writing will still be of value, even if only corroborating thoughts of your own. No matter how advanced we become in our technology, and no matter how distracted and dilettantish we allow ourselves to be, the things worth doing will always require patience, care, imagination, and skill to bring to achievement. That won't change, ever. And that is a good thing because it means we, however harried, can always pick up the tools of our avocations and begin to create something and, in the process, return to our simpler and truer selves. [End of article]
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