Technical ability or created skills

medwaygreen

medwaygreen

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Richard
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I have for over 40 years looked at photography as a technical problem,always trying to get the best exposure,etc,etc,etc, out of the camera and I think that is shown in my posts. I will not post unless I believe there is some photographic technical success.

Now you all know that the brilliant creative film photographers on the site have a different agenda.

My question is how do they do that, the technical and creative ability combined in what we see as a truly remarkable photograph.

I would like to know even at my age, come you great guys spill the beans.
 
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medwaygreen said:
My question is how do [the brilliant creative film photographers on the site] do that, the technical and creative ability combined in what we see as a truly remarkable photograph.

I would like to know even at my age, come you great guys spill the beans.
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The last sentence makes it difficult to respond, but since I struggle equally with the technical and creative aspects, I'll have a go.

I don't think anyone can make a satisfying photograph without combining the technical and the creative (artistic) aspects. Now that feels a bit untrue as I have in the past made some satisfying pics without really understanding the technical aspects, but I suspect that was a combination of having a decent camera that took care of most of the technical aspects, and "standing in front of interesting stuff" in decent light. But doing it on demand is much more difficult (like, for instance, making a satisfying, noticeable photo on the theme of "space"). My idea is to put in my 10.000 hours so that the technical aspects become more automatic, while concentrating on the creative aspects as best I can, rather than on buying new gear (ducks).

Anyway, you're doing yourself down, some darn fine pics have come from you, Richard!
 
Wow, this is a very difficult question to answer....and its something that I have given quite a lot of thought to, sadly without coming up with anything like an answer.

For me, getting a sharp, clean, image is important (whether film or digital) and so technically I want kit and film which will provide that. Artistically I don't think I have really developed an 'eye' for a shot like some people have and the shots that I do take that please me or others are generally more luck than judgement...but, I am getting better at spotting the things that are needed to make a good image. This is not a natural gift though but a learned skill, some people seem to have a natural ability to spot a good shot, I don't.
Conversely there are some shots that I see and like which technically are not very good but which just please my eye and with these I cannot even begin to say what it is that makes me like them...confused? Yes!

Anyway, sorry I wasn't much help Richard, this was mainly just me thinking out loud and I would be very interested to hear others thoughts on this.

Andy
 
You have both in the context of the post been most helpful,but,the conundrum is still there.

My question is how do they do that, the technical and creative ability combined in what we see as a truly remarkable photograph.
 
I feel that creative ability is a natural occurrence it is not something that can be learnt - it is something that is within you. It is the same with artists, not everyone can draw and paint but those that can and do it well are the ones that produce the images that we want to look at.
 
There is no single answer to that last part Richard. What one person makes work may not work for another, it's all subjective.
 
Jo Davies said:
I feel that creative ability is a natural occurrence it is not something that can be learnt - it is something that is within you. It is the same with artists, not everyone can draw and paint but those that can and do it well are the ones that produce the images that we want to look at.
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If creativity were a fixed and natural occurrence, which would suggest it cannot be improved or enhanced, why would millions of people even bother with activities such as painting, photography, or creative writing?

If you took a close look at some of the most 'creative' people, I would imagine that they've likely also spent the most time pursuing creative endeavours and honing associated skills, which suggests to me that it is far from something 'that is within you' from birth.
 
I mentioned at the Suffolk meet, I was heartened by something I read in Ansel Adams' "Examples: the making of 40 photographs": paraphrasing (I don't have the book to hand) "I made several other exposures at that location, but none were satisfactory". Even a master of the technical aspects with a brilliant creative eye only got it right sometimes!
 
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AA reckoned 12 good images a year was a good year...

I think that the 'inner gift' scenario is more true with painting/drawing etc but not so much with photography. There are certain compositional things that make a picture interesting, these can be learnt, there are some subjects that make a prettier more pleasing image, these can be remembered; but there is an ineffable quality that some have to just capture a perfect moment, to render an image that makes people smile and ooh and arh, this probably can't be taught or learnt... or can it?
 
Andysnap said:
AA reckoned 12 good images a year was a good year...

I think that the 'inner gift' scenario is more true with painting/drawing etc but not so much with photography. There are certain compositional things that make a picture interesting, these can be learnt, there are some subjects that make a prettier more pleasing image, these can be remembered; but there is an ineffable quality that some have to just capture a perfect moment, to render an image that makes people smile and ooh and arh, this probably can't be taught or learnt... or can it?
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Aye but I'd be happy with one AA standard image... ever!

I don't think there is a gift, everything can be learnt. Some people are inherently good at maths or with language but any one can learn to do complex mathematics or right a decent story if they had the inclination. There is a basic technical skill required to draw, paint or photograph, the skill is more obvious in photography because one must understand the relationship between the light and the camera settings and variables. The Artistry is another skill that can be learned by looking at the masters and being very critical about why a shot works. I think the real trick is injecting some "feeling" into the shot which I get from looking at some peoples work but don't think I can ever reflect in mine.
 
Jo Davies said:
I feel that creative ability is a natural occurrence it is not something that can be learnt - it is something that is within you. It is the same with artists, not everyone can draw and paint but those that can and do it well are the ones that produce the images that we want to look at.
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There is no use trying,” said Alice. “One can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you
haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an
hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” —
Lewis Carroll
 
It seems to me that the basics of composition can be learned by anyone, and most can improve on that. I'm not sure creativity can be taught, although some supporting skills can (eg brainstorming, mind maps etc in other fields). I'm pretty sure that real creative artistry, as we have seen from a couple of members here, comes to only a few of us.

All that said, I'm not sure we support each other as well as we could in this respect; it's too easy to write "I really like the first and the last", as I've just done on another thread, and not say anything (helpful or not) about the composition, the creativity, they eye, the art. I'll try and do better!
 
I do think that some of us have greater innate creative ability to see things in a way that the rest of us don't and to express it in photography for others to see and feel too. I have produced photos that others like, but probably very few (if any) that succeed in fulfilling and expressing that vision. I also believe that dedication and endeavour are necessary for anyone to achieve this, no matter how talented. Obviously, the technical elements of photography can be learned by pretty much anyone, though I tend not to fuss too much chasing the dream of ultimate sharpness or exposure. Some of my favourite photos are flawed technically, and sometimes it even adds to their charm.

Where I do think I've succeeded personally is in producing photographs that provide me with great amounts of satisfaction, accurately capturing the mood or expression of a moment of fun with my children, or a recollection of a scene I enjoyed looking at and photographing. If that's all my photography ever achieves, then I'll be happy enough with it.

Let's remember that the vast majority of us in this section are amateurs, so I don't think we should be too hard on ourselves. We have limited time for our photography and rarely have the luxury of finding the perfect lighting/pose/viewpoint for a scene or portrait. My portraits usually have about 3 seconds for composition before my subjects (my children usually) get fed up. In that context, I'm happy enough that most of my images leave something to be desired, as long as they are fulfilling on a personal level.

If I can occasionally take it to that other level, where I manage to express something as meaningful to others as to me, rather than just achieving their fleeting appreciation of a picture, then that's fantastic. Those who do it consistently are artists.

Of course I've done nothing to answer the original question here...who knows. We can all certainly improve our creative expression, even if we aren't capable of reaching the stars. There are some very good books about creativity, perhaps that's where the answer lies (this is one that I like: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Art-Photography-Expression-Photographic/dp/1933952687). I don't think any of us should beat ourselves up about this though: just keep working at it, learn as you go, and appreciate that progress comes in small steps.
 
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Where's Mark? (TBY)

Whenever I see any of his skull still lives my ghast is flabbered!
 
Interesting thread.

I suspect that the answers here would be different than if posted in the digital section, as we have all made a conscious decision to use film, so are approaching the issue of technical competence from a different perspective.

I find technical issues sometimes cloud my artistic view, and I wish I could relax a bit as Charlotte suggests and concentrate more on a feeling or atmosphere. But I find it difficult and although this generally helps to attain basic competency in focus, exposure etc, it may be at the expense of creativity. This makes it sound as if all my photos are technically perfect, which is far from the truth, but for me I have to try to realise an artistic vision using a conventional technical framework.

My approach for say the POTY competition is to have a vision or idea on an image and what I want it to look like, which I guess should be an entirely creative process. But for me, at the back of my mind is the technical achievability of the idea, so it is not a proper creative process, but is being constrained by my level of technical ability. Which means that they are more likely to succeed, but I am discarding some ideas that seem too difficult rather than pursuing them and finding a creative way to overcome the technical difficulties.

This kind of thread really needs some examples I think. I've been away with no internet access for a few weeks and catching up on forum reading and came across these which were posted a couple of weeks ago and I absolutely love them; http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/show-us-yer-film-shots-then.53681/page-303#post-6171074 from @essexash Really beautiful and captivating work. Made me stop and really think about why they worked so well, and it is the creative vision and storytelling that makes them succeed. I wish I could achieve something like this, but I would struggle as my technical mind would fuss over focussing and framing and other stuff and I would miss it or never even attempt it in the first place as the technical issues would present a barrier to trying.
 
ok i dont want to burst any bubble but i really cant and wont take credit for perceived technical skill that wasnt really there so i'll tell you the story of those 3 shots :)

I did maybe 15 shots, all just randomly shot from the hip on the tube that day. I was hoping for 2 or 3 single shot candid portraits. I just feel so awkward and intrusive lifting a camera to my face to shoot people out in the wild so feel much happier just firing random shots. Anyway. other than those 3, all the other shots were blurred , shaky shots of peoples shoes, bags, poles. The last shot was , luckily, perfectly in focus. I pre focus the lens and then just shoot away, adjust the focus a little more and shoot more. All from the hip, im not even looking at where the camera is pointing here, im just moving the focus barrel a few mm in between 3 or 4 shots, im trying to blend in and look like im not shooting people on the sly. But i got lucky with the last one. I actually really like the cropping when i straightened the images out, to keep the frame ratio, i love the way the last one turned out and its far less jarring than the other 2 which only took slight rotational adjustments. Something im going to do more of in future for sure. The "canon" seems to be to keep a perfectly framed, rectangular image. But i just love the angles left behind from the straightening.

So when i dev'd them up and had a look through it was only then , in an attempt to recover something out of the mess, that i thought of the triptych and put these 3 together. It does make sense to have them in a set and i can make a story of each frame. The end result worked. But at the time there was zero skill involved, i was planning on single candid frames if i was lucky, something totally different to what i ended up with.

So there you go, what i think was a lucky recovery from a batch of true randomness. But ill be back doing it again and again as the results pay off if you get lucky :) The vision and creativity came very much after the event.

Someone above mentioned AA saying 12 a year is good and doing multiple exposures to get a right one. Ive got close to 10,000 images in lightroom. Of those i consider 100 to be worth repeated viewings, of those i have 3 on my wall framed up.

*edit* actually im just trying to work out how you make a proper tryptich in PS as id like to see all three together. The different frame sizes is making it tricky though.
 
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ChrisR said:
It seems to me that the basics of composition can be learned by anyone, and most can improve on that. I'm not sure creativity can be taught, although some supporting skills can (eg brainstorming, mind maps etc in other fields). I'm pretty sure that real creative artistry, as we have seen from a couple of members here, comes to only a few of us.

All that said, I'm not sure we support each other as well as we could in this respect; it's too easy to write "I really like the first and the last", as I've just done on another thread, and not say anything (helpful or not) about the composition, the creativity, they eye, the art. I'll try and do better!
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I totally agree Chris - I can draw and paint & I have even sold some of my work - I haven't been taught how to do this I have just always been able to do it. There are certain technicalities that can be taught when it comes to Art as well as photography but I personally feel that some who walk amongst us just have that creative ability which makes their art whether it a painting or a photograph stand out from the rest.
 
essexash said:
ok i dont want to burst any bubble but i really cant and wont take credit for perceived technical skill that wasnt really there so i'll tell you the story of those 3 shots :)

I did maybe 15 shots, all just randomly shot from the hip on the tube that day. I was hoping for 2 or 3 single shot candid portraits. I just feel so awkward and intrusive lifting a camera to my face to shoot people out in the wild so feel much happier just firing random shots. Anyway. other than those 3, all the other shots were blurred , shaky shots of peoples shoes, bags, poles. The last shot was , luckily, perfectly in focus. I pre focus the lens and then just shoot away, adjust the focus a little more and shoot more. All from the hip, im not even looking at where the camera is pointing here, im just moving the focus barrel a few mm in between 3 or 4 shots, im trying to blend in and look like im not shooting people on the sly. But i got lucky with the last one. I actually really like the cropping when i straightened the images out, to keep the frame ratio, i love the way the last one turned out and its far less jarring than the other 2 which only took slight rotational adjustments. Something im going to do more of in future for sure. The "canon" seems to be to keep a perfectly framed, rectangular image. But i just love the angles left behind from the straightening.

So when i dev'd them up and had a look through it was only then , in an attempt to recover something out of the mess, that i thought of the triptych and put these 3 together. It does make sense to have them in a set and i can make a story of each frame. The end result worked. But at the time there was zero skill involved, i was planning on single candid frames if i was lucky, something totally different to what i ended up with.

So there you go, what i think was a lucky recovery from a batch of true randomness. But ill be back doing it again and again as the results pay off if you get lucky :) The vision and creativity came very much after the event.

Someone above mentioned AA saying 12 a year is good and doing multiple exposures to get a right one. Ive got close to 10,000 images in lightroom. Of those i consider 100 to be worth repeated viewings, of those i have 3 on my wall framed up.

*edit* actually im just trying to work out how you make a proper tryptich in PS as id like to see all three together. The different frame sizes is making it tricky though.
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Thanks for sharing the method; I really love the results from this.

I think you are underplaying your creative element of this. I can see the randomness and maybe luck involved, but you were effectively still making a creative decision to try something risky and different, where you had reduced control in getting the technical elements right.

And this is where I would struggle with this kind of creative idea as I would want to be poking a light meter in that blokes face, and wondering if I had enough room to set up a tripod. So my primary concern of technical considerations acts as a barrier for true creativity. Which sounds overly negative, and I dont mean it to. Overall I'm reasonably happy with my photographs, but what I think I'm trying to say is that for me the technical side of my brain takes precedence over the creative side, leading to maybe safer and less risky choices.
 
One thing I think does get in the way of creativity for many of us, and very much myself included, is the obsession with gear. Of course you need the tools for the job, but I know I have spent too much time thinking about whether I've got the cameras/lenses etc best suited to my needs, buying stuff and selling stuff, all time I could be spending planning shots and thinking creatively. However this is undeniably part of the pleasure of photography, and as film photographers we have so much to choose from without spending thousands of pounds that we can have a lot of fun trying out new types of cameras, film formats and lenses, not to mention all the development options, scanning, printing and so on. But I do think there is a price to be paid for this in our photography, by constantly getting used to new gear or techniques, and inevitably concentrating less on the creative side of photography. I feel like my gear acquisition syndrome is coming full circle (might start a thread about that soon as a separate topic), and maybe now is the time for me to forget about buying and selling stuff and concentrate 100% on using what I have.
 
^^^ Me too.
 
Jo Davies said:
I can draw and paint & I have even sold some of my work - I haven't been taught how to do this I have just always been able to do it. There are certain technicalities that can be taught when it comes to Art as well as photography but I personally feel that some who walk amongst us just have that creative ability which makes their art whether it a painting or a photograph stand out from the rest.
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The absence of formal education doesn't mean that such skills are inherent; in fact, much of our own personal learning is implicit and takes place outside of conscious awareness. For instance, most of us will have been able to speak very good English before we even attended our first day of school.

Just because we weren't aware of the learning, doesn't mean that it never occurred.
 
Aside from when you are really pushing the limits, do most people find the technical side of photography that difficult?

I'm in a slightly odd situation in that I grew up with two professional photographers for parents so it's always been a part of my life. I can do an acceptable job in most conditions without thinking about it. It's the creative spark that I lack and I have to struggle with but that's also what gives me the most joy when I am successful.
 
TheGreatSoprendo said:
One thing I think does get in the way of creativity for many of us, and very much myself included, is the obsession with gear. Of course you need the tools for the job, but I know I have spent too much time thinking about whether I've got the cameras/lenses etc best suited to my needs, buying stuff and selling stuff, all time I could be spending planning shots and thinking creatively. However this is undeniably part of the pleasure of photography, and as film photographers we have so much to choose from without spending thousands of pounds that we can have a lot of fun trying out new types of cameras, film formats and lenses, not to mention all the development options, scanning, printing and so on. But I do think there is a price to be paid for this in our photography, by constantly getting used to new gear or techniques, and inevitably concentrating less on the creative side of photography. I feel like my gear acquisition syndrome is coming full circle (might start a thread about that soon as a separate topic), and maybe now is the time for me to forget about buying and selling stuff and concentrate 100% on using what I have.
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Yes, especially the bit in bold.
 
Mr Will said:
Aside from when you are really pushing the limits, do most people find the technical side of photography that difficult?
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Good question, still relevant to the original point I think... most of my best pics were made with a Pentax ME, simple aperture priority, no manual modes. Dead easy... as long as it works. The technical stuff I find more difficult is when I'm consciously aiming for something a bit more challenging, perhaps using my Pentax MX, maybe shooting against the light, or high contrast, or landscapes with transparency film, or remembering to use wider apertures to isolate the subject from the background, or remembering that foreground items will look a LOT more out of focus than they do in my viewfinder. It's the opposite of Steve's position I think; when I'm feeling most creative there's a rush and all the tecnical stuff goes out the window, and I end up with unusable shots!

It isn't really difficult, there's just so much to remember and think about. I'm not really a tripod sort of person; at best I'll use a monopod for a bit of stability. I think I need to learn to slow down more, to try to be creative even while thinking through the techies stuff. (I did spend 15 minutes with my feet in wet sand this afternoon waiting for the light to come on a shot I wanted... won't know for a while if it was worth it!)
 
skysh4rk said:
The absence of formal education doesn't mean that such skills are inherent; in fact, much of our own personal learning is implicit and takes place outside of conscious awareness. For instance, most of us will have been able to speak very good English before we even attended our first day of school.

Just because we weren't aware of the learning, doesn't mean that it never occurred.
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I learnt to speak reasonable English because everyone around me was speaking it - I did not learn to draw because of that same reason - I have no formal training, neither of my parents were particularly artistic and I do not mix in artistic circles - please explain to me where that creative ability was learnt from?
 
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Jo Davies said:
I learnt to speak reasonable English because everyone around me was doing it - I did not learn to draw because of that same reason - I have no formal training, neither of my parents were particularly artistic and I do not mix in artistic circles - please explain to me where that creative ability was learnt from?
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The English language example is not meant as an example of how you learned your 'creative ability', it was just meant to show that complex skills can be learned without formal education.

I cannot tell you where you in particular learned your 'creativeness' (I put this in quotations, because it's far from an objectively identifiable trait), but you would have begun developing these skills or related skills unaware that you were doing so (e.g., playing with crayons, finger painting, playing in the backyard, or any one of a multitude of other imaginative activity, etc.).

I'm currently doing my PhD in motor skill learning at the moment and I've seen folks come in to the lab who have performed well in certain novel tasks not because they're inherently skilled at this new task—their technique definitely shows that they're not—but because they've simply learned another similar skill that has some transfer into the new one. They aren't any more naturally inclined toward the task than the other participants, however.

There will be few skills that humans can do naturally without some sort of practice (we even have to learn to walk), whether implicit or explicit. That said, there are probably some skills that some of us will have a certain advantage, predisposition, or affinity for learning, but that's a whole other discussion.
 
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skysh4rk said:
That said, there are probably some skills that some of us will have a certain advantage, predisposition, or affinity for learning, but that's a whole other discussion.
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Well, it might not be a whole other discussion, maybe it IS the discussion?

Anyway, I reckon I have the answer: it's complicated!

One part nature, one part nurture, one part accident, one part inquisitiveness, a fair bit of stubbornness, a few parts of positive feedback, a modicum of sense of achievement, and sometimes you get a really creative person?
 
Coming at this from a education point of view after doing my Fda in photography we had to justify the image from a technical and ascetic point of view during crit's.
For me having the image say something and carry a message and stand up as a set of images is important. the preconception of the image is essential, just going out with a spray and pray approach never stands up to close scrutiny.
having an idea of the way the image looks feels and the message you want to portray in your mind is essential before even taking the frame. And the technical side is part of that approach as that gives you the grounding to produce the work that fits what you want it to say.
Its like a tool box and having the right tools to get the job done correctly
 
Nod said:
Where's Mark? (TBY)

Whenever I see any of his skull still lives my ghast is flabbered!
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Sorry to be late here... somehow missed this entire thread.

While I'm deeply flattered at your comment Nod, I have to say that frankly, for me, those Vanitas still lifes were pretty much the most crafted and contrived bits of work I've done - all derivative in one way or another - pretty much everything being stolen on some level from the Dutch Old Masters. Rather than an exercise in creativity, they felt very much an education in one area of Art History, combined with climbing a serious learning curve with the use of Studio Flash.

The one aspect of the shoot where creativity came into the shots was in what could be described as the "Back Story" (to steal a phrase more usually thought of from the moving pictures industry). I started with that story, and built the whole set to suit... I suppose that there was a degree of creativity in that part, and obviously in the fact that I "created" the actual walls and table for the set - but that aspect is more "DIY creativity" than "Photographic Creativity".

To return to the original question - I think that for me, the technical capacity to use the camera properly, to get the exposure / DOF etc. is very much the first step - because once you can do that at will, preferably to the extent that it's almost an unthinking action, it frees you to actually take more care and spend more time and attention to the framing and composition of the shot. I will admit (and this is a heck of an admission in F&C) that my actual photography improved immensely after I actually purchased a Digital SLR camera, because it allowed me to experiment far far FAR more than I could ever afford to do with film - and also tightened the "feedback loop" - do something, see it on screen, tweak a setting, see it on screen (I did a lot of experimental shooting using the DSLR tethered to my laptop). I honestly improved my technical grasp of the camera more in 1 year with a Digital than I'd done in the previous 30 years with film. I'm also happy to say that it all transferred back to working with film - I just knew the tools better and UNDERSTOOD why and how the settings would conspire to give me the look and feel I wanted - which then freed me to find the subject I wanted to get into that look and feel.
 
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