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Photography is getting harder and harder to fully grasp as a medium. The line between amateur and professional continues to blur. As does the line between hobby and art. The new rules of photography, with new stars emerging on platforms like Instagram, add to the confusion. With the students I mentor in photography, I like to break photography down into a much simpler distinction between the effort a photographer makes physically versus the effort one makes intellectually. I encourage any photographer to look not at what comes out, but what is put in. Effort. Physical and intellectual effort are both necessary functions of the art of photography, but are applied totally differently. When seen this way, it simplifies the medium on the one hand, but then adds a level of complexity on the other, as it moves from how you do photography to why you do photography.
Let’s explore.
Physical Effort in Photography
The physical effort of photography is what we first learn about the medium. How the controls of the camera work; aperture and shutter speed, film, sensors, longer and wider lenses. Physical world things and their physical effects on the final image. Composing is part of the physical act of photography, as we use our body to move the camera around and crop certain areas, perhaps even following a rule of thirds, finding leading lines, repeating patterns, perspective, flash, slow shutter, panning and the like. The physicality of photography also covers the work we do to an image after we’ve taken it (post work) and what we notice about an image’s properties with our eyes, as well: tone, contrast, saturation, HDR, etc.
Physically-oriented photography is what you see on Instagram, as those images are almost entirely removed from the context of the photographer’s intent as a medium driven by quick, hummingbird consumption of imagery. Here, the more physically impressive the image, the more it grabs your attention. Hence the rise of the physically aggressive approaches of aerial photography, light trails, and rooftops. As well as post production techniques designed to accentuate, heighten…
