I am the camera, photography is the action

I meet Olivia for lunch in central London. She is a 35 year old consultant who lives and works in London. She describes herself as an amateur photographer having started taking pictures at the age of 8. Her parents were into photography and so there were always cameras lying around the house. She says that she came from “a family of photographers” because her parents were always taking photos. To stop her playing with the expensive SLRs she was given a point and shoot camera and since then she has always been interested in photography. Although she can’t remember her first camera, since then she has always had a Canon. When she upgraded to digital she chose Canon over Nikon because “The guy in the shop said they were much of a muchness and to go for whichever one felt best. The Nikon was chunkier and heavier. Canon felt nicer and I preferred the interface so I went for Canon.” Her opinion of Nikon is that “they have a reputation for being robust and well-made – a lot of professionals use them.”
She likes to travel quite a lot and begins to tell me all the places that she has been to. It is clear that taking photographs is really important to her when she is travelling. She tells me the story of when her camera broke:
“Whilst on holiday in Morocco my camera broke. I felt lost. Photography enhances your experience. Instead of just wandering through somewhere it makes you notice things. The Japanese photographer Araki said ‘I am the camera, photography is the action’. And I really relate to this. I was still walking around as a though I had a camera I just wasn’t able to take any photos. It felt like a lost opportunity, a lost moment.”
Photographs allow her to tell stories of her travels. She says that “photos define the trip”. Without the photos of Morocco she feels like “There’s a part of my trip missing”. I get the impression that without the photos she thinks she may as well not have been there. She tries to describe why she feels the need to take photos and recalls what someone once wrote about poetry “It’s emotional urgency – you get a feeling and you have to express it.” So taking photos for her is a way of expressing herself. She pulls out a book she has been reading as part of her photography course at St. Martin’s and reads me a quote:
“At our best and most fortunate we make pictures because of what stands in front of the camera, to honour what is greater and more interesting than we are. We never accomplish this perfectly, though in return we are given something perfect – a sense of inclusion.”
We start discussing what makes a good photographer. For Olivia “What he/she is able to see… the ability to see things that others can’t. When someone takes a photo they are saying ‘This is my view of the world’. It’s an expression of yourself.” The ideal camera “Allows you to realise your vision and is easy to do so. It’s the end product that’s important, not the method.”
She likes to upload photos onto Flickr but only selects her best. So I ask her how she decides what is a good photo and what isn’t, “When I look at a good photo there is a moment of recognition that triggers something inside you. It creates emotional resonance.” Ultimately she says it doesn’t matter what camera you use because “It’s the photographer not the camera. The camera is just the tool to capture their vision.”

Insights:
• Having a camera in your hand makes you more aware of the world around you.
• Taking photographs allows you to relive moments and recount stories of your experiences.
• A good photo triggers something inside you and creates an emotional resonance.

Emotional Resonance

Jay is a 25 year old bar tender who works in a cocktail bar in East London. He studied photography at university and worked as a photojournalist for a short time. He now does a bit of free lance work but doesn’t take it too seriously. His first camera was a Pentax and since then he has used Canons. He warns me early on that he is a bit of a “photo snob”. After a while it is clear what he means by this; he would much rather still use film than digital cameras. In his opinion “What you get with digital photos is exactly what is there. Whereas with film there’s a richness… it’s hypernatural.” With his digital cameras “I get frustrated when I know what I want and know I can’t get it.” It follows that his ideal camera would be a digital camera that “gives you photos that look as rich and as real as film.” He still thinks there is yet to be a digital camera that is as good as a film camera.
I am curious what photographers he admires but he says that “I honestly don’t have a favourite photographer. It’s not about photographers. I react to individual images. A good photo has to literally just grab you.”

Insights:
• Great photos grab you and cause an emotional reaction.
• Having an idea in your head and not being able to reproduce it with your camera can be very frustrating.

Happy Accidents

Stuart is a professional photographer who now lives and works in London. He studied photography at university and then did a masters in photojournalism. He now does a lot of free lance work but he tells me he is waiting to hear back from Reuters after he applied for a job with them. He is hoping to do sport journalism so that he can go to the world cup next year!
We begin to chat about photography and it is clear he is very knowledgeable. He likes to collect interesting cameras and shows me one that he has in his bag that you have to wind up to take a photo with. He still likes to shoot on film for pleasure because “It’s lovely to walk around taking photos and not know how they will turn out.” Because of the limitless amount of photos you can take with digital cameras he says that if he takes his digital camera on a night out “It feels like you weren’t there. You end up living the night through the photos.”
He also likes to use film occasionally because “Pictures taken with most digital cameras look too crisp. You don’t get any accidents like when you open up the back of a film camera and you can end up with a great photo.” He describes these accidents as “happy accidents”.
His first camera was a Pentax that his geography teacher sold to him. He has used several models since then but has now settled with a Canon because “Everyone else has it”. It’s the safe option and he knows that if he is doing some photojournalism he can borrow lenses and batteries off fellow photographers because they will all have Canons too. When he worked in Jessops he would tell people that Canon and Nikon were “much of a muchness” but that generally Canon’s were cheaper and thus more popular.
In terms of his professional work he likes to get out on the street and take photos of moments as and when they happen. He finds studio work boring and thinks “There’s enough interesting stuff out there to take photos of. It doesn’t always have to be perfect. Happy accidents can be good.”

Insights:
• The best photos aren’t staged. They’re spontaneous and often taken by accident.
• Buying a Canon is the safe option because everyone else has one.
• Because digital cameras allow you to take as many photos as you like they can prevent you from actually enjoying the moment because you are so obsessed with capturing it all on your camera.

Technology is Overwhelming

Andre is a 38 year old professional photographer from Sao Paulo. He moved to London 3 years ago with his wife in order to pursue his career. For him the photography here is much more exciting than in Brazil.
He started to get into photography when he was about 18. His dad took good photos which inspired him to do the same. When he went to university he bought a Pentax and was always the one at parties taking photos. When he left university he decided to pursue a career in photography and subsequently changed cameras to Nikon and until recently he has had Nikon cameras all his life. He now has a Canon 5D. The switch was because of the better technology. He goes on to say that if Nikon had the D700 two and a half years ago he would have bought that instead because he thinks the Nikon lenses are better and he always preferred the grip and feel of their cameras.
He begins to talk about all the technology and I am soon lost. He laughs and makes his point that when choosing a camera, “It’s so complicated to know which lens, sensor etc is better. Everything moves so fast. There’s a pressure to keep up.” At the end of the day he would prefer just to shoot on his Panasonic LX3 because he likes the convenience of a small camera. He chose the Panasonic above other compacts because of the superior lens.
He tells me about his career as a portrait photographer working free lance with several magazines. However, to pay the bills he also does wedding photography. He shows me some of his wedding photos and I expect to see the usual posed shots. However, what I see is something more like a shoot from LIFE. He says, “When I go to a wedding I’m going to take photos that excite me. I want images that survive after the day. Shooting at a wedding doesn’t have to look like a wedding. My philosophy is beauty and fun – I want people to look beautiful and I want the photos to be fun.”
I am intrigued to learn if he feels that the digital revolution has cheapened his job. He looks shocked, “Photography is not something that belongs to photographers. Everyone is a photographer now. No one says they want to be a designer, or an artist, or a sculptor because those things you have to be good with your hands. But with photography it’s in your head.”

Insights:
• Choosing which camera to buy can be overwhelming even for a professional photographer.
• Professional photographers like to use compact cameras too – DSLRs are simply too big.
• Everyone is a photographer. It is more accessible than any other art form because the main skill you need is an imagination.

Photo Envy

Steve is 45 and lives and works in Camden. He describes his photographic skills as “keen interest but definitely still a beginner”. When I see some of his photos I realise he has been very modest in his description.
As soon as we start talking about photography he shows me his latest “toy”, a Nikon D40. He bought it last November and is enjoying learning how to use all the functions. For the first few months when he had it he kept it on manual a lot of the time but now he is gradually learning how to use all the automatic functions. He clearly enjoys the challenge and satisfaction of learning how to use the camera and being rewarded with some great photos. He will often go out for an afternoon or a weekend to take lots of photos of whatever catches his eye. He deletes nearly two thirds of his photos as most of them are just experiments.
When I ask him why he went for the Nikon he just shrugs and says that it was either a Nikon or a Canon and at the time the Nikon was £100 cheaper.
He also has a Pentax camera which he was given after he became interested in photography about 15 years ago. He tells me the story of how he spent a year travelling in-between jobs going round India, Asia and Australia. He took a cheap point and shoot camera with him. When he came back he looked at the photos others had taken of the same places and was upset at how terrible his looked in comparison.
“The people and faces remind me of where I was but I would have liked the photos to have been as special as those places were.”
I ask him about what makes a great photo. For him the photo must be striking so that “you just want to stand there and look at it.” He appreciates the technical side but he always tries to make his photos a bit different and “something you wouldn’t think of”. He shows me some of his photos as examples. In Paris he avoided the classic Eiffel Tower shot and went instead for an interesting Metro sign because it caught his eye. Sat on a beach he was taking photos of the horizon and then noticed how clear the water was and so took a picture of the pebbles beneath the water’s surface. He claims his best photos are “taken on a whim” and “most are accidents”. My favourite of the photos he has brought is of a pair of sandals each with a glass of beer in them. He tells me the story of a festival he was at in Brazil and how “beer and sandals” captured the mood exactly.

Insights:
• It is disappointing when a photo does not do the moment justice. Simply capturing the moment is not enough. A special moment deserves a special photo.
• Being envious of someone else’s photos is motivation to start taking photography more seriously.
• Many of the best photos are accidents taken on a whim.

The Camera Is Just a Tool

We meet Pedro in central London. He has just come out of a meeting to try and secure funding for his next photography project and is in high spirits!

Pedro is a 24 year old professional photographer from Mexico. We sit and chat outside a café on sunny Charlotte Street. We talk about the various projects he is working on and it is clear that he is very passionate about his job. I ask him how he got into photography and he reminisces about his childhood in Mexico. His dad was a biologist and had lots of cameras lying around the house which he used to document his experiments. His sister studied photography but soon lost interest after she graduated. So at fourteen, Pedro set up his own dark room in the house and began taking and developing his own photos.

His first camera was an Olympus and then he bought a Nikon after a few years. When he made the switch to digital he chose Sony because at the time it was the best “all round” camera. When he got serious about photography he had to choose between Canon and Nikon – “the two best brands”. He chose Canon because it was cheaper. Pedro now has 6 lenses for his Canon and so probably won’t switch to Nikon, although regretfully he says “If I could make the same choice now I would choose Nikon”. When I ask him why, he explains “In terms of using the camera Nikon trashes Canon…. I prefer the way a Nikon feels… I hated my first Canon – it felt as though you were going to break it.”
We begin to talk about what he wants from a camera. He explains “At the end of the day it’s just a tool. You want to get to the point when you don’t have to think about your camera. It’s like a Mac, which allows you to focus on the creative aspect because everything is where it should be and does what you want it to. Sometimes people look at Nikon’s and are scared because they have more buttons and Canon’s have a much cleaner cut. But Nikon’s have buttons in the right places that work how you would expect.”

I ask him what he thinks makes a great photograph and he explains his “photography philosophy” which is that a great image consists of two elements:
1) Content
2) Craft
For him the more important of the two is the content and the ideas that go into a photo. He makes his point with the example of stock image libraries where the photos are technically brilliant but they are not great photos in his view because they don’t tell you anything. For Pedro it’s all about “Images that say something. A great picture must stay in your mind and do something – challenge you, suggest a story, capture a moment, say something…” He says that he often feels jealous of amateur photographers because although they may not have technical brilliance, they can have a great eye. He quotes a famous photographer, “The only way you can be a true artist through photography is by being an amateur.” To this point he describes photography as a “fool’s paradise” because the advent of digital cameras has meant that anyone can take great photos. He says that the barrier to entry (the cost of buying a camera and developing photos) has been lifted. He sees this as a good thing although it’s made his job harder because he thinks the transition from a “good” photo to an “amazing” photo is very difficult.
We ask if we can take a photo of him. He is embarrassed and only agrees to do it if he can wear his helmet and shades!

Insights:
• The camera is just a tool. It should not get in the way of a great photograph.
• Great photos should cause a reaction when you see them. The content of a photo is more important than the technical aspect, which means that anyone can take a great photo.