{"id":372,"date":"2022-01-17T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-17T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/?p=372"},"modified":"2022-01-14T16:35:38","modified_gmt":"2022-01-14T16:35:38","slug":"the-camera-doesnt-make-the-photographer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/creativity\/the-camera-doesnt-make-the-photographer\/","title":{"rendered":"The Camera Doesn&#8217;t Make The Photographer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Many times I get a comment from someone who sees my photographs like, &#8220;Wow, that&#8217;s a beautiful picture. You must have a really good camera&#8221;. It is common for people, who don&#8217;t understand what goes into creating a photograph, to think all a photographer does is frame, focus and push a button. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also, I get many friends asking me what is the best camera they should buy. This is what leads me to the topic of this post. The camera doesn&#8217;t make the photograph. The photographer makes the photograph and the tool is a camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is interesting to me when people think the camera made the photograph. No one asks the chef at a restaurant what type of oven they use, or tell a textile artist they must have an amazing loom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/RainyDay.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"648\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/RainyDay-1024x648.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-385\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/RainyDay-1024x648.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/RainyDay-300x190.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/RainyDay-768x486.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/RainyDay.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption>Rainy day on the streets of downtown Denver. Canon sure shot point and shoot with Kodak black and white film.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s the thing&#8230; it doesn&#8217;t matter what type of camera is used to make a great photograph. What DOES matter is knowing what kind of photograph I want to make.  What is the creative vision? That&#8217;s where a photographer starts. I ask myself these questions before I make some photographs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>What is my end goal for distributing the images? <ul><li>Big prints<\/li><li>Family scrap book<\/li><li>Social media<\/li><li>Magazine<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>What am I trying to say with my photographs?<ul><li>Tell a visual story<\/li><li>Create emotion with the photographs<\/li><li>Capture memories<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>What am I photographing?<ul><li>Landscapes<\/li><li>Sports<\/li><li>Travel<\/li><li>Portraits<\/li><li>Street<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Thinking through some of these questions helps me figure out what the best tool (camera) is to achieve my creative vision for the photograph. For example, if I plan on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">shooting grand landscapes<\/a> my needs are very different than when I am shooting candid street photographs. For the landscapes a high quality lens, large sensor\/film system could be important. <em>(Unless the goal is to shoot soft ethereal, interpretative landscape photographs. Then a Holga camera may be perfect.)<\/em> In the case of a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">street photograph<\/a> a simple fully automatic point and shoot camera may be perfect for the quick indiscrete capture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/boulderfalls.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1015\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/boulderfalls-1024x1015.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-318\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/boulderfalls-1024x1015.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/boulderfalls-300x297.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/boulderfalls-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/boulderfalls-768x761.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/boulderfalls.jpg 1119w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption>Long exposure of Boulder falls taken with an antique Kodak folding 620 camera<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Today&#8217;s cameras are awesome feats of technology. So many features that can meet almost any need. Almost. The only things a photographer needs in a camera is the ability to control ISO, shutter speed, aperture and focus. That&#8217;s really it.  But all cameras have their strengths and weaknesses and knowing what those help me know what camera to use to make a photograph that I am after.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Don&#8217;t forget to sign up for my monthly email below. I will have exclusive content and offers for email subscribers not available anywhere else. Thanks for your support.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many times I get a comment from someone who sees my photographs like, &#8220;Wow, that&#8217;s a beautiful picture. You must have a really good camera&#8221;. It is common for people, who don&#8217;t understand what goes into creating a photograph, to think all a photographer does is frame, focus and push a button. Also, I get &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/creativity\/the-camera-doesnt-make-the-photographer\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Camera Doesn&#8217;t Make The Photographer<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":385,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[8],"class_list":["post-372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creativity","tag-black-and-white-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":391,"href":"https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions\/391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lofgreenimages.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}