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What exactly are you missing in digital cameras which prevents you taking pictures like that?

by _ph_ 3y ago

marstall 3y ago
I struggle to define it. Emotion? The feeling of another world, different from the one I inhabit? Maybe Diane Arbus could make digital look like that idk.
- illwrks 3y ago
  So I was going to write a quick paragraph reply but I bothered to do a bit of research... :/ From Google: "Diane Arbus is known for her unrelenting direct photographs of people who are considered social deviates. She also portrayed “normal” people in a manner that exposed the cracks in their public masks. Diane Arbus is best known for her stark, documentary style of photography." And from the article: “Arbus captures a boy on the cusp of adolescence yet still playing with toys—but the object is a plastic grenade, an object of war,” said Hughes. “There’s something troubling about him playing solider—the ongoing war efforts were not lost on a little kid in Central Park.” From PetaPixel: “I want to photograph what is evil,” Arbus told Model, who noted that “[Arbus] was determined to reveal what others had been taught to turn their backs on.” The scheme typical for her photography is a frontal portrait in square format. She was one of the pioneers of daylight flash use, which she used to isolate her subjects. What she first liked about it was how it alters light and reveals things you don’t normally see. She wanted to have stillness in her photograph, and that is why she always posed her subjects either on the street or in their homes. Arbus made the subjects look directly to the camera to “freeze” the picture. However, as we can see in many of her picture the effect was quite the opposite. Many of her pictures look spontaneous. So, I guess to sum it all up in this photo... the context, the expression, the rigid pose, the fallen shoulder strap, the grenade... the questions you might have about who the child is, what's with the expression, where are his parents, is the grenade real? 90% of that is from the photographer and their interaction with the subject, and only a little of it is from the camera, the tool to capture that moment. It reminds me of the saying "a bad workman blames his/her tools", which is also kind of the inverse of "do your best with what you've got". If you more like the above, have a search for "Roger Ballen", he takes it to another extreme...
  - marstall 3y ago
    the subject and composition is without parallel, for sure. but the medium itself, film photography, does matter. there's a difference, like oils vs. water colors. the palette she has access to with film is just different. and to me there is emotion and unique artistry that exists just within that part of it. but like I said, I'm open to being convinced otherwise. it's just the images in that blog post were so flat, I didn't see much there to persuade me this camera is capable of creating magic.
    - illwrks 3y ago
      That's a fair point, lenses, film, chemicals etc do add a level of style, and I guess it's a bit more tactile than digital if you're developing them yourself with chemicals rather than in Lightroom. No batteries to worry about either (for the most part)!

What exactly are you missing in digital cameras which prevents you taking pictures like that?

by _ph_ 3y ago

What exactly are you missing in digital cameras which prevents you taking pictures like that?

I struggle to define it. Emotion? The feeling of another world, different from the one I inhabit? Maybe Diane Arbus could make digital look like that idk.

illwrks 3y ago
So I was going to write a quick paragraph reply but I bothered to do a bit of research... :/ From Google: "Diane Arbus is known for her unrelenting direct photographs of people who are considered social deviates. She also portrayed “normal” people in a manner that exposed the cracks in their public masks. Diane Arbus is best known for her stark, documentary style of photography." And from the article: “Arbus captures a boy on the cusp of adolescence yet still playing with toys—but the object is a plastic grenade, an object of war,” said Hughes. “There’s something troubling about him playing solider—the ongoing war efforts were not lost on a little kid in Central Park.” From PetaPixel: “I want to photograph what is evil,” Arbus told Model, who noted that “[Arbus] was determined to reveal what others had been taught to turn their backs on.” The scheme typical for her photography is a frontal portrait in square format. She was one of the pioneers of daylight flash use, which she used to isolate her subjects. What she first liked about it was how it alters light and reveals things you don’t normally see. She wanted to have stillness in her photograph, and that is why she always posed her subjects either on the street or in their homes. Arbus made the subjects look directly to the camera to “freeze” the picture. However, as we can see in many of her picture the effect was quite the opposite. Many of her pictures look spontaneous. So, I guess to sum it all up in this photo... the context, the expression, the rigid pose, the fallen shoulder strap, the grenade... the questions you might have about who the child is, what's with the expression, where are his parents, is the grenade real? 90% of that is from the photographer and their interaction with the subject, and only a little of it is from the camera, the tool to capture that moment. It reminds me of the saying "a bad workman blames his/her tools", which is also kind of the inverse of "do your best with what you've got". If you more like the above, have a search for "Roger Ballen", he takes it to another extreme...
- marstall 3y ago
  the subject and composition is without parallel, for sure. but the medium itself, film photography, does matter. there's a difference, like oils vs. water colors. the palette she has access to with film is just different. and to me there is emotion and unique artistry that exists just within that part of it. but like I said, I'm open to being convinced otherwise. it's just the images in that blog post were so flat, I didn't see much there to persuade me this camera is capable of creating magic.
  - illwrks 3y ago
    That's a fair point, lenses, film, chemicals etc do add a level of style, and I guess it's a bit more tactile than digital if you're developing them yourself with chemicals rather than in Lightroom. No batteries to worry about either (for the most part)!