Technical vs Creative Shooting / Introduction

[Gary A.]

I like the Ying-Yang concept. I think the instructor is saying that you have mastered the technical aspects of photography to the point that now you need to use that knowledge into creativity. The instructor wants to see you advance up the learning curve. Photography is both a craft and a science, time behind the viewfinder is one of the best ... if not only way, to advance your skills, experience and vision.

 

[secretcajunmann]

This is great insight. I truly appreciate your feedback and this all makes sense. I do believe that this may be the case. I feel like I'm calculated, precise and compose my images well.

Full disclosure. : Unfortunately, the subject matter I shot two classes in a row were similar. Not the same locations, but similar in subject. I'm a full time dad of a toddler and retried P.I. so the things I have been shooting is my son at the park, or night-time city scape mixed in with the occasional landscape. Blah, I can see how that may be an impression creativity (or lack of. ) Obviously, it's also probably true simply based on the fact that I haven't been doing this very long and have been learning the technical.

We are now getting to more of the artistic (composition/lighting, ect) and plan on tackling it as hard as I have been with the technical. Thanks again, everyone!

 

[Overread]

Sounds like you've got a very normal learning setup - learning the technical more so at the start is a common and very good approach. Once you've got that you can really branch out and experiment in the artistic more so because you've got teh technical skill to execute what you want and to start to know what is and isn't possible.

When you see (oft students at schools) people with artistic ideas but poor technical you oft see a LOT of cheap photoshop or weak ideas because even if they have a good idea they lack the understanding of how to really make that idea a reality.

 

[bribrius]

There are certainly photographers who focus on technical aspects of photography, and photographers who do not. There is a certain amount of motion across the spectrum, but it's somewhat random and always personal.

There are classes of photographs that are technically challenging to make, and the photographers who like the technical side of things do tend to congregate over here. Macro photography. Water droplets. Astrophotography. Less technically inclined photographers will tend to lean in the direction of expressive photographs, exercises in form, photographs with people in them, and so on.

But there are certainly not hard and fast rules. You can make an expressive macro photograph, and there are certainly technophobic photographers who have struggled through the details of rails and ring lights. You can make a technical challenge out of portraiture, and there are technophiles who mainly shoot portraits to test their lighting mojo.

Right, I'd say if any genre of photography is the most technically in demanding, it's the people who do outdoor shoots with models with big lights.

balancing sync speed, multi-level lighting, ambient light and a model is a delicate technical dance that makes any "water drop" technicality seem juvenile in comparison. And you have to do it so seamlessly that the model feels comfortable and you can capture the moment.

hey that is what i am getting ready to work on. I figure a grand and a few months of practice i should have some really kick azz photos of my kids in the back yard playing.

 

[fjrabon]

hey that is what i am getting ready to work on. I figure a grand and a few months of practice i should have some really kick azz photos of my kids in the back yard playing.

The greatest and worst thing about my last job as they threw me out there, as a relatively inexperienced photographer, and asked me to just sump in and start taking lots of mixed ambient and flash photos.

Just remember shutter speed controls ambient, flash power and distance of the lights controls flash, aperture and ISO control both flash and ambient light. Ultimately that's all there is to it on a very basic level.

 

[smalltowngirl13]

Hello and welcome to the forum...enjoy your time here ...

 

[desertrattm2r12]

A really good photographer knows enough of the tech stuff to get the results (s)he wants and has an artistic flair to see irony, love, hate, beauty, ugly, pedantic, exciting, form, function, drama, and all the other qualities that might make a great photograph. The two are not mutually exclusive. There are, of course, anal-retentive pixel peepers in this world one one hand, and folks who refuse to take a decent photograph using their own skills but rely on faulty cameras with light leaks to make something "different" on the other. Learn your craft. You'll make better photographs.