How many differant kinds of Photographers are there?

[Your Old Dog]

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Hi Ray,

 

In defense of Type B; no disrespect meant, but I think that you might be generalizing a bit. .....................Putting people in pre-conceived compartments can be quite misleading.Furrukh

 

Yes Furrukh, I am absolutly generalizing my categorys. The problem I have with Ken's catgegories is that he has too many cagegories. Getting to many is like having none at all when when generalizing. "As I see it" and "in my opinion", when I read thru these post I can identify three basic categorys as stated in the OP.

 

And, not being argumentative here but just making a point, I'm not actually putting anyone in a box here, they were asked to do it themselves and if you note, most claim to fit in 2 or 3 categorys and not 1 !! They either can't, or don't want to admit to just one !!

 

The purpose for photograhy for all of us should be to enjoy yourself and try to get something out of it. Even the Social photographers seeking justice for humanity must revell in all the adulation they get, how else could they travel to desperate situations on a daily basis and live in squallor if something positive didn't come from it for them. I hope no one tells me there isn't any vanity in this art form of photography, I'm not buying.

 

On these forums I see folks posting snapshots with long laundry list of equipment at hand. I've seen some folks post some great images who don't find it necessary to tell you what the camera closet looks like at home. And I've seen guys like Dada (I think it was him) as a pro come in here with phenomnal work and have to defend it against guys with the full closets of gear and what I consider to be page after page of snapshots !! No art, just snap shots!

 

I'm not trying to rile anyone up. Just maybe make the point that we should all pay attention to who is slamming your work. If Dada made a critism of my work I would take it more seriously than someone who has a history of posting snapshots. (Gee I hope it was Dada that made the post on the 30x40 prints ! LOL)

 

Enjoy you photography whether it's for collecting gear or images or putting together a good combo of both to make a living. Just understand that in all cases, I think you fit better into one category than 2 or all three.....as a generalization.

 

MarkNorton, I admire your honesty. I am exactly that way with my other hobby of machinist. I collect the tooling and watch the other guys work for the creative answers to challenging machine problems ! I know exactly where you are coming from. Enjoy your hobby.

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[AlanG]

To me this is a very interesting thread because it is so revealing. Clearly, in photography as with many hobbies individuals get interested in the equipment and process separately from the results. I don't see anything wrong with that if it gives you enjoyment. Some professionals get carried away with the gear but most simply have to justify how new gear contributes to their business or vision.

 

But also consider that the equipment is a means and not an end. I really think the best photographers get to a point where the equipment and process of taking a picture is totaly transparent to them.

 

I think I clearly am a "C" type photographer. but I am not always so particular about what equipment I use for my personal photographs. (Professional jobs may have higher technical requirements.) I have owned some of the best gear ever made. (I even had a Hassleblad system when I was 18) And I suspect I get some pleasure out of knowing I have good gear. But I still look at the quality gear just as something that helps give me assurance that my gear will be doing its best to keep up with my abilities.

 

Other than in occassional special situations, I don't believe that anyone can expect better camera gear to make him or her a better photographer. With that in mind, I reflect back to my first digital camera. It was a 2 megapixel Olympus C2000Z that I purchased when it first came out. By today's standards it is nothing special, obsolete even. At the time it was pretty slick yet obviously somewhat limited in various ways. Yet I probably got more pleasure out of using that camera, than any expensive gear I ever owned. Its simplicity, instant gratification, and ease of use re-awakened my love for spontaneous photography, and I shot a lot of pictures with it that I still really love. I don't look back at those pictures and think, "If only they had more detail, or less noise, or less purple fringing."

 

I think my advice, no matter what kind of photographer you are, is to just try to shoot photographs as often as possible in as many situations as you can and let the chips fall where they may. Don't over-analyze your motivations or needs so much. Jeez if you have an M8 you are using a 35mm size camera that is much better than what the vast majority of photographers in the history of photography ever had to work with in a small format. So there is no excuse in thinking your gear is holding you back in any way.

 

Get on with it and shoot shoot shoot.

[lct]

...I'm not actually putting anyone in a box here, they were asked to do it themselves and if you note, most claim to fit in 2 or 3 categorys and not 1 !! They either can't, or don't want to admit to just one !!......

Its perhaps that your categories are not perfect no?

Read again your first post:

"Type B. Loves searching for the precision expected in photgraphic equipment and likes putting together a complete selection of lenses."

At the exception of some collectors who don't use their stuff at all nobody can be reduced to this don't you think so?

[Guest stnami]

DK/DC.... don't know/don't care

[reprobit]

E: love to have only very few outstanding lenses and a weatherised system to earn money with predominant tecnology.

[jrc]

Its perhaps that your categories are not perfect no?

Read again your first post:

"Type B. Loves searching for the precision expected in photgraphic equipment and likes putting together a complete selection of lenses."

At the exception of some collectors who don't use their stuff at all nobody can be reduced to this don't you think so?

 

Of course the categories are not perfect; but I certainly understand the sense of what he was getting at. In category B, for example, I would put (no pun intended) Erwin Puts, whose best work as far as I can tell has involved a precise analysis of the mechanical and optical quality of cameras, in which work he apparently takes much joy. He occasionally posts photographs, usually nudes, that aren't so good. His strength is in the exploration of cameras, not in the exploration of photography.

 

I personally am in category E -- I have some intellectual interest in photographs as art objects, but very little interest in cameras except as note-taking devices; but I want my notes to be as precise as possible in color, form, and separation of shades. When shooting landscapes, I will often take color notes with colored pencils in an effort to find precise shades, and to check the photographs.

 

I don't have an engineering mind, and that's one reason I like this forum -- there are so many engineers who take some pleasure in developing information that I need, and that I'm really not interested in working out myself.

 

JC

[carstenw]

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I read some interesting statistics about Gym membership from the owner of a Gym.... 25% of people only go 2-10 times, 56% of people give up totally after 3 months, and 83% have given up after 6 months. So, unless you KNOW you will stick at it (set aside your good intentions at this point), and won't find the same old excuses not to go (as I did), save your Gym money for other things. You can get excercise other ways. I am also above where I want to be, but if you put your mind to it, you can lose weight without going to the Gym!

 

Regarding ABC..... Hmm.... difficult one. I guess a mixture of A+C, with more emphasis on A. I just like taking pictures, and the tools should not get in the way. When the tools get in the way, you can't concentrate on taking pictures....

 

Yes, I am fully aware of this, having already done it myself, but there is a particularly nice Gold's Gym right across the yard from me, which gives me hope that I will pop in and out as I feel like it. I can pay for one month as a trial, and then I have to sign up for a year. I do enjoy going, and I don't enjoy running much in most of the weather Berlin gets. My favorite thing is mountain biking, but Berlin is double-flat, and anyway, I don't have a riding partner at the moment.

 

Anyway, wrt. photographer types, I already mentioned that I don't take too many pictures when there is something wrong with my equipment, even if it isn't that serious. Having said that, when I get along with my equipment, I take loads of pictures (for an amateur). I took 10000 this last year with my 5D, and I have a full-time job. I simply look for great equipment for the enjoyment of using it, and to remove excuses for poor results. I need to feel that the bad results are my fault to make progress.

[lct]

Of course the categories are not perfect; but I certainly understand the sense of what he was getting at. In category B, for example, I would put (no pun intended) Erwin Puts, whose best work as far as I can tell has involved a precise analysis of the mechanical and optical quality of cameras, in which work he apparently takes much joy. He occasionally posts photographs, usually nudes, that aren't so good...

No big deal but i don't feel it quite fair to reduce Puts or anybody else to someone who "Loves searching for the precision expected in photgraphic equipment and likes putting together a complete selection of lenses" because he has technical skills and takes not so good photos.

So if his photos were good he'd pertain to another category?

Well never mind it's perhaps that i hate reducing people to categories, sorry.

[johane]

Henri Cartier-Bresson once said:

"Photography appears to be an easy activity; in fact it is a varied and ambiguous process in which the only common denominator among its practitioners is in the instrument."

:-)

[Your Old Dog]

No big deal but i don't feel it quite fair to reduce Puts or anybody else to someone who "Loves searching for the precision expected in photgraphic equipment and likes putting together a complete selection of lenses" because he has technical skills and takes not so good photos.

So if his photos were good he'd pertain to another category?

Well never mind it's perhaps that i hate reducing people to categories, sorry.

 

I can't comment on Puts work because I don't know it. I can say that if I were Puts and I had some idea how much people appreciated my endless testing in search of bringing the best out of equipment then I would be very happy to help. If Puts never another image of a sunset but chose instead to shoot test charts for what they reveal then my guess is he might be having fun or he wouldn't be doing it. As I've stated a couple of times, photography should be about the fun.

 

As for not likeing people in categorys, some would like to think we are all the same. My son is one of those, he is mentally challenged and I can tell you for fact he wishes there were no categorys in life but we all know better. Life is not fair and wasn't meant to be, there will always be categorys. The question is, are the less than fortunate going to drag the fortunate down to their level or are the fortunate going to drag the less fortunate up. Which world would be better?

[DaveSee]

Reading the on and on flap about the M8's problems makes me think I could get more from the opinions if I knew what kind of photographer these folks are.

 

Type A. Loves to create and take pictures and treats his camera like a tool.

 

Type B. Loves searching for the precision expected in photgraphic equipment and likes putting together a complete selection of lenses.

 

Type C. A working professsional who has the perfect blend of the Type A and Type B as it is necessary to be that way to make it in the business world.

 

I[snipped]

How do you size yourself up? Type A, B or C

A very nice thread topic regarding what we use for what we do... thanks!

Having just pulled another batch of M8 DNG files through the digital soup, looking at this attached--and specifically his "white" shirt and all the "whites" in it--reminded me of an art-world reference, here described by Philip Perlstein:

 

"The use of optical devices, whether prisms, sheets of glass or photographic prints, can give the artist only the outlines of three dimensional objects reduced to one dimension. But the struggle to make that reduction and fill the areas between the outlines gives the artist working from direct visual experience some of his greatest kicks. The difference is like the acceptance of the published score of a hockey game as the finished product, while ignoring the physical experience of the struggle that is the point of the game. It is what is painted between the outlines that makes the difference between merely competent painting and really meaningful art.

 

I remember reading somewhere in Delacroix's journal that the whole art of painting was demonstrated in a drop of water painted on the buttock of one of the sea nymphs in Rubens' painting of the arrival in France of Marie de Medici.. Perhaps Rubens only drew the outline of that drop of water on the lady's backside and it was a studio assistant who painted within the outline; but whoever painted it put his sense of the universe inside that outline. "[1]

 

I would likely settle just after your "A+B, but not C" type... I am thankful for the lenses, and appreciate the Leica design ideal where through the VF "everything is in focus" and the camera manipulation is "frame, focus, shoot"... let's me get back to that water droplet The "business" aspect of "C" is left to the other arts!

 

rgds,

Dave

 

[1] Art and Optics : Philip Pearlstein: Page 1

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[pierovitch]

all types of photographers need inspiration and goals.

 

For type A. I recommend the final stage of photography where you just visualize as any interference of cameras destroys the purity of the moment.

 

For type B. Constructing the perfect f:1.0 pinhole camera - ignore the resolution just appreciate the Bokeh that comes from pure glass free optics.

 

For Type C. Find a job that pays.

 

Enjoy the journey

Cheers Pierre

[carstenw]

What is the focal length of a pinhole camera? Because without focal length, how is one meant to calculate the aperture? I am not sure that I am right, but I think that one doesn't get bokeh with a pinhole camera, but just a softness due to diffraction. With an infinitely small hole, one ought to get infinitely much depth of field.

[scott kirkpatrick]

What is the focal length of a pinhole camera? Because without focal length, how is one meant to calculate the aperture? I am not sure that I am right, but I think that one doesn't get bokeh with a pinhole camera, but just a softness due to diffraction. With an infinitely small hole, one ought to get infinitely much depth of field.

 

The focal length is whatever distance there is between the pinhole and the film. So the aperture is meaningful -- it's just the diameter of the pinhole divided by the distance to the film. The image is soft because it is made up of points of light from the whole area of the pinhole, each projected geometrically. (Ray tracing for a pinhole is where all lens design starts.) And then you add diffraction. So I would say that pinholes do have bokeh.

 

scott

[peterb]

Hmmmm I wonder if the truth ireally is..there are a lot of closet B's who are resigned to be A's because they simply cannot afford all the gear to complete their collections (which is good because they give up on all that B-S and become better A's for it.).

 

But if they could pay for all the lenses and gear, would they then become Amateur C's having lived in the A lane for so long?

 

: )

 

 

P

[lct]

...As for not likeing people in categorys, some would like to think we are all the same. My son is one of those, he is mentally challenged and I can tell you for fact he wishes there were no categorys in life but we all know better...

Please kiss your son for me my friend but IMO no human being can be reduced to one category. We all pertain to categories A, B, ...Z to a certain extent. It is the respective extents which makes that we are different.

[carstenw]

The focal length is whatever distance there is between the pinhole and the film. So the aperture is meaningful -- it's just the diameter of the pinhole divided by the distance to the film. The image is soft because it is made up of points of light from the whole area of the pinhole, each projected geometrically. (Ray tracing for a pinhole is where all lens design starts.) And then you add diffraction. So I would say that pinholes do have bokeh.

 

scott

 

Hmm, but if the aperture is the ratio of the largest part of the opening to the focal length, then for a 50mm pinhole camera with a pinhole 1/10th of a mm large, one would get f/500. I think at that point that the bokeh is nearly irrelevant, since the diffraction would dominate so. In fact, since there is nothing in a pinhole camera to "focus" the rays, one would lose the basic premise for bokeh, ie. the differential way in which in-focus and out-of-focus rays converge.

[smokysun]

hi ray,

 

alas, i love these philosophical questions. they often uncover new ideas and ways of doing things.

 

lately i've pulled out the unused 20d and have been having fun with it. after shooting for a year with the d2 and d-lux2 i'm enjoying a couple of cheap fuji's.

 

i must be a type a, cause i don't really have a brand loyalty. usually i do better with second level stuff, say a nissan instead of a toyota. maybe high quality stuff makes me nervous, like i expect too much. or carrying a m8 with a four thousand dollar lens is not something i'd like to do thru india.

 

maybe that's it. if you fear to lose what you've got, your attention is distracted from the true goal.

 

wyane

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[Jamie Roberts]

That'll be Robert Mapplethorpe I suppose ;-)

 

Whoohooo!! LOL!

[Jamie Roberts]

{snipped} My favorite thing is mountain biking, but Berlin is double-flat, and anyway, I don't have a riding partner at the moment.

 

Carsten!!

 

Take it from me...one of those few guys who always went to gym (3 times a week) and rode my mountain bike like a crazy man (+100km / week) *before* having a child and gaining like, an amazing amount of weight and then never going to the gym anymore --you *do* have riding partner *and* a solution.

 

Your 5d is a terrible camera to take on your bike. It's almost defective in that sense Your M8 is a wonderful, lightweight travelling companion, and with a 2GB card and fresh batteries, isn't going to be awkward or anything on a good ride.

 

(Also, try doing road distances on your mountain bike. You won't need the gym much--not for cardio, anyway--those bikes are tougher to work than hybrids or road bikes and give you a better workout, IMO).

 

As for categories, they're always tough. And inaccurate. I think I'm a mix of three of them...

 

A: I love photographing people, and so the camera--whatever it is--is just a tool. I have everything from a 2MP Panaleica superzoom to an old Rollieflex to the Canon and Leica equipment. Sometimes that 2MP is just the ticket to forget everything and take pictures.

 

B: I love having the right tool for the job; and better glass means less work in post to get the effect I want, not to mention different compositions. So the lens collector in me appreciates the fine craftsmanship of good glass, and yeah--there would be something very cool about owning a 1.2 Nocti... but

 

C: the working photographer in me--banking on passion from A meeting precision from B will make $$ for C--won't let me buy an 1.2 Nocti. Yet. D'oh!!

 

I guess I'm a multiple personality type guy...