Being a Photographer Can Be Stressful These Days

I am not a professional photographer.  In fact, I'm not a particularly talented amateur photographer, but I really enjoy photography.  My mother has always been a good photographer, so I must have gotten it from her. I got my first camera while we were on a family vacation.  It was a used 35mm camera that someone had left at a gas station.  I saw it on the shelf behind the counter and asked about it.  The clerk probably figured that the owner wouldn't be coming back for it, so he sold it to me for $10.

From that point on I was hooked.  My parents helped me set up a darkroom in our basement and I developed black and white film there for a long time using some old equipment that my grandfather had used way before I was born. Some of my stuff was pretty good, but most of it wasn't.  It was a learning experience to be sure.  I took a break from it after high school and just recently took up the hobby again.

Things are way different now.  I still prefer working with black and white film, but I finally relented and started learning how to use digital equipment and the software that makes it all work.  I was able to buy an slightly older model DSLR camera from a co-worker.  His wife had purchased it to take photos of their kids and afterwards she decided that it was too complicated, so he sold it to me for almost nothing.  It has familiar feel of an SLR, but it's digital.  I can take photos and see them right away.

The whole idea of digital photography has turned photography upside down for me and I'm not sure if I like it or not.  Once you have the shot composed, you just press the shutter release and if the camera is in auto mode it will do all of the hard work for you.  It takes several frames at different apertures all with one shot.  Once you have the shot completed, you can adjust the white balance, color saturation, and about a million other things later with software like Lightroom, PhotoShop, and other similar programs.  With film, you have to make sure everything is mostly correct before you press that button.

I think the the ability to "adjust" photos after the shot is good, but it's produced some really bizzare photos.  I was looking at someone's photos of Yellowstone this morning and the colors were so vivid I wasn't sure if they were actual photos or some kind of Andy Warhol interpretation.  Color like that just doesn't occur in nature and, to be honest, I found it kind of revolting.

This brings us to an important question and it's also where the stress comes into play. When we take a photo, what do we want it to convey to the viewer?  If we are just capturing information, then composition and the depth of color doesn't matter all that much.  But I think if we consider our photos our art, then we need to capture feeling and emotion as well as information.  We can make some really stunning pieces by enhancing our photos digitally, but what about representing reality and how far should we stray away from it?  Trying to keep that delicate balance is stressful.

After the photo is captured is where the temptation of digital photography causes problems.  You can't capture emotion in a photo if you make it look a certain way and the viewer's brain tells him/her that the photo is not authentic in terms of color, texture, lighting, and focus.  Film is not as forgiving in these areas and you really have to work harder at creating art with film, but I think the result is well worth it.  I'll keep doing digital too, but I'm learning to be very, very careful not to over process my photos with software later on.

As I said, I'm not an accomplished photographer, but I'm working on it.  And yes, I still have that first $10 camera.