“Woah! That’s a really nice camera. I bet it takes awesome pictures. Was it expensive?”
The famous quote that many photographers hear far too often. Is it a myth? Does an expensive camera make your photos award-winning works of art capable of being sold for thousands if not millions of dollars? In my experience, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
With the advances in digital photography, people see big fancy cameras and assume they make every photo a masterpiece. What most people don’t realize is that it takes years of practice, patience and determination to capture a great photograph. Anyone can pick up an $8,000 dollar camera, press the shutter release and take snapshots. So what creates the line between a snapshot and a photograph? Light.
If photography were to be summed up in one word, it would be light. Without light, there wouldn’t be a photograph. The difference between a good photograph and a mediocre one has everything to do with the use and control of light.
Which brings me back to expensive cameras. What is a camera? What exactly does it do? Can a camera think for itself and snap awesome photos? The answer is no. Without the human element, a camera is just a lens, a sensor and a shutter. It’s the person looking through the viewfinder, adjusting the aperture, shutter and the ISO that makes the picture possible.
It goes even further than this with the use of Adobe Photoshop. Many people assume professional photographers use this tool to make their photos stand out from what is taken by your “Average Joe” with a Canon PowerShot. What many don’t realize is that in fashion photography, much of what you see that makes the photo “pop” and stand out is the use of controlled lighting sources called “strobes.”
Strobes are flash units that are usually portable and produce large amounts of light for milliseconds at a time. These flash units are usually used with light modifiers such as umbrellas, soft boxes, snoots, grids, gels and other types of diffusion tools. It is the use of these in a specific way that can make a snapshot into a work of art.
I had the opportunity to speak with former Playboy photographer David Mecey. Mecey worked with Playboy from 1979 to 2002 and has done work for Sport, Forbes, Esquire, Cream, Ego magazine and many more. He’s also worked with celebrities such as Carmen Electra, Jay Leno, Victoria Silvestedt and Ray Liotta.
When I asked Mecey what he thought about his success as a photographer, he said failure has never been an option for him.
“To be honest, I didn’t really think about not succeeding as much as I had a sense of just learning as much as I could and get as good as I could, and becoming a part of that upper-level of photographers. I never thought about the money side as much as achieving an enormous amount of knowledge and skill. I thought that if I got to that level, the money would follow,” Mecey said.
I talked to Mecey about the trend of digital photography today verses the way it was back in the days of film photography.
“When digital came around, it was said that digital was much faster and cheaper [than film cameras]; it wasn’t, “ Mecey said.
What many people don’t realize is the post processing that comes into play with digital photography. With the capability to take thousands of photos at a shoot or event, the photographer has to spend hours sorting the photos.
“It’s about the same as time utilized [in film] if not more. It takes more time then people realize,” Mecey said.
With the development of photo-editing programs such as Adobe Photoshop, many beginner photographers tend to lean on Photoshop, thinking that it’s what all the pros use.
“When clients see what I do from start to finish, [that] includes the Photoshop part of it, which is not major retouching, but minor retouching, which is just color corrections or [making] the file as good as what I was creating inside the camera,” Mecey said.
On the topic of high-end, expensive digital cameras and equipment, Mecey said it is important for the client know that your finished product will be as good as the competing photographers.
“The client assumes that you’re not as good because you don’t have the biggest megapixel camera out there,” he said.
Mecey said he has used a six-megapixel camera to take photographs for huge banners and posters that have turned out “amazing.”
“It’s the person shooting the photograph that really matters, not so much the equipment, but the persons knowledge and skill level that’s using that equipment, that’s the defining element as to who should be hired, not so much the gear,” he said.
Photography is an art form. Buying the most expensive camera will do nothing for you unless you have the knowledge and passion to use it to its full potential. In my opinion, focus on the bigger picture, learn the technical side of photography and have fun.
— Tim Kershner is assistant director of photography for the IC and a sophomore majoring in special education.
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