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KISS |
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KISS
No, that’s not an invitation it’s an acronym for ‘Keep it simple
Stupid’, Photographers split into three main sections. There are those
who try and keep the whole photographic process including equipment
simple, everything is kept to the basics. Then we have the lovers of
technology and complication. This group devours reviews and technical
articles with an appetite of enormous proportion. If they can
complicate anything trust me they will. The one thing to avoid at all
cost is asking them a question; I guarantee that you will be more
confused with the answer than when you asked the question. This group
revel in optical test charts and densitometry. And at the end of the
day they and any listeners who are still awake end up totally
imprisoned within their circles of confusion. The third group are the
lucky ones. The have been through the whole gambit. These are the
photographers who have been around the block a couple of times. They
started off as most with the simple desire to capture a picture. They
realised that if they knew a bit more perhaps their photography would
improve. After a while they realised that finding and sticking to tried
and trusted methods and equipment was far more rewarding then the
endless chase after improvement with the credit card. These are the
photographers who acquire sufficient knowledge and then give up; the
accumulating of knowledge for its own sake is not for them. These are
the guys and gals who know their equipment and materials so well that
they can go into auto pilot instead of faffing around.
The second group are the must have, must knows. They can be identified
scouring the bookshelves at W.H. Smiths. They can quote chapter and
verse on anything and everything connected with photography. In fact
their main occupation is hanging around camera shops listening to the
salesmen just waiting to jump in and correct him if he is the slightest
bit out on the most obscure specification of the latest all singing all
dancing gizmo from Japan. They devour reviews as second nature and now
of course with the introduction of the Internet their veracious
appetite is well catered for.
This group with only few exceptions also produce the fewest
photographs, they are just so busy keeping up with the latest.
Of course now with the introduction of digital we have yet another
group, the computer experts. These as far as I am concerned speak
Klingon….very rapidly. Digital has opened up a whole new world; the
English language has expanded enormously just to keep up. We have Geeks
and Nerds and Pointy heads; we have Megabytes and Gigabytes and
Terabytes; we have Moiré and pixels and Ram and RAW; we have jpeg and
Tiff and PSD and P.S.7 which of course is now PSCS or at least it was
yesterday. The whole thing spins faster and faster, with a bit of luck
soon it will disappear into its own USB port.
Canon in particular brings out a new updated camera every other Friday.
The new one of course is a great improvement, or at least the
advertising men tell us. Last weeks camera stops being any good, in
fact I reckon soon Canon and Nikon to some extent will install a small
explosive device in every camera. Then every other Friday morning a
little guy in the sales department will press a button and every ‘last
weeks’ camera will self destruct on the spot.
But so many photographers love all these complications. Gone are the
days where you guessed or used a meter for assessing exposures. That
reminds me, meters. Even they have been subjected to the ‘lets
complicate ‘everything. A few years ago I suffered a mad spell and
bought a Minolta spot meter, the instruction book was 240 pages long.
If anyone would like an unread mint instruction book I have one going
spare. Tell me, talking about instruction books, does anyone actually
read them? I bought recently a Leica Digilux 2; I thought wow, at last
a simple digital camera, the instruction book 100 pages. And whilst I
am on the topic, why doesn’t the index ever have what you want?
Anyway just a rant on a wet Friday afternoon, waiting for the next Canon to be announced.
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