Sayings in Photography - Nonsense, Truisms, or Wisdom?

 

If you want to take better photos, less is more.

I also heard saying that photography is the opposite of painting. Painting starts with an empty canvas and adds something. Photography starts with a crowded scene and subtracts the unnecessary elements. On the other hand, it is also important what you leave in the frame, isn't it? 

A photography is simply a selection of the scene around us (and also a moment in time, by the way). It is often necessary to add something to the frame, e.g. empty space, or a background to make more sense of the subject. 

And not every good image is minimalistic. If we restrict ourselves to Japanese minimalism, we restrict our photography. It may be difficult to get something beautiful out of a messy scene. But if it works, it can be great.

The best camera is the one you have with you.

It is not! It is just the camera you have with you. The saying is repeated to advertise smartphones and compact cameras. But usually you do not have the best camera with you. Good photographers bring the camera and lens that is need to the job and not the one they have always with them.

Of course, the saying wants to express that you cannot take a picture without a camera, a truism. 

As a side remark, smartphone can do a lot today. I easily understand those that do not want to carry two pounds of gear all the time. But if photography is your hobby, consider starting with a real camera. If you worry about the weight and price, there are options under 1kg and 1000€.  

You don't take a photography, you make it.

This one is attributed to Anselm Adams. I never understood what he wanted to say. Certainly not that you should generate a scene that does not exist. The environmentalist Adams was very much interested to show nature as it is. But he worked a lot on his pictures in the dark room. That explains the saying partly. 

I think the main message is that a photography tells as much about the photographer and how he saw the scene as about the scene. I would formulate, that you indeed take a photograph, but in a very personal way.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

It isn't and it shouldn't be. It is something completely different. A good one has a message that cannot be expressed in words at all. A bad one can be replaced by a single line of test. 

Maybe you can write a thousand words about a picture, but that is not the inherent value of it. But for sure, you cannot replace each lyrical or scientific text with a picture. You can add one, enhancing its value.

Gear does not matter.

This is probably the most silly one. For the image above, I needed a tripod, a remote shutter release, and a nice telephoto lens. You cannot just get this result with an entry level camera with a slow zoom lens. And besides wildlife, there is macro shooting, portrait photography, studio work, astro photography and much more, which requires special and usually expensive gear.

It is true, that photographic skill does matter more than the price of the camera and lens. But often you simply need the right camera and lens for the job.

Good photographers get it right in camera.

This is so wrong that you hear it seldom these days. Each and every good photograph you see somewhere is processed. If done correctly, post-processing is not falsifying, but enhancing, restoring the image as it was seen by the photographer. 

Admittedly, processing can also be used to give the image a mood and a message that the out-of-camera version would not have. And we actually clean up a scene by altering it. For a documentary photographer, it is essential not to overdo the changes. But for most, we can just make the scene into the one we wanted when we took the photo. 

Sometimes, of course, we will make something completely different from what we had, maybe even using AI tools. But, hey, that is art, and photography is art too.

Sensos size does not matter.

This is partly, maybe even mostly correct. But I would call this over-simplifcation misleading.

For MFT, APS-C and film size there are indeed equivalent settings which yield the same angle of view, depth of field, background blurriness, diffraction and noise. There are limits, however. It is very hard to beat a fast wide-angle lens for FF on MFT. On the other end, some telephoto lenses for MFT are way more compact than equivalent ones for FF.

But a bigger lens and a larger sensor, as heavy and expensive as it might be, offers optical advantages which are often overlooked. Obviously, the resolution of the FF sensor is simply double the resolution of MFT. The better lenses for FF make it possible to actually use this resolution. Of course, it is not clear if you really need that much.

You need a photographic style.

This is very true for the professional photographer. He wants his work to be iconic and special. He (or she, of course) needs to be recognized for consistent results, and be hired to deliver to the client what he is known for.

Personally, I don't want to repeat the same over and over again. Some do, and they enjoy it. And they get really good in their niche. Make your choice. And most of all, have fun!