Thursday, March 30, 2006

“WHAT CAMERA DO YOU USE?”

“Your photos are great! What kind of camera do you use?”

There are few things more insulting and disappointing to hear than this sentence. It basically ignores the years of hard work I’ve put into photography and implies that anyone could take fantastic photos if they had a fancy camera.

It does not matter what kind of camera you have; if you don’t study and practice, you won’t get good photos. If you don’t believe me, please read professional photographer Ken Rockwell’s essay titled “Your Camera Doesn’t Matter”. You don’t get good photos by taking 10 at a game, not liking any of them, and then saying ‘Oh well, I guess I just need a better camera.’ You get good photos by taking them, by studying angles, by making mistakes, by looking at what other good photographers are doing. A nice camera can make that easier, but it doesn’t take the photographs.

I shoot on average 250-300 photos per game I attend, double that if I also attend batting practice, more if it’s a ballpark I’ve never been to, and more than that if I also have an affinity for the opposing team (say we’re playing the Twins in interleague). You don’t see all of those photos on here, and you don’t see all of them on Flickr. After every game, I download, edit, tweak some in Photoshop if the white balance is kludgy, upload, select what appears on the site. I’m not asking for a gold star, but what I am trying to point out is that it’s a lot of work. It’s the “lot of work” part that makes the photos good, not what camera I use.

I studied photography when I was in college, but hadn’t picked up a digital SLR (or a SLR at all) until 2005. When I started out doing the site, I didn’t take photos until the playoffs in 06, when I happened to bring along the low-level digital SLR I was using at the time, which was an Olympus UZ-500. It didn’t allow you to change lenses, you could buy adapters to give you a zoom, but it wasn’t a ‘true’ SLR.  I upgraded to a Nikon D40 in 2007 when I had exhausted the possibilities of the Olympus. Next season, I will probably upgrade to a D90 because I am getting close to exhausting the possibilities of the D40.

However, I took really good photos with the UZ-500. I also take really good photos with the D40.  The quality of the photographs has gotten better not because of the camera, but because of the work. The more you shoot, the better you are.

I realize that most people don’t intend to cause offense when they ask the question, but every photographer I know rolls their eyes and groans internally every time it is asked, because it’s completely irrelevant. The camera didn’t take the photographs, the photographer did.