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Reconciling The Poet and The Geek
A means to achieving your vision
By David Duchemin
Photography, despite the cameras, computers and vast arsenals of lenses, software, and assorted geekery, is an artistic pursuit. At the
heart of that pursuit is our vision and the need to create an image about which we are passionate - something that communicates the
ineffable in colour, light, and gesture. What stands in the way of creating those images is often the very tools by which we ought to be
aided. In fact, too often in digital photography, the means to an end becomes the end itself. Our vision and the image it creates can quickly
become servant to the technology; excuses for our addiction to technique and tools.
Digital photographers, like artists in all disciplines, face a temptation to fall more deeply in love with the way we create our images, than
with the images themselves and the reasons for those images. In short, we become addicted to the HOW of photography, and when that happens the
WHY and the WHAT that suffers. The result of this is a glut of photographs that are technically perfect but lacking in emotion, depth, symbolism,
and/or passion.
It's tempting to react to this addiction with a manic swing to the other side and embrace an artsy-fartsy, to-hell-with-technique attitude, but it's
when the artist and the geek/technician are both held in tension that our vision has the greatest chance of being realized.
How does that balanced tension come about? It begins with our own self-awareness and knowing to which side of this split-personality we most naturally
fall. To those of us who tend to hide behind hyperfocal distances and Photoshop filters, we need to learn to feel and speak (visually) with greater
passion and less reliance on our tools. Perhaps an ongoing personal project that involves the simplest of tools - an old manual camera, one lens, and
some black and white film would be helpful. Give the geek a personal retreat and some time to learn to express himself with the simplest of equipment.
Don't have simple gear? Set your digital SLR to manual, use one lens, and shoot JPG. And no Photoshop. As painful as this low-tech exercise can be for the
natural technician, it serves a greater purpose: to help you see past the words and grammar of the visual language and find a story worth telling.
For the natural artist, the road to serving your vision might be even more difficult. The geek has only to fast from his addiction and learn to feel a
little more deeply. You, the poet, the artist, may need to learn the nuts and bolts of your craft - take a course in lighting, learn about histograms
and adjusment layers. For an artist, this can be truly difficult. It might be time for a workshop or a month's worth of video tutorials. The goal is
not to abandon or even neglect your artistic side, the goal is to provide you with the greatest possible grasp of the available tools so you're as
capable of expressing your vision as possible.
There are three images that go into making your final photograph. The first is the image you visualize - the story you are compelled to tell. The second
is the scene you capture with the camera. The third is the image you refine in post-production. For some photographers there will never be a third, but
for all of us there will be a first and a second and the better we are at all of these, the closer our final photograph will come to reflecting the
initial vision. The more harmoniously the artist and the geek can co-exist, and the better they both are at what they do, the more powerful and powerfully
communicated, our vision will be.
David Duchemin Bio
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