Great Photography Quote :::
 

I love this quote about Photography:

"The camera doesn't make a bit of difference. All of them can record what you are seeing. But, you have to SEE."

-Ernst Haas

So therein lies the big challenge of being a better than average photographer :thumbsup

what about Photoshop ?:upsidedow

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

I was just checking out these badass pictures of Katy Perry shot by Photographer Mikael Jansson. Then I googled the photographers name and saw so many crybabies posting about how he over uses Photoshop. I mean this guy shoots for some of the biggest magazines on the planet and all people can do is complain about how much he over uses Photoshop :1orglaugh. Gawd the haters just need to get a life already!!!

A camera to a photographer is like;

A typewriter to an author.
A chisel to a sculpture.
A brush to a painter.
A computer to a troll.

A good tool doesn't make a bad shooter good.

A bad tool doesn't always inhibit a good shooter.

Been saying it for years, seems Dean now agrees with me.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

In photographing porn the camera is pretty low down on the scale of essential tools. Different people might change the order a bit. This is my list.

Ability to "manage, direct and motivate" models. always top of my list because they are the most unpredictable of all the tools required. No two persons are alike and we can't always push them into the mold we need. The skill of communication and charm helps.

Knowledge of lighting. this also changes. Even the color of the background will need different lighting to bring out the right effects. Different niches demand different lighting.

Knowledge of the niche. Understandable why.

Experience. Over years different occurrences throw up different situations. The ability to handle them is important.

Equipment in general. As few pieces of equipment vary much, make to make, model to model. And once learned the knowledge is there.

Never seen Photoshop or an edit. Save a scene with a bored bad model, or crap lighting. Or getting totally the wrong shots or kick a boyfriend out of a shoot because he's an asshole. :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Post a quote of him disagreeing with you.

Your trolling game is really getting weak now you are having to insinuate people said things they never said Paul.

:(

Step your game up or you won't win your award this year.

Haas to be the greatest quote

and to think i was going to waste a bunch of money on a 5D. i'm glad i read this, now i can buy that disposable i had my eye one.

Dean, you'd be happy to know that we've coined the phrase, "What Would Dean Capture Do."

We use this when we are shooting in a less than favorable location and simply can't see the best way to shoot it. That's when WWDCD comes in. It's our little kick in the butt to stop being lazy and try to find the sweet spot of the room.

:1orglaugh

Interesting, but as you keep saying, you are not a photographer.

True and never claimed to be. the camera is merely a tool I use. My brother is taking a Masters Degree in Photography and he's streets ahead of you and me. Yet would never make much money with his skills. He just doesn't have the other skills to make work that will sell.

Bit like you. Except you don't have either his photography skills or the other skills. Ot you hide it very well from all of us. :1orglaugh

I gather I was only on ignore for 24 hours.

The thing about ignorance is that you don't know what you don't know. Maybe your brother could tell you, as he seems to be open to "book learning" .

I am quite happy with people making up their own minds as to our skills, it is not important, lots of people make great work, a lot, like you, worse.

Although our material in is not aimed at the uneducated, you are free to tell us your opinion.

She looks so different in that make-up I can only see 'her' in one of the pics.

Lot of those shots are Liz Tayloresque, or that's the 1st thing that came to mind when I saw it :winkwink:

that and: it's doesn't matter what it looks like, only what the picture looks like... forgot which genius shooter said that...

well one thing Dean will do is use the crew he's been training for years and the 100K in grip equipment that's he's been building up :thumbsup

Nice find, Dean. All the technical knowledge you acquire just lets you capture what you see... "But, you have to SEE."

Here's a quote you may appreciate too.
The English artist/painter John Opie (1761?1807),
when asked what he mixed his colors with, replied:

"I mix them with my brains, sir."

.

sometimes u have to take crappy pics to look like amatuer stuff to convert

When an LB takes a dump in the middle of a shoot we use "WWDWB do" to handle the situation :)

Having that said, shooting for the biggest magazines on the planet doesn't mean he's not photoshopping the pictures to death. And after all, if the customers complain...aren't those the one you're targeting with the pics?

Does he care? Well, he's a fucking honey badger with a big bank account :1orglaugh

But we all know mags like Playboy and FHM and what not, have all kinds of plastic looks in there.

I personally try to limit the amount of overphotoshopping and try to keep a natural look where possible. I'm not a big fan of the "plastic" look myself. I can do it and I have done so for clients. But it's not something I like to do too much.

bingo!!!!!

Very true :)

But hard to shoot if you have reached a certain level of quality in your work.

I like to eat paste.

My point was that he is satisfying his clients, the magazine editors. Otherwise, he wouldn't be regularly published. He's obviously successful at what he does and still, people are whining about how much photoshop he was doing on his pictures. In my opinion, people will whine about any damn thing. You just can't satisfy everybody so I say satisfy yourself and your client and fuck everybody else. Do what you love, what fills your heart with joy and what pays the bills and if the haters wanna hate, let them fucking hate.

I post my pics here on GFY and other places and I have people who love the shots and people who whine that I used too much photoshop. One person loves the work and the next person has issues with the work. How does one rectify this if they want to please every one? Really, there's no way to do it. At some point you have to do what you think is best and just ignore the constant complainers who have nothing better to do than whine about stupid shit....and GFY is full of those.

I have a direction that I want to go with my work. This may not be the direction that a bunch of haters & trolls think I should be taking my work. If someone complained about my work whose opinion I actually respected, I would appreciate the time that they took to tell me their thoughts. But most of what I see are haters, trolls & jealous wanna'be's basically just being assholes. So I just do my best to ignore them. :thumbsup

Preachin' to the choir ;)

mostly just uncomfortable camera angles

" A picture is only as good as it's subject "

It does help but with dumb, lazy models it won't make much difference :2 cents:

Very true.

The problem with photography quotes is...no single quote can cover the entire spectrum of what it takes to be a good, proficient photographer.

(including this one) :D

This quote doesn't try to cover the entire spectrum of what it takes to be proficient. It states a very simple yet very powerful message that....the camera doesn't make the photographer - the photographer does. Veteran shooters know this of course but newbies don't. People ask me all the time.... "what camera did you use to take that picture because it's very pretty"? The camera didn't make the picture pretty - I did :thumbsup

You'll never see a bad driver in a VW Beetle win the Indy500.

That's when you tell them to fuck off home. :thumbsup

Silentknight If it's not in the skills and imagination of the shooter (and model :winkwink: ) then it's not going to happen. for any spectrum of photography. Other than taking pictures of your family. Even then the quote should still ring true.

think of it like this. When Ernst Haas uses the word "see" it also covers the imagination.

An amateur picture from an amateur shooter or a picture of an amateur?

BF shooting GF as a prelude to sex is pretty easy for them. Stranger shooting paid model who has no intention of fucking, isn't easy.

Also with today's cameras and even a decent phone one. It's tough to take a bad picture in light and focus terms.

Yes, all of them can record what you are seeing. And yes...you must have the ability to SEE. But if you don't have a quality camera to accurately record what you are SEEING, then you're not going to capture the quality AS YOU SEE IT.

Although it shoots a decent quickie snapshot, I wouldn't take my old Sony Ericsson 3mP cell phone cam to a shoot and leave my Nikon d80 at home.

I'd modify Haas's quote to say "Although the camera DOES make a difference, you must have the ability to SEE."

Just like the old computing axiom - "Garbage in...garbage out."

I'm no pro, far from it, I just shoot for myself. That being said I started off with a good but older camera with old technology. There are things I would like to work on that my camera just is not good with. Having more pixels to play with would be nice as well. If I had the money to buy a 3 or 4k camera with all the hottest shit I would. Not because I think it will make me an instant success, but because I know I can learn the technology and use it to make my vision come out that much better.

I asked Dean once what camera he was using and I got a tiny amount of shit about the camera doesn't make the photog, (not from him). My reason behind it was because of his experience, knowledge and skill not just because of how the pictures came out. I just figure successful people would want to use the best all around equipment they could to help them achieve what they want to achieve. There are probably reasons he chose one camera over another as well that I may not have thought of.

I think its ok to use a good camera, as well as Photoshop. I taught myself Photoshop over time and edit my own stuff. I feel it is an extension of myself. If I made the photograph and I enhanced it using my skill in photoshop, I don't see why anyone should care. If I am doing it because that's what someone else wants and I am working for them, well that's what they want and they are paying me for it. I have had to do things I don't want to make clients happy, the just the difference between for work and for yourself. If you get that offended by it, maybe you shouldn't sell that particular piece to them.

Just my take on it ::thumbsup

Absolutely :thumbsup

The right angle, background & lighting, the way vision you see through the lens has to be what you want.... So many people pick up a camera & take a photo without looking at the whole picture. That's why you do so well Dean, hoping we're getting there too now :2 cents:

Often the better the camera, the better the skills it needs to use it. I wouldn't swap my car for a Formula 1 racing car because I don't have the skills to use it properly.

Then what is the "quality AS YOU SEE IT"? An amateur couple romping about, a picture of a baby romping about or a landscape portrait of a mountain scenery or a butterfly about to take wing?

For the first two you need to be there at the moment and capture it. If you're a pro shooter filming an amateur couple, you need the skill to capture the mood, angles and generate the passion sometimes. For the second two you need the skills to know exactly what the light will do to the image and when to click the shutter. Yes a better camera will help someone with those skills. but they won't ever eliminate those skills.

I see 100s of shots and videos shot with great equipment, by people who haven't got the skills required to know what they're doing.

The lesson that Markham can teach us is that it is best to be both the photographer and reviewer. In " I shot I great scene for Manwin, but the editor buggered it up.

Self promotion works.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Everyone in this thread should contact both Canon and Nikon, and tell them to stop all of the millions of dollars in research and development on improving their cameras cause those in GFY believe it is the person taking the photo and not the camera. NOT!

1.) Yes composition is everything
2.) The better the camera, the cleaner the image
3.) No camera is smarter than I am, it is very simple to learn.
4.) New and improved cameras are faster for more efficient work flow
5.) New cameras have great tools built in them like wireless transmitters for tethering or triggering strobes.

A warrior does not go to battle with a dull blade

Composition (photographer) is key, but a higher end camera makes it easier to achieve your vision ( the light you see )

http://dgproductions.thenrgstudio.co...acox%20022.jpg

http://dgproductions.thenrgstudio.co...acox%20436.jpg

No mate, you're not fit to lick shit of Dean's shoe.

I love that quote and agree with your outlook on the direction of your work. Have you ever had your vision clouded by the energy of a model, or shoot location, only to find you couldn't convey what was really there? Or that a model you thought was hot in person ended up not so much so on film?

I enjoy threads here where people actually dig deeper. Thank you :thumbsup

.

.

.


http://squirtit.com/promo/StuartBanner.jpg

I would not say all is that simple :)