Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/12/18
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 06:00 PM 18/12/99 +0300, Bernard wrote: > >Art is art, yes. But the *medium* is technical. > I agree with this. Even in traditional art forms, like oil painting, without technical understanding of the medium one can never hope to accomplish much. I think that to be a competent photographer one has to engage both the left and right parts of the brain. The technical skills give one the necessary starting point from which one can then try to produce something aesthetically pleasing. Neither alone is good enough. There are many photographers who have the technical skills, but are unable to produce really good images. As well, one can have an artistic sense, but fail to produce anything because of a lack of technical competence. The two have to go together to produce really good images. The only photographers lacking technical skill who have done good work are those who hand over their film to expert technicians who can then do the rest. Even so, without an understanding of things like exposure, focusing, composition, etc. they wouldn't have anything recorded on film worth giving to someone else to print.