What Is Photography?

Cades Cove barn at sunset, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

 Blog Note: This is a repost from 2021.

 

What is photography? Is it a hobby? A craft? A profession? 

Is it art?

Are photographers artists? 

The answer to both questions is sometimes. Not all photographs are art, but some are. Not all photographers are artists, but some are. Some of the time.

Photography got off on the wrong foot at its birth, more than 190 years ago, because no one was sure just how it should be classified. Since it rendered three- dimensional reality in two dimensions on a flat surface, photography soon came to be regarded as a form of drawing, albeit inferior because it was achieved by mechanical and chemical means.  Most photographers accepted this evaluation unquestioningly and set out in great earnest to prove that photography could compete with the older media by producing work that looked like drawing, painting, or engraving. 

Part of the problem then and now is confusion of terminology; using the words medium and art as though they were interchangeable, when in fact they are not. Painting is a medium, as are sculpture, engraving, photography, and pottery.  When practiced at a high level of competence within the context of its own inherent qualities, each medium is a craft which may become art when imbued with an indefinable presence imparted by the being of the artist himself.

The essence of photography is that it is photographic. It is a picture made by the action of light reflected from something that has objective reality onto a sensitized surface. Light rays bouncing off something that is really there go through a lens and are recorded onto film, a sensor of some kind, or something not yet invented, but whatever it is, it is "writing with light." 

As distinguished from other visual media, the art of photography is primarily the art of seeing. A photograph is created at the instant of exposure, and nothing done to it afterward will make it art if it was not well seen to begin with. Throughout the history of the medium, the works that have had power, the works that have lasted, have been straight photographs. Furthermore, most of them have been documentary photographs. Their power and their art are in the photographer's ability to see and to present his vision in a tangible form.

So what about the photograph at the top of this post? Is it art?

 Maybe. Maybe not. Some people may consider it art, others won't.

Am I an artist?

Maybe. Probably not. But I always work with artistic intent and an artistic attitude. Other than that, I don't worry about it. History may declare that my photographs have staying power and that I was an artist, but I won't be around to receive any plaudits. So I make my photographs the best I can and am happy in the doing. That's all I can do.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography  art     art of photography     barns     Cades Cove     Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Hello? Hello! Is Anyone Here?

Abandoned  home near Armuchee, Georgia.

Writing a blog on a regular schedule is like having a baby and then waking up pregnant again the next day.

Don't get me wrong -- I enjoy writing this blog. It helps me keep up my writing skills, and sometimes I even write things that surprise me. It also helps with discipline -- something I'm not very good at. I've written nearly 600 posts over the last three and a half years. But writing can be a lonely craft. And always, I wonder: is anyone listening? Is anyone reading what I write? Is it of any value to anyone? Or am I just writing for myself?

So I launch my babies out into the blogosphere, seldom knowing where they land or how they fare.  The Blogger stats say my posts get a fair number of hits, but I get very few comments. 

Which brings me to my point. I would like to ask, Is Anyone Here? Is this blog of any value to you? If it is, will you please post a brief comment? Anonymous is fine, don't need any attaboys, just a quick "I'm here" will do. I would just like to know if you're out there.

Thank you.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

I Sold My Truck -- Finally!

 The mighty Beast. The 2018 RAM 3500 with dual rear wheels.

My truck is sold. The new owner is picking it up tomorrow. It has been a long haul, if you'll excuse the expression, getting it off to a new home.

We sold the trailer last October, but I kept the truck until the trailer was gone because I was afraid I might need to move the trailer, and of course, couldn't do it without the truck. So I listed the truck on AutoTrader on November 1st and got six inquiries immediately. And then I came down with Covid that same day and had to inform the prospective buyers that I wouldn't  be able to show the truck for a week. They all apparently moved on, and I had few serious inquiries from then on. 

Over the following six months I kept lowering the price, but had no takers until Sunday afternoon, when a man called and came to see the truck. He checked it out thoroughly and made me an offer that was far from what I had in mind. I told him thanks, but no thanks.

After he left, I called my son Don and asked him what he thought. He said "Take it!" 

I prayed about it, and thought about how the truck had become an albatross around our necks. We need another car, but have no place to park a third vehicle and the diesel truck is too expensive to drive on a regular basis. So I called the man back. He raised his offer by a thousand dollars and I said "Deal!"

So, I'm relieved. We can move on.

This post is obviously not about photography. But as it says in the intro on the left of your screen, I write about photography, about life, and about my life in photography.This post is about life. But just to say a bit about photography, both photos were made with a Fuji X-T20 camera and the very fine (but cheap!) Fujicron XC 16-50mm lens.

 

 The Truck and 5th-wheel trailer. Ready to roll on our very first outing.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography   travel  RAM 3500 trucks     Fuji X-T20 camera     Fujicron XC 15-50mm lens

A Final Word about Perspective Control: Put It in a Frame

 

Blog Note: I didn't want to leave the subject of perspective control without mentioning a very important way to do it -- put the subject in a frame. I've written about this in the past, so this is a repost from early 2022.

Above are two photographs of the beautiful, old Starr's Mill, a few miles south of Fayetteville, Georgia. They were taken at different times and with different cameras, however, looking at each file at high magnification, there appears to be no difference in photographic quality.

Which one do you prefer? Can you say why?

Although the second photo is sharp and has beautiful light and color, most people prefer the first one, even though many probably could not say why. The mill looks great in the second one, but there's no feeling of depth and no place for your eye to rest. In the first one, the tree on the right, the rocks on the shore, and the dam all combine to lead the eye to the mill. They form a frame around it,  which gives the picture a a sense of depth and dimensionality.

"Framing" a photo is a very effective compositional technique, and one I use a lot. In this photograph of Short's Mill near Clarkesville, Georgia, the mill is actually only a small part of the picture, yet the stone ledge, flowing water, and autumn leaves form a frame to lead the eye to the old mill. 

There many ways to put the subject of your photograph in a frame. For instance, in this photo of a children's Sunday School class, the way the children's heads are turned direct the viewer's eye to the teacher and the child she is speaking to. 

I don't use this technique of framing for every shot, of course, but I think if you learn to look for opportunities to put a frame in your pictures it will improve your photography.

You can read more about framing here. 

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography   travel   Georgia     old mills     perspective control     photographic composition

Should You Shoot RAW or Jpeg?

Les Barnett plays a homemade banjo at the Foxfire Museum. From a jpeg original.

There's a long-running debate about whether it's better to shoot RAW or jpegs in your digital camera. I would guess most knowledgeable photographers would counsel you to shoot RAW. Me? I shoot both. But most of my digital pictures that you see will be out-of-the camera jpegs. The RAW files are backups, and I only use them when a scene has an extremely wide range of tones or presents a difficult color-balancing problem. Most digital cameras allow you to shoot both simultaneously.

Slide film was probably the most difficult photographic medium to work with, yet I used it for the majority of my work for 35 years. It required a very precise metering technique, because if it were more than a stop overexposed it was unusable. It was a little more forgiving of underexposure. But I never relied on the built-in camera meters, because they read the light reflected from the subject and could easily be fooled. I almost always used an incident meter, which read the light falling on the subject, which is far more accurate.

However although the meter built into your digital camera is a reflected-light meter, it is far more sophisticated and accurate than those in my old film cameras. The meters in my Fuji cameras are right on the money most of the time, and at worst, are close enough that a simple Photoshop adjustment in Curves will make them just right. 

When I'm finished editing my photos I usually delete the RAW files to save space on my hard drive.

Here's how I set up my Fuji cameras to shoot jpegs. Your camera may be slightly different.

Image Quality: F (Fine)

Film Simulation: S (resembles Fuji Astia, my favorite film. This is a matter of personal taste. I prefer my photos to have softer, warmer tones.)

Dynamic Range: 100

White Balance: I usually use Auto

Highlight and Shadow Tones: Both 0

Color: +1

Sharpness: +1

ISO: Varies with situation, but I mostly use ISO 800. The sensors in today's digital cameras are so good there's seldom any advantage in using a lower speed. My files will easily enlarge to 24x36 inches and beyond with excellent sharpness.

The photo above is an excellent example of a straight-out-of-the-camera jpeg. There's good color and a wide range of tones with nothing extreme. Click on it for an enlarged version and you will see that there are no burned-out highlights and that there is detail even in the dark hallway behind the banjo player. The photo was made with a Fuji X-H1 camera and the  cheap but vastly underrated Fujicron XC 16-50mm lens.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography   travel    camera setup     Fuji X-H1 camera     Fujicron XC 16-50mm lens     Foxfire Museum     RAW     jpegs

Georgia Small Towns: Milledgeville

The old Georgia State Capital in Milledgeville was built in 1807.

 Only two cities in the United States were established for the express purpose of being capitols. One, of course, was Washington, D.C. The other was Milledgeville, founded in 1804 to be the capitol of Georgia.

After the capitol was moved to Atlanta in 1868, Milledgeville went through many years of struggle. The establishment of Georgia Military College in 1879 and Georgia College and State University in 1889 helped the city to survive and perhaps become less provincial than most other small towns in Georgia. The current population is about 17,000.

In the 1980s and '90s, Milledgeville began to revitalize its downtown and historic district. On my visits there I greatly enjoyed browsing through downtown Milledgeville, with its many shops and restaurants and gracious, old-south lifestyle. Milledgeville has a surprisingly cosmopolitan air for a smallish, off-the-beaten-track town, perhaps because of the two colleges located here. I wanted to stay and relax with the crowds at the sidewalk tables in front of many of the restaurants.

The 1822 Orme-Sallee House is one of many historic homes in Milledgeville.

 

The 1807 O'Quinn's Mill on Town Creek is the same age as the old capitol building.

 

 Andalusia Farm, the home of writer Flannery O'Conner during her most productive years.

About the photos: The old State Capitol and the Orme-Sallee House were photographed with an Olympus E-M5 fitted with the Panasonic Lumix G Vario 12-32mm lens. For O'Quinn's Mill and the Andalusia Farm house, I used a Fuji X-H1 camera and the Fujicron XC 16-50mm lens.

This post was adapted from my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia. 

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography   travel     Georgia     Milledgeville     Flannery O'Conner     Olympus E-M5 camera     Panasonic     Lumix G Vario 12-32 lens     Fuji X-H1 camera     Fujicron XC 16-50mm lens     Andalusia Farm

How to Keep Vertical Lines in Photographs Vertical: Number Six: Go for Dramatic Effect

Fayette County Courthouse, Fayetteville, Georgia.

 So far we've discussed five techniques for achieving correct perspective, with vertical lines vertical, in our photographs. Another technique, which I didn't mention before, is finding a higher elevation from which to shoot. I've gone to second (or higher) floors of buildings across the street from my subjects on occasion, when that possibility was available.

Sometimes however, we encounter situations where none of these techniques will work. What then? Well, if converging verticals are inevitable, we might as well make the most of it!

The Fayette County courthouse, built in 1824, is Georgia's fourth oldest. I could have, and actually did, make photographs of the building from several angles with correct perspective. But this picture was made purposely from this angle and with this framing for dramatic effect. I think the square format really works here. To me, this more effectively conveys the essence of the old structure than any of the "correct" views.

Tower Place, Buckhead, Atlanta, Georgia

 

There was no possibility of making an architecturally correct photo of the tower in Tower Place in Buckhead -- there was no place I could go to get a "correct" perspective of the building. It was simply too tall. So I did the only thing I could do -- I moved in close with a wide-angle lens, tilted the camera, and went for the drama.

Interestingly enough, most of the architects to whom I've shown this picture have liked it. Enough so that I've kept it in my architectural portfolio for years.

About the photos:  The Fayette County courthouse was photographed with a Yashica 124 twin-lens reflex camera and Fujichrome 100 film in 120 size. The Tower was photographed with an Olympus OM camera and (probably) the 24mm f2.8 Zuiko  lens on Kodachrome 64 film.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography   architectural photography   film photography     Georgia     Fayette County courthouses     Tower Place, Buckhead     Yashica 124    twin-lens-reflex camera   Olympus OM camera     Zuiko 24mm f2.8 lens     Fujichrome 100 film     Kodachrome 64 film