Near my desk, sits a battered blue notebook that contains miscellaneous notes, articles and quotes that I’ve collected over the years.  While preparing for last month’s workshop, I scanned its pages looking in vain for some long lost thought. However two random quotes caught my eye and set me thinking.

The first from Alfred Stieglitz;

“The photographer has discovered a machine to make his masterpiece of art for him, by sticking his head into a black box and letting a machine do everything.”

The second from Charles Sheeler;

“…Isn’t it amazing how photography has advanced without improving!”

What struck me was how relevant these quotes are today. In light of the digital revolution, Stieglitz could well have been talking about modern digital cameras. Not only does technology free the user from thinking about exposure and focus, but I recently saw a promo from a national electronics retailer for a new generation camera with “face finder technology.” We have arrived back at Kodak’s 1888 promise - “You push the button, we do the rest.” And Sheeler may have been viewing any number of current exhibits featuring the results of digital technology! Hyper-sharp, hyper-colored, images of banal subjects with boring compositions – the latest and greatest “objects de art” from the digital darkroom! You don’t need cutting edge technology to make images that bad.

It’s too easy for today’s digital wizards to become so enthralled with what the technology can do; they forget that it’s the photographer’s vision that allows an image to transcend the ordinary. The fact remains, as it has for decades, no matter how advanced the process, no matter how sophisticated the equipment, the most important piece of equipment is the human eye looking through the viewing portal.

In his keynote speech at Foto3 this summer, photographer John Sexton noted the difference between “composing” and “photographing.” Music and paintings involve pulling elements in and are thus “composed”, while “photographing” involves distilling what is in front of the camera. Distilling generally involves selectively removing extraneous elements. The human eye sweeps across an entire scene taking in more detail than the camera can ever hope to. To make a photograph you must begin by eliminating parts of the scene to create an illusion of the whole.

Therefore the true art of photography, something that a microchip can never replace, is selecting what to exclude from the image.