Looking at you -- undies and all

(I am using the topic that follows as a cheap excuse to run a few more Kauai photos. I'm doing that because I can, since it's my blog)

They’re making photography too damned easy. This is not a good thing. With cameras that essentially do everything for the photographer, it renders it nearly impossible to take a bad picture.

This is akin to the misapprehension held a few years ago by too many people that told them if they got their hands on a home computer, they should immediately become professional writers. They missed the point that the computer was merely a tool, just like a pen, and that writing originates in the head and heart, not in the fingertips.

Anyway, the ease with which a photo can be taken now is unwelcome news to many of us, who realize that we won't only have to look at yet another instalment of Aunt Hattie's family history, but that these same boring relatives (who we've only met once, if ever) will now not only be in focus, they will not have been partially decapitated, and will not be a couple of microdots who looked like they were photographed at the north end of a football field, with the photographer standing at the south end.

Consequently, the Aunt Hatties and others who avail themselves of the new technology, without having to attempt to deduce the vagaries of f-stops and ASA ratings (like the rest of us never succeeded in doing), will suffer under the misapprehension that they are photographers.

I liked it better when photography was a tricky business, making demands on
the man or woman behind the camera lens. Those who couldn't master those
demands, gave up and turned to chinchilla-raising or some other hobby. Those with an artistic 'eye' stuck with it, and sometimes produced stunning works of
photographic art, even with the most antediluvian equipment. Ansel Adams, for example, used pretty basic gear.

My first camera was a turn-of-the-century Eastman-Kodak ‘Brownie.’ A real relic it was, and I wish I still had it, since it would probably be worth something as a collectible. That same old camera, I am sure, if it had been in the hands of somebody other than a twelve-year-old boy, might have taken remarkably effective photos, considering its simplicity.

I graduated from that one to a Brownie 'Hawkeye'. This was state-of-the-art' for a
fourteen-year-old. Eventually (to make a tiresome personal history refreshingly short) I went into the newspaper business. It was a small-town paper and we were expected to take our own pictures. Since said pictures were to go on public display, I had to learn such rudiments as composition, effective use of flash, which lens would suit a particular situation best, and remembering to put film in the camera.

Over the years I became a (ahem) fairly proficient photographer and learned many things about light and shadow, backlighting, exposures, using ‘flash fill’ even on a sunny day, and also that extremely important rule for the discreet photographer; never take a flash photo of a female in a dark silken or knit garments if you do not want her undies showing through.

Of course, if you are a cad, you will make a point of taking such photos since you indeed will want said undies showing through. And now, with the new digital gear you can take dirty photos and not have to go through the embarrasment of having the film processed in a lab. It's a voyeur's paradise. The Internet attests to that.

So far, I have only addressed 'still' photography. Even greater sins have been committed over the years by amateurs who have been seduced by motion. I never did take home movies of the conventional sort. My dad did. In fact, even his dad did. My grandfather produced a phenomenal number of amateur movies, going back to the 1920s. Indeed, he even used color film as early as the mid-1930s. His family may have been hungry during the Depression, but good old Grandpa always managed to keep his hand in the movie business.

As I said, I never did take conventional home movies, but sometime in the early 1990s I got myself a videocam. For the first couple of years I pulled the thing out on regular occasions; family gatherings, vacations, and so forth. The result of my activities were usually outrage and running for shelter out of camera range by my wife and stepdaughter.

Eventually I became more circumspect with its use. But, I do have a couple of highlights on tape, including a wale-watching excursion on Maui, where you not only see the whales up close and personal, as it were, but hear them spewing and snorting. I also took the camera to London with me in 1997. I got some nice shots, complete with all the street noise, and the beautiful music of a small chamber ensemble skilfully playing Pachelbel’s Canon at a street market. Nice stuff.

And then, I think I mainly put it away. Periodically I stumble across the case that contains the videocam and think, “Oh yeah, I have a videocam. I should use it sometime.” But, it seems that I never do.

Especially not since I finally broke down and bought a digital camera. Why didn’t anyone tell me about these things? They’re wonderful. I'll never go back to the old gear, even though I still have my good old Minoltas.

But, keep digital out of the hands of Aunt Hattie if you can.