Cameras and the creative mind

Press, 19 October 1977, Page 5

Cameras and the creative mind

Using a camera can end up much like driving a car, if you let it. Essential to good photography — as it is to good driving — is the care and the perception you apply to it. But missing from even the most sophisticated camera supply inventory is one valuable accessory — your creative mind. Whether you own a simple non-adjustable model or an expensive single-lens reflex camera, your imagination,. perception, and ability to relate things to one another decide mainly how the pictures will look: for how you see things is how your pictures will look. A camera cannot think. To it, and the film it contains, your children at their most appealing, look exactly the same as they do when they are cranky, tired and quarrelsome. What you must do to make good pictures is make creative decisions — on poses, lighting, composition and content. To

make those decisions result in good photographs, you must educate yourself to a state of mind which makes most things appear as if you had just seen them for the fist time. As examples, remember during the course of a day or week, when your eldest daughter was prettier, when the fruits of your hobby looked the most dramatic, or when your dog’s coat looked the silkiest.

Next, try to place these good things into an appropriate or striking setting. As you see these things, the camera will record them faithfully. And as you scan these things, you will learn to either avoid or remove distracting influences or objects. If you wish to add mood to your pictures, learn to capitalise on the weather — flailing branches in a storm or

ice-laden powerlines on a sunny morning in July. Be ready to snap candid postures — your children watching television with their chins on their fists, for example. Remember that your world appears to you as it does to non-one else. Learn to make the things you alone observe stand still for all to see. (Kodak Feature Services).