Searching

I got this book on sale.  And while reading it and finding out that it was written before the age of digital cameras makes me wonder if it is even worth it.  But it is still.  Since he's talking not about the technicalities of a camera, but rather what is it to be a photographer and what is an artist.

I am actually searching for something else inside the book.  Something that I didn't find until the end.  What is it?  I am not sure yet.  But I feel like there should be something else.

In between the chapters, I wrote on my notepad something about photoshop.  He did actually discuss something about it and I couldn't help but write my thoughts about photoshop.

I don't know photo shop, and didn't have the urge to learn.  When I see a picture so neat, I sometimes react this way:  It's photoshpped.

It just seems so ordinary these days that people can take pictures and do something with photoshop to make it look good - to make it look even better.

The author is trying to define the line between being a photographer and and artist.  And when photoshop came into the spotlight, I begin to wonder.  Would you say that a person who is good with photoshop is an artist?  And I think this is what the author is also trying to point out.  A person who is good with photoshop did not create the image.  And even if he was the one who shot it himself, applying photoshop only means that he wants to alter that moment.  The one who shot the picture is the photographer- or the artist.  The photoshop person only applies his knowledge in photoshop to alter the image.  And if he is both the one who shot and the one who photshopped, what talent does he possess?  Is he a photographer or a photoshopper?

Does this make him an artist?  Or just a photographer?  Or just a photoshopper?

Something to learn about my frustration

I started "Letting Go of the Camera" by Brooks Jensen yesterday.  I bought this book second hand at our local book shop.  They had a buy-one-take-one promo and I got this together with "Angela's Ashes" by Frank McCourt for a mere Php 150.00.  If you ask the date, I already forgot but it was even before April of this year.

I used to own a Nikon Fm camera back in college and was able to practice photography back then.  I filed all my negatives in a shoe box together with the information for each of the shots that I took (whenever it was possible).  But they're all gone now.  The big flood Reming took away a lot of my memories, this one included.

Anyway, I have yet to get myself a DSLR camera but I want to read about photography, hence, the book.

Here's the first five sentences on its page 68.

     If you are not prepared for this subconscious overload and the subsequent overflow of creative ideas, you run the risk of diffusing much of the workshop's benefits.

     Play a game with yourself before the workshop.  Imagine the workshop instructor is with you in photographing or darkroom sessions over the week and months before the workshop.  (Most workshops require advance registration; so you probably know far in advance that you are going to attend.)

     At every opportunity, think what you would like to ask the instructor at that moment of peak activity.  Jot this question down..