Photography requires more than just an expensive camera
With modern technology and camera phones capturing excellent quality, the question arises of whether photography takes real skill or whether all that matters is a nice camera.
Duane Martin, a local professional photographer, expressed the importance of photography knowledge and understanding every detail of taking a great photo; not just buying an expensive camera and snapping a picture.
The interest in photography blossomed for Martin when he attended WHS and took a class in photography. Martin continues his skill in photography at the Career Center for graphic arts.
“People are able to take beautiful photos nowadays, due to great technology advances in camera. However, I think the understanding on how to make the photos even better are lost. Cameras on phones are great. But, there is a lot more than pointing and shooting,” Martin said.
Another fellow professional photographer employed by the College of Wooster, Matt Dilyard, learned the skill of photography in a photo journalism class at Smithville High School and continued his learning at The University of Akron, where he joined The Daily Record as a photographer.
Dilyard said the importance of unstaged, natural photos is important. He believes it is important that a photo should be praised when it entails emotion or feeling.
“Emotions, untagged human interactions, even moments of pain and struggle are better fields to harvest with a camera. Having a broad, varied liberal arts education will help immensely. The technical skills will come with time, the ability to move someone with your work will take a lifetime of wonderful struggle,” Dilyard said.
Owner of Stop Time Studio, Rob Knight, can agree with both Martin and Dilyard in that there is much more than just snapping a picture and hoping for a great photo.
The lenses of the camera are very important to Knight, as he said that camera phones offer a wide angle lens, which does not allow for a good portrait.
At Stop Time, Knight tends to focus on true portraits, using old mastery style. With this style of portraits, Knight says that understanding lighting and posing is very important. He focuses on flattering the face using the correct lighting and hand positioning to express a feminine or masculine look, depending on whom the portrait is for.
“A picture can look completely wrong if you have a male in a very feminine position. You want to make sure the poses correctly match the gender of the person in the portraits,” Knight said.
All three of these professional photographers can conclude that photography is more than aiming and shooting with an expensive camera, it takes skill, practice and knowledge.
