I KNOW AN intelligent person who works in the visual arts who believes that all you need to take a good photograph is a good camera, writes JOHN BUTLER
He says good photography is either a naturally occurring event in the world that is fortuitously captured by someone with a good camera and a working index finger; or else it's a staged scenario of some kind which only looks the way it does because of the staging and the lighting.
He doesn't own a camera, doesn't "do" photos, and this absurdly reductionist argument of his may just be a way of stirring things up, of getting a rise from me. It never fails, and the reason is simple enough. I have a good camera, but I can't seem to take good pictures. Still, it won't stop me from trying, thanks to flickr.
Encouraged by two friends called Hugh, each of whom take pictures far, far superior to my own, I've been using www.flickr.com. for about nine months now. Until recently, I was paddling at the surface of what is, in fact, an ocean. The sheer volume of pictures on this website brings to mind the story about the two passengers on a transatlantic cruise, sharing cigars on the deck after dinner and contemplating the view. One turns to the other and says "that's such a lot of water", to which the other replies "yes, and it's only the top of it".
Flickr's an ocean, but the way in which it works is also analogous to the ways of the world. It doesn't take long to find amazing work by amateurs and professionals, pictures taken with the most expensive film cameras and equally amazing ones taken with phones. Thanks to digital cameras, instant results, unlimited memory and cheap printers, more people are taking pictures now than ever before. Thanks to flickr you can find inspiration and practical advice on how to take a good picture of your own. This evolution in picture taking has also created an enforced obsolescence of the most poignant kind. I am referring to the professional portrait photographer - the guy with the photographic studio into which families were ushered for their once-every-five-years studio photo, wearing their best clothes. Will he be around in 50 years? I hope so.
The last time I encountered one of these photographers was at my-friend-the-sceptic's house. Because he doesn't "do" photos himself, he hires a photographer to take the pictures every year. When the bell rang, my friend was upstairs, putting his three-year-old boy to bed. I answered the door. The photographer was tall and thin with brown hair drawn across the top of his bald head in thick ropes, and he wore a jumper beneath his sports coat. His shoes had soft, cushioned soles - the shoes of a man who used the same pair going out and staying in. I followed him out and he popped the boot on an old hatchback, dug around, and passed out a rolled-up projector screen and stand. He told me to put that stuff under my oxter and I brought them inside. He followed, carrying a knot of wires and a big old laptop. Inside, he danced around the room assembling the projector, talking through every action. "Now. A plug a plug a plug... Ahh! A plug!"
Behind him, the projector suddenly whipped itself up like a blind, and he jumped as if electrocuted. He pulled the screen down and tied it to the bottom of the stand this time, so it wouldn't snap up on him again. Then he dimmed the lights. I had run out of things to say but somehow, I couldn't leave the photographer on his own. I sat in the darkness for a few minutes, then a laptop screen lit up in the far corner, illuminating his worried face. The light filled his lines with shadows as he punched keys on his laptop, with force.
"Jaysus, the show hasn't started already, has it?" My friend was at the top of the stairs, backlit by the landing light, looking down into the darkness. He came down and explained to me that they had hired the photographer to take family photos a week before, and tonight they were going to look at the results and pick which ones they wanted printed and framed. The photographer would do the printing and framing for them.
Then we were ready for the show. The photographer hit a key on the laptop, and a song from a Hugh Grant film began to play. The slides came up and we watched pictures of the family. It's hard to say what makes a good picture but it's much easier to say with certainty what makes a bad one. These pictures were not bad. In fact, some of them were great. When the song ended and the slides stopped, expectation hung in the air.
Could I smell humble pie? My-friend-the-sceptic found the light switch. "I love them. I'll take a copy of every one and we'll get you to put our top five in frames." The deal was struck, backs were slapped, then a baby started crying upstairs and my friend excused himself and volunteered me to help the photographer out with his equipment. I complimented him on his pictures, we shook hands and he drove off into the night. Feeling very smug, I walked back up the drive and into the house. My friend was looking over the pictures again. This was the moment.
"He's good, isn't he?" I had to smirk when I said it.
"You mean he's got a good camera."
He had to smirk when he responded.
John Butler blogs at http://lozenge.wordpress. com