Chewuch River, "Elements of Change"
The essence of photography is to capture the decisive moment according to followers of Henry Cartier-Bresson. While Cartier-Bresson photographed the urban world, people and activity, the decisive moment also exists in the world of the landscape photographer. I am fond of proclaiming there are but two skills to master in photography, knowing where to put the camera and knowing when to make the picture. Being there at the right time is the cardinal rule of photography. Photo editors urged their staff with the famous axiom, “f/8 and be there.” The f/8 indicating the need for a clear picture and the “be there” means just that. You have to be where the picture is going to be made. As a view camera user for many decades, my motto was “f/64 and be there an hour early” because of the time required to set up a view camera. Good photographs are made when you are in the right place at the right time.
I used to have a little plaque that said, “Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.” That is how one learns where to stand and when to press the button. It is getting easier to do so these days, because you know “there’s an App for that.” I recently saw a group of photographers compare the relative merits of several mobile phone applications that charts the position of the sun in the sky so you can more easily be in the right place and the right time. (Brooks Jensen and I used that app on one of our photo safaris. I wrote about it here.)
That app makes life a little bit easier. Now all you really have to worry about is putting the camera in front of something that is worthy of being photographed. That’s never been easy. But isn’t that why we do what we do?
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