Ray Sachs
Legend
- Location
- Not too far from Philly
- Name
- you should be able to figure it out...
I guess what I was trying to say is that an artist has to learn the craft well before he or she can turn it into art. So i'd say that all artists must also be craftsmen, but not all craftsmen become artists. This is true of all sorts of photography, but street photography almost takes it to another level because everything is always moving and changing and part of the craft is actually the seeing and anticipating and not just the mechanical parts of getting the exposure and focus right, which you need in any type of photography. To use an analogy, any great musician must learn the craft of playing the instrument first and can only become a real artist once they know the instrument so well that they don't have to think about it any longer. That said, there's a real difference even in the craft part of playing music between playing classical music that's written out for you and playing improvisational jazz which requires constantly thinking and feeling on your feet and reacting as much to what others are doing as to what you're trying to do. I guess I see street photography as the improvisational jazz of photography. But I think the craft/art discussion works here because in a sense most of us who are relatively new to street photography are still very much learning to play our instruments and working on the craft and are not at the point where the heart/art part of the endeavor can take center stage. Folks like Don and others who have been doing it for a lifetime have the craft of street photography incorporated nearly into their DNA by now and so they can put all of their energy in to the art portion. Some of us may get there and lot of us may never get there and a lot of this is down to how much we love the process and how driven we are to do it and do it a LOT. But even if we don't, there's still a certain beauty to a high school jazz combo or jam rock band who just starts to really FEEL it for the first time, even if they never become John Coletrane or the Grateful Dead. And enjoying and growing from the process is a big part of the point, even if we never quite reach the "end product" we'd like to...olli, thank you for that video. I just listened to it and will again. I caught a few things right away - the street as a stage...and the few seconds the photographer has to get it all together. Can't help but tie it into part of what you, Ray, have written above...about the technical side of using the camera as a tool. At least that's what I think you were talking about as you separated the craft from the art.
So much is sometimes semantics. To me a craftsman is an artist. I see the nuts and bolts - the f stops, the ISO, the EV compensation...the shutter speed as the technical side...but without those tools we couldn't capture that moment. Without the heart/art, however it can be at worst a sterile image. I'm venturing into a wider area here, because I think these things apply to photography as a whole, not just to street photography.
-Ray