Over the past couple of months, I’ve taught my fair share of iPhone Photography workshops.
The audiences I tend to speak to (consumers) are not necessarily the audiences I enjoy most speaking to (prosumers and experts)
Consumers, almost across the board, want to know three things and only three things. One, what settings do I use? Two, what buttons do I push? And, three, grrrr, what app do I use?
They don’t want to be bothered with the technical tedium of technique, best practices, philosophy, ideology, style, the art of seeing, etc. Get to the point, fast!
They do seem to tolerate, even be entertained, by my iPhone conversion story. So far, so good.
But, in the sections of my Powerpoint, where I’m talking about the fine art of light, design, composition, and subject matter, the content I celebrate most and am the most passionate about, I can see the glaze in their eyes. Yawn. Beige, I think I’ll paint the ceiling beige? Honey, are you done?
Consumers, learning photography, for the most part, are button pushers, plain and simple.
For this group, life is complicated. So why make photography any more complicated than it needs to be?
I guess, in a way, that’s a good thing, since you really can’t get to the creative stuff in photography, until you first master the mechanical and technical stuff, which, in told, needs to almost become reflexive, automatic, second nature.
The truth is, I can teach almost anyone, anywhere, anytime, over a long weekend, the practical, applied science of iPhone camera features and functions. But it takes a true lifetime to see, to feel, to hear the vision and voice of pictures in your head and go from good to great.
I tend to see a lot of iPhone camera enthusiasts with modest technical skills and modest bodies of work.
Button pushing, while an important part of the photography journey, won’t get you to the finish line of greatness.
Good? Perhaps? Not greatness?
To get great at this stuff, like really great and intimate, you must pretend that photography is a lover in the night, and respond to her every whisper, whimper, wants, and wishes.
Try pushing buttons….of another kind and another place. Down, to the left, there you go:) Ahhhhhh. Almost there.
Can we do that again tomorrow? And the next day too?
Click
Jack
