Our photographer accompanied a pair of artists on a picture-taking expedition this past weekend. As expected, he has observations to make about old and new technology. But he was also driven to more general musings about the relationship between artists, their visions and their tools.

Our photographer writes:
This past weekend I had the pleasure of going on a (film) picture-taking expedition with two artists. One is a professional photographer and both are active in the visual arts, so I expected to learn more than I taught. Both have used film cameras before, so they are not really the audience for which our “Use that camera” service is intended.

That said, each had come up with cameras from well before their own experience: the photographer had two from the 1950s (including a Brownie Hawkeye Flash) and the other artist had her great-grandfather’s Vest Pocket Kodak from maybe the 1920s. Each was initially surprised at the thought of actually using these old cameras to take pictures.

There were a few details I needed to go into. I introduced them to roll film, which loads differently, and using the little red window to advance to the next shot. They were fascinated by flashbulbs, which (true to its name) had accompanied the Brownie. Once, long ago, electronic flash units were very expensive, so that most people used these one-shot relatives of the light bulb instead. They haven’t been made for years, so these were pretty old and it was not at all certain that they’d work. Our test of one went fine, though. (The film has not yet been processed, so we don’t have a full evaluation of how well the cameras themselves work.)

I was struck by the fact that, once the cameras were loaded and ready to go, the artists had a good idea of what they wanted to do. It was not so much that each had a particular picture in mind, as they knew how to look at a scene for its possibilities and seize on something that struck them. (The interest for me lies in the fact that we each saw different things. That’s what makes expeditions like this really useful.)  The fact that it was a dull, rainy day didn’t deter them at all.  Along the way I noticed a bit of frustration with the new tools, but also adaptation, and a thoughtful consideration of the possibilities. One mentioned that, since she was now shooting black-and-white film, she was having to change her way of seeing; the other then shifted her smartphone-camera to black-and-white mode to help.

It is often said that having a good (or expensive) camera will not make you a good photographer, which is true. But it is not true that the camera you use has no effect on your pictures. How you work within the capabilities and features of the one in your hand to capture your vision–well, it’s a subtle and complicated subject. I had the privilege, this last weekend, to observe as two artists explored a new set of tools.