Not How But Why

I have learned all I care to about equipment and technique

When I was a magazine writer, the best part of the gig was the opportunity to call up wildly successful photographers and ask them about their process. Unfortunately “process” as defined by editors and publishers focused primarily on equipment and technique. I noticed quickly that to the best photographers such surface discussion wasn’t often of interest. They’d rather tell me about the “why” than the “how.” With the benefit of hindsight, I now understand that I was asking about craft but they wanted to have a deeper discussion about art. 

I became acutely aware that these masters of photography were using every kind of equipment under the sun—pocket cameras, inexpensive zoom lenses, homemade lights—and in some cases practically considered their knowledge of apertures and shutter speeds a necessary evil. When I asked Steve McCurry about craft he told me it’s all but irrelevant.  

“I’ve never been really interested in the technical side of, well of anything for that matter but particularly photography,” he said. “I know enough about the camera, I know enough about the craft to do my work, but it’s not something I really dwell on. I use a simple camera and a couple of lenses and I don’t light things.”¹

Can you imagine telling an audience of photographers in not so many words that the camera doesn’t matter? 

It does matter, of course, at least to some degree. But the sentiment rings true: who cares about the tools, who cares whether the picture is technically excellent, if there’s no “there” there.

Ansel Adams famously said, “There’s nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.” While this is quite a pithy quip it’s also incredibly practical advice. If you’re aiming to make something beyond “technically good,” if instead you’re hoping to make something interesting, or something special, or even something downright meaningful, you need to focus on other things more than you focus on equipment and technique.²

Mr. McCurry and I ended up discussing how he structured his days, how he related to people in the street, how he experienced a place, and how he thought about what he was ultimately trying to achieve. It led to a much more meaningful conversation and provided information for readers that might help them make better work if only they could hear him. 

“I’m trying to get beyond some clever artifice…” he said, “...something where you think, ‘Well that’s kind of cool,’ but there’s no substance, it’s totally style. I try and work in a way that is more about the soul of something… I think it’s important not to draw attention to one’s technique and let the picture speak for itself. As soon as you start thinking about the particular lens, particular filter, some clever lighting technique, it takes the attention away from the picture.”

The picture is not about how it was made, the picture is about what it means. 

I say this to you as someone who has spent a lifetime studying the craft of photography, someone who has earned his living almost exclusively from it. In the assignment realm it’s often craft for craft’s sake—expertise put to beautiful use for some commercial end—but there still exists the opportunity to achieve something more. Maybe it’s not art but it’s close. 

I finally understand that precise lighting and perfect posing and great directing are never going to be enough. The best camera certainly isn’t enough. I’ve got the technique down. What I don’t have is the ideas. There is, alas, no “there” there. 

This all has led me to a bit of a revelation: I have learned all I care to about equipment and technique. It’s time I get beyond the craft of photography. 

I’m not saying there’s nothing left to learn about technique. It’s just that if there’s anything holding me back from success it’s not a lack of technical ability. My problem is I’m all craft and not nearly enough art. I gather from conversations with my colleagues that I’m not nearly the only one. 

That’s got to change if we have any hope of finding creative fulfillment. We have to elevate the ideas in our work, the why over the how. We need to un-fuzzy our thinking. We need to develop concepts deeper than “those colors work well together.”³

I recently watched a short documentary about Diane Arbus in which she says the subject of the picture is always more important than the picture. This is the idea I’m getting at. More to the point, she continued, “I really think what it is is what it’s about. It has to be of something. And what it’s of is always more remarkable than what it is.” 

Would Arbus’s work be “better” if it were sharper, in color, higher resolution, or better lit? I’d argue no, those things are all but irrelevant to her. I notice that’s often the case when studying the work of the greats. It’s because what the picture is about overpowers whatever technical limitations may exist. 

At worst, thinking about ideas (the “why” instead of the “how”) offers a different approach to greatness. If you’re armed with the right equipment and extensive technical know-how, if you’re gonna get great it’s not going to be from getting better at lighting, buying a better lens or acquiring anything you can have shipped to your house or master via YouTube. 

After graduating from college with a degree in photography I didn’t feel like I’d learned enough. So I continued on to graduate school. I attended the Brooks Institute of Photography (RIP) where I was indoctrinated quickly into a new way of thinking about becoming a great photographer. The Brooks approach was to lay a foundation of absolute mastery of technique. We made densitometer readings to determine film base plus fog for better prints and calibrated true film speeds for entire batches of transparency film so we could dial in perfect exposures. We conquered the Scheimpflug principle early on and did all sorts of labor intensive assignments that were anything but creative. The curriculum was designed to deliver total control over photographic technique.

It was impressive and I definitely learned a lot. And in the end I no longer felt like I didn’t know enough about photography. Quite the contrary. It also changed the way I thought about teaching photography. It makes sense, after all. Painters first learn to make marks on paper, but photographers aren’t often empowered with their own version of that. We’re usually given the basics and then sent on our merry way. Once you have total technical mastery you have the unfettered ability to make any kind of photograph you like, in whatever discipline you pursue. You are free to become a great artist. 

Of course, for some of us our photographic education stops there and never progresses beyond equipment and technique. Or worse, it continues on in the same vein, thinking that more and more of the same type of knowledge will lead to greatness. Technical greatness, sure. But artistic greatness? Not a chance.

I can reverse engineer the lighting in a client’s mockup and I can light a face in a way that would make Hurrell proud. But so what? Every Brooks grad can do that. As can countless others who saved their money and learned it on YouTube or, even better, while getting paid as an assistant. 

---

I don’t know if MFA programs actually teach you how to be an artist but maybe that’s what I need. Or perhaps I need a mentor.⁴ Maybe I just need to read every artistic self-help book I can get my hands on.  

I read Jeff Tweedy’s How to Write One Song and although I have no intention of writing even half that many I found it immensely helpful. I read it to discover the practical approach this professional artist takes in his day-to-day job. He’s thinking about setting up a system that invites inspiration as well as balancing creativity with technique. 

“How much is inspiration and how much is craft?” Tweedy writes. “The craftsman part of me understands that as a song crafter I could probably be OK looking at it as if I were building tables. As if I were using a standardized process that will guarantee another song, and the pipeline of songs I’m committed, and driven, to provide. But I personally think that I am where I am because I aspire to make trees instead of tables. Because there’s something higher in my mind about doing so.”

I build a lot of tables in my job as a commercial photographer. What I need to do is start planting more trees. As Mr. Tweedy suggests, I’ve got to keep making space to allow myself to be creative, and train my subconscious to be open and receptive to inspiration in all its forms.

So, as it turns out, I am still interested in learning about the “how.” But it’s the “how” of nurturing creativity and cultivating ideas. How do we transcend craft and occasionally bump up against art?

Since I’m quoting great photographers who agree with me, why not throw in one more.

“If you want to make more interesting pictures,” Jay Maisel says, “become a more interesting person.” 

Aye, there’s the rub. 

1. The cynics among you are no doubt shouting about Mr. McCurry’s failings, particularly in matters of technique. And while that certainly is pertinent to a discussion about him as a photojournalist, I don’t think it nearly invalidates the whole of his oeuvre, nor his obvious skill as a photographer. 

2. Miss me with the “well actually” stuff about how important specific equipment is to certain types of photography. Yes, of course. Nobody’s arguing you can take a picture with a shoe. But I’m saying once you’ve got the right camera and lens, once you understand how to either make or find the light you need, your focus should turn to these other elements that lead to making work that is more deeply interesting.

3. Speaking for myself, it sounds like what I really need is to commence work on a personal project. 

4. Anybody got Greg Crewdson’s number? Greg Heisler? Greg Gorman? I’ll also consider some non-Gregs.