opinion – Ming Thein | Photographer

The four stages of creative evolution of a photographer

November 7, 2012 by Ming Thein

As close as I got to Everest. Nikon D700, 85/1.4 G

On careful reflection, there are a number of stages which every photographer (hopefully) goes through as their creative vision develops. In fact, it’s more like a pyramid or mountain that requires climbing: the higher you go, the more difficult it gets, and the more commitment is required. The lower slopes are gentle, easy and well-charted; the higher slopes are rocky, icy, treacherous and the preserve of the supremely brave or foolhardy. At the same time, far more people visit base camp than the summit; and few do it without supplemental oxygen.

Perhaps that metaphor has gone a bit too far. Like every pursuit, photography is one of severely diminishing returns: it isn’t difficult or expensive to become reasonably good, but if you’re trying to push the boundaries, be prepared for frequent dead ends, wrong turns, and never-ending criticism: the simple reality is that if you are always experimenting, not all experiments turn out better than the previous one, let alone tried and true methods.

I was at a dinner with a number of fellow commercial photographers recently where this point was discussed in some detail: we work in an environment of shrinking budgets and drying up jobs, yet there will always be some clients who perhaps are more like patrons than business as usual: they don’t mind you trying to push the boundaries. The comparison to the art world was drawn: a piece that may not make any sense to a casual, external observer makes no sense precisely because of the casualness of the observation: the viewer does not have the benefit of having experienced and seen the evolution of the artist from the starting point into their current form of expression. I think the same thing is true with photography, though to a lesser extent; we were discussing another recent batch of image submission which had to be graded/ sorted/ reviewed etc. and how to judge whether something had extremely deep and complex metaphors, or whether it was simply a bad image – the conclusion was that the caption was the giveaway. (It stands to reason that a casual-looking image with a deep meaning and careful execution would have an equally-carefully crafted caption that supports the message of the photograph. None of these particular images did.)

Pre stage
The vast majority of the population falls into this group. These are the people who own cameras and perhaps use them at social occasions, or for recording/ documentary purposes, or when they are expected to – like when on vacation – but do not actively seek to go out and take photographs. They may be creative in other areas, but just not photography. Composition is not something that they actively think about and technical skill is limited to turning the dial to the green mode. For the purposes of this discussion, I will classify them but not discuss their traits in any greater detail; I’m almost certain that none of my readers fall into this category anyway.

First stage
To progress to the first stage, you need to have the intention; you have to make a conscious choice in wanting to make a image. You may or may not know what is good, what works and what doesn’t, or the technical aspects of photography; the bottom line is that a person in this category has the desire to photograph. I suppose this is what separates newbie photographers from the rest of the population who might merely own a camera. Intention is what gives people the motivation to actually get out and do something – in this case, learning, experimenting, and trying out things. It is impossible to learn photography solely by reading or looking at other people’s images, though this can be very useful – you really don’t get a feel for things without experience, and this experimentation is something which is a common factor to all forms of creativity.

The other characterizing traits of a person in the first stage of creativity is that the way they shoot and the work they produce is reactive; they may make a conscious choice to embark on an outing whose sole purpose is to take photographs, however, it is very much a case ‘of shoot what you see’, and only photographing a subject if it’s obvious and front and centre. There is no element of anticipation, preconception, or previsualization involved; this means that the images are frequently lacking in a story – ‘the idea’ – because the photograph frequently contains only the subject and no related elements (the context) – or worse still, a bunch of distracting and misleading elements.

Second stage
The next phase of development involves some awareness of ‘the idea’. It is usually also accompanied by a heightened consciousness of one’s surroundings; this is caused by the development of one’s sense of observation and anticipation. The photographer in the second stage will visit a particular place and feel that it is photographically ‘rich’, with a lot of opportunities or stories; or perhaps that there are certain elements that must be included in a shot in order to the essence of the location.

However, the idea may not be fully formed, or the photographer may lack the technical ability to execute what they are envisioning in their minds. Images produced by the photographers in the second stage tend to feel a little bit chaotic; this is because not all of the elements in the scene are under control, or were included or excluded as a conscious choice on the part of the photographer. It is very possible for a second stage photographer to occasionally produce a brilliant piece image; the problem is that although the outcome may match the intended story perfectly, it was more due to luck than planning and would not be consistently repeatable. Most dedicated amateurs will reach this stage.

Third stage
The first part of this stage – let’s call it 3A – is when a photographer firstly has a vision in their mind of what the end product should look like, can consistently execute this, and have the image communicate its meaning or intention to a viewer on its own merits, without the help of a caption, or intervention from the photographer. These photographers tend to have nearly every element of the image under conscious control; and have a level of technical skill that enables them to consistently repeat the execution if required. There is practically nothing left to chance, and no detail is too small. A good commercial photographer would fall into this category, and it’s probably beneficial for them not to push too much farther, especially in Asia and other conservative markets – there are far more clients that prefer the ‘safe’ route rather than the experimental one.

At the same time, there’s something missing from the images – they’re too safe, too perfect; stage 3B is where the creative realizes this and is trying to produce something different, but can’t quite make it work; it isn’t a bad image, but the full idea or story isn’t getting through. On the way to the pinnacle, one has to expect to fail at least some, if not most of the time. And by fail, I mean produce images that are not quite satisfactory for some reason or another – usually because they fall short of fully and clearly communicating the photographer’s idea at the time of capture. If this isn’t happening, then chances are you’re playing it overly safe and stagnating.

Fourth stage
Defining what makes a photographer qualify for this level is tough, simply because it’s impossible to pin a concrete set of limits on creativity. Perhaps it’s best to say they have to be gifted in some way and give examples; we start with Louis Daguerre, include Oskar Barnack, H-CB, Capa, Kubrick, Salgado, Majoli and perhaps also Avedon and Leibowitz; I think some of the Japanese photographers like Araki would also qualify, though I don’t claim to fully understand their work – but it is clearly a very developed, evolved style. I’m sure there are plenty more out there whose work I haven’t yet had the chance to see, or whose work is either kept private (Vivian Maier, for example – though I don’t think she’s a stage four) or not well publicised. There are but a small handful of people who ever reach this point; they have the common trait of pushing the boundaries in one or more aspects of the image making process simply because they can imagine and envision things which the majority of the population are unable to. I suppose in some ways, this aberration of the mind or difference in thinking is a bit like having a disability, but in a way that’s more beneficial than debilitating.

Although these people have the benefit of being able to see in a way that the rest of us cannot; a lot of them are also handicapped by it because this way of seeing is so ingrained into their thought processes and consciousness that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to break away from. This is in a way analogous to a form of savantism in which the subject has a narrow, obsessive focus on one particular topic that leads them to consider every possibility and outcome; including the ones that are normally discarded through a more balanced rational thought process. This focus results and creativity or games in one very specific niche; a slightly less intense variant of this is the development of personal style. Discovery and adoption of a personal style, in a way, is the development of and obsession with a particular look or mood to an image.

One little thing I notice about photographers who are at the fourth stage is that none of them will ever admit it: their work is never excellent, it is merely good enough (and rarely, if that). They are proud of what they do, but they know that things can still be taken further with another push; ideas fleshed out and illustrated more fully. Their work is always technically very well executed, and frequently polarising; their creativity is so far ahead of the interpretative capacities of most people that there are two camps of viewers: the concept or message is so fundamental that either you understand it, or you don’t. They have a deep passion in what they do, bordering on the obsessive; and are frequently difficult people to interact with in social settings, simply because their thought processes are so different to the majority of people that there is no common ground or reference basis on which for them to interact, leading to frequent miscommunication and awkward gaps in conversation. This in turn contributes to such artists being misunderstood or developing a reputation for genius – it’s not that they don’t want to explain the rationale behind their thought processes, it’s because they simply cannot – what seems perfectly ordinary to them and not requiring a second thought is something that requires a huge number of mental leaps for somebody else.

The conclusion of this article has deviated somewhat into an examination of the mind of how an extremely talented and gifted person would think; this was not intentional however in the interest of full disclosure it is a topic that is very personal to me because of things I have faced in my own life. I graduated young, and have always been – by a large margin – the youngest person at my level in any organization I’ve worked at; in my last corporate job, my peers were in their 50s (I was 25). I had no problems doing the job – the huge delta in thought processes and social experience is what made me feel highly uncomfortable with my day to day situation.

One of the reasons I’m so passionate about photography is because it is one of the last few truly meritocratic fields; it doesn’t matter how old you are or who you’re related to (there are of course exceptions); in an anonymous viewing, a crap image will always be a crap image; there is far less discrimination based on age than in other fields. Perhaps it’s because a perception thing: you can instantly judge the merits of a photograph visually, but it’s impossible to know if somebody is a good investment manager or consultant or operations director simply by looking at them. (And even several years down the line, it’s still difficult to tell; it’s impossible to separate out the person from the other environmental factors affecting their work.)

This is of course not to claim that I fall into stage four or even 3B; I think it takes recognition by a large body of people for a person to be recognized as gifted. But I do know that I plan and think about my images to the point of being neurotically obsessive; there is always something that can be better, there is always something else to try, another article to write or another thought to elucidate and share. And in a weird way, I think I rather enjoy it. MT

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Filed Under: Articles, On Photography Tagged With: article, development, four stages of evolution, growth, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, opinion, photography, thein

Basic street photography techniques

November 4, 2012 by Ming Thein

Offerings for sale. Sony RX100

Continuing in this mini-series on street photography, there are a number of techniques that I use while shooting. Although it’s possible to describe most of them in some detail, full understanding requires both demonstration and practice – this is where joining one of my workshops is ideal 🙂 Together with the basic principles of balance, perspective, composition and what makes a good image – these techniques may be used singly or in combination to generate strong street images. In fact, they also apply to documentary and reportage work, too; the only difference between good street photography and photojournalism is that the latter has a consistent theme and subject.

It’s important to note that not every technique is suitable for every situation, and vice versa; as always, a good portion of making a strong image is knowing what to leave out.

Hiding from the rain. Leica M9-P, Zeiss ZM 2.8/28

Timing and anticipation
In a photographic situation where you have effectively zero influence of any of the elements in your frame except the composition and exposure, timing is the one key bastion of control that remains in the hands of the photographer. By making a conscious choice of when you push the shutter, you decide when each and every single one of the moving elements in the frame is in the position you want them to be in. However, it is too late to react only at the exact instant you see the composition you want. It is therefore important for photographers to be able to see a scene, visualize the potential contained there, and be able to imagine what the finished frame will look like once all of the desired elements are in place. It is then a matter of simply waiting for those elements to all come together, and being ready with the camera when they are. No matter how fast reflexes, or your camera, the fact is that if you react off to you see something, it’s too late; training yourself to anticipate action is something that can give you the critical second or half-second which can make all the difference between getting the that and missing it completely.

Progression. Olympus OM-D, Panasonic 20/1.7

Shoot stopped down
A lot of these techniques are about timing. Specifically, gaining yourself a little bit of extra breathing room to react. In this case, shooting stopped down allows you to simplify the process somewhat by not having to decide what to have in focus, and what not to have in focus. If you’re shooting with an autofocus camera, it also allows a little bit of leeway for the camera to misfocus, yet still allow the final shot to be in focus thanks to extended depth of field. Note that of course this technique does not work under low-light situations, where you need every stop of aperture you can get. Compositionally, shooting with great depth of field actually forces you to create stronger images. This is because you have to think more about your subject placement, leading lines, empty spaces, etc – which all affect the overall balance of the image. If you can make interesting image without relying on the crutch of bokeh, then you will find yourself with increased compositional and artistic flexibility when you do have this option in your toolkit.

Divided. Leica M9-P, Zeiss ZM 2.8/28

Shoot wider
There are many reasons to shoot with a wider lens. First of these, is of course the enhanced foreground perspective emphasis that it provides, hopefully on your subject and not an expanse of pavement. Having a lens with a shallower and more forgiving depth of field profile both allows greater latitude for focusing errors, as well as allowing extended depth of field without having to stop down too much. There are also other non-obvious advantages of going wider – not only do you eliminate or minimize the possibility of having unwanted elements come between you and your subject due to physical distance (and you subsequently missing the shot because in the time it takes for your frame to clear, your primary subject has already moved on or changed position), but also you can get people in the periphery of the frame as edge subjects or context without them suspecting anything. In this sense it’s also about minimizing the reaction time between you visualizing the shot and executing it.

The taxi men. Sony RX100

Act as though you belong
In pretty much all situations, you will notice the confident people rarely – if ever – get challenged. This of course also applies to street photography. By acting like you belong, and you’re confident and know what you’re doing, casual observers to the scene assume that you have every right to be there and generally allow you to go about your business without interference. A subset of this is acting like a tourist. Tourists are not self-conscious and they are generally expected to take photographs of everything encountered; by doing this you’re fitting the expected stereotypes. And, as you will no doubt already know by having read my earlier articles, a large portion of photography – including the execution – is seriously influenced by human psychology at a subconscious level. Spend some time understanding how people think, and you will find that you both have more control over the way you images are interpreted, as well as how people react to you while you’re out shooting.

A glitch in the matrix. Leica M9-P, Zeiss ZM 2/50

Hyperfocal and zone focusing
One way of speeding up the shooting process is by completely eliminating focusing altogether. Hyperfocal focusing means that you have everything in focus beyond a certain point; it requires the lens to have a comprehensive depth of field scale in order to set your focus distance precisely. Manual focus lenses tend to be better for this, I suppose because manufacturers of autofocus lenses think that photographers will not use the manual option and therefore simply choose not to include proper depth of field scales. (Most of the time, they’re right.) Zone focusing is similar. What you do, is ensure that your desired subject distances fall between the two aperture markings on opposite ends of your depth of field scale. For the current bunch of high density digital sensors (anything over 12MP or so), you will need to use an aperture one stop smaller than indicated on the depth of field scale because these scales were calibrated for the circle of confusion corresponding 35mm film, and haven’t been updated since. There is a game played by rangefinder shooters that can help you improve your skills at estimating distances; pick a subject, set distance on the lens, and then check through the rangefinder to see how accurate you up. Do this often enough, and you will find that your focusing ability has magically improved. The upshot is that with sufficient practice, it is possible to estimate distances without even having to look through the viewfinder. This means that you can focus the camera and have it ready even while at waist level or in your hands, before you frame up the shot – once again, it’s all about reducing your reaction time.

Querry. Olympus OM-D, Panasonic 20/1.7

Stages
I don’t believe ‘stages’ is a commonly used terminology. I use it to refer to a setting, or scene, where the light is interesting and directional, and all it needs to complete the image is a human element of some sort to add context. I’m constantly on the lookout for these ‘stages’ when I shoot; when I find one, I will stay and work to seeing for his long as it takes for me to get an image that I’m satisfied with. Sometimes this is within seconds; sometimes it can take hours and I leave without getting the shot I wanted. But if I have a chance, and it’s a case of ‘unrequited stage’, then generally I’ll return again at some future point in time to get the shot I’d originally envisioned.

Haircut. Leica M9-P, Zeiss ZM 2.8/28

Layering
Layering is a technique that you can use to add context and depth to an image. It requires the use of a longer lens, which is ideally suited to this because it naturally separates out your scene into foreground, midground and background, all with relatively similar prominence. This allows you to place your subject in any one of these zones, and use the remaining zones to form the context and tell the story. Aside from using a longer lens, the other way to achieve layering is by the use of reflections; whether it be in a building’s glass, a puddle or perhaps some other shiny object. In this case, a wider lens is actually preferable because it allows you to capture more of the reflection. Note that when you’re composing, your reflected background is going to be further away than you think because the light has to come from the subject, to the point of reflection and then back out again to the camera; this can affect perspective in strange ways if it not consciously compensated for.

They don’t know you’re there. Leica X2

Shoot through people
The most difficult and counterintuitive technique that I use is something I call ‘shooting through’. It basically requires you to stand still in a flow of oncoming people, and just shoot into the crowd. Although this will feel strange but first because you’re pointing your lens directly in people’s faces, offer a while you get used to it. The challenge then becomes actually separating out individual frames from the general scene as a whole. This technique works better in busy spaces and thoroughfares, simply because this means people tend to be more concerned with where they are going rather than what you’re doing. In a relatively quiet space, this technique is not very effective because people can see you coming – or rather, standing there – from a mile away. It is important to note that the psychological reaction to somebody standing still with a camera held up and ready to shoot is very different to if the same person stood there and suddenly brought out the camera to shoot; the action of raising the camera draws attention to yourself. Psychologically, sudden movements also catch us unawareness and make us uncomfortable. By looking like you have been there for a while, and will continue to be there, people are put at ease which allows you to operate without drawing unnecessary attention to yourself. In fact, oncoming pedestrians will probably take pity on you (poor tourist, trying to take a photo but we’re all in his way), not knowing that they themselves are actually the subject of your image.

Garden of earthly delights. Olympus OM-D, 45/1.8

Stealth or flamboyance?
The final technique is simply being inconspicuous. This involves techniques such as not making any sudden moves, and most of the time, not even having the camera raised to your face when you take a photograph. The smaller, blacker and more nondescript the camera you use, the better, because it does not draw any attention. This is one of the reasons I like to use compact cameras for street photography – not only do I look like a tourist, but what possible threat could a small Asian man with a point and shoot pose? He’s probably just lost and on holiday. The complete opposite of this, and also viable option, is to be completely flamboyant and ridiculous. You stand out to the point that nobody takes you seriously; and this allows you to get on with your serious work in peace. I’m talking about shooting a bright pink camera dressed and perhaps being dressed red and blue; or maybe using a view camera on a tripod whilst dressed a three-piece suit and top hat. Then, you become a subject of interest and curiosity rather than the potential threat. (I have never done the latter myself, although in the interest of improvements in image quality, and perhaps the different look to my images, I am quite tempted. I plead the fifth on the former.)

Although this list is by no means exhaustive, I hope this article has given you some insights into both how I shoot when I’m on the street, and some new techniques for you to try out yourself when perhaps you see a great shot but you’re too shy to go out and get it. Bottom line is that street photography is not very different to being a Boy Scout: be prepared and confident. MT

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Filed Under: Articles, On Photography Tagged With: article, essay, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, opinion, photography, street photography, street photography techniques, techniques, thein

What is street photography?

November 2, 2012 by Ming Thein

Calling in to check if the city is really there. Sony RX100

Sometimes, I think I’m a bit of a masochist. I actually like to shoot difficult subjects, and increasingly of late I’m also starting to write a lot about difficult topics. Today’s article seems like a very simple question to answer: what is street photography?

The more I try to nail it down – and I spent a considerable amount of time on this before the Finding Light workshop – so I would know what to cover, and more importantly, what my students would expect me to cover. The first point of confusion comes when you try to decide what is ‘street’ and what isn’t: what about public spaces? What about museums, galleries, fora etc? Stairs? Restaurants? Hawker centers? Public transport, like the Underground?

And here’s another question: does street photography always have to have human subjects in the frame? And when does street photography turn into travel reportage?

You can see how this becomes confusing. I’ve decided that in general, the genre is loosely defined around several broad guidelines (at least for me; your mileage may vary). Let’s take a closer look at these.

Hands up. Leica V-Lux 3.

Street photography is unplanned.
If you’re controlling any of the elements in the scene, then it starts to become a conceptual or even outdoor studio shoot – posed models in public definitely do not count as street photography: the photographer knew (or should have known) exactly what poses, look and lighting he wanted before beginning the shoot. (You certainly wouldn’t hire a model and get shooting permission if you had no intention to shoot there, would you?) There is also a reactive element to it – spontaneity and the ability to anticipate are both critical tools for the street photographer. You really never know what you’re going to get on any given day, and that’s what draws photographers to the genre: a never-ending source of material.

Breakfast. Sony RX100

Street photography mostly uses available light.
In fact, the only exception I can think of to this rule is the work of Bruce Gilden and his imitators. Setting up lights on the street corner or using a big flash tends to make the photographer extremely conspicuous, which that removes the unplanned element. People either go out of their way to be photographed, or alternatively, avoid you completely. Part of the challenge and attraction to street photography is the very fact that the light, amongst other things, is not under your control. A photographer has to train their eye to see interesting light, and their muscle memory to be able to take advantage of it – sometimes under extremely fleeting circumstances.

Rojak. Sony RX100

Street photography may or may not involve people.
This is a question of scale; at the near or human scale, you have that which are dominated by people as the primary subject; at the large scale you have entire cityscapes and street scenes, that use people to give context and scale to the image. The farther away you go, the more the image becomes about the atmosphere and the feeling of the place, rather than the people who inhabit it. That said, there is no reason why you cannot take photos of something which you happen to see while walking around looking for these scenes or people; this is the kind of thing which I like to call ‘street furniture’ – interesting lampposts, mail boxes and other geometries are also fair game. I think it is also possible to make an argument to include casual architecture in the genre; I know that when I travel, I tend to shoot a lot of interesting buildings with or without human context involved – simply because these are things I see while walking around, and they add a lot to the context and general feel of a place.

Morning papers. Sony RX100

Street photography, if involving people, tends to do so under situations where they generally do not expect to be photographed.
I suppose this sounds both a little bit voyeuristic, and slightly contradictory when it comes to frequently photographed public tourist attractions such as Trafalgar Square, but in general even though a person may know that you are photographing them, they certainly didn’t leave the house preparing for in the morning. This variety and unpredictability of people is yet one more aspect of what makes street photography interesting.

Door symmetry. Sony RX100

Street photography, if involving people, generally has subjects that are unfamiliar or unknown to the photographer.
Perhaps this may be an overly fine distinction to make, however if a subject is known to the photographer and the photographer is familiar with the subject, there is usually some form of interaction between them. This relationship is usually clearly reflected in the photograph. I personally find that one of the things that makes street photography interesting is the fact that for that brief moment while you’re photographing somebody, there is that instant of connection between you and your subject which is then preserved for posterity – even if you never happen to see them again.

Sometimes, smaller is better. Sony RX100

Street photography must always have a subject, regardless of any of the above restrictions.
This rule is a fundamental of photography in general, not just street photography. However, I feel it necessary to draw attention to this specifically because there are so many images out there on the Internet which claim to be ‘street photographs’ – yet they fail fundamentally as photographs because they lack a clear subject or idea. Even though the photograph itself may not be planned, this does not mean that you can’t have an idea in the instant instant when you see a potential frame, which is then executed immediately.

Evening. Sony RX100

Street photography must observe certain ethical restrictions.
This is very much a personal thing. There are certain people or things that I will not photograph because I do not feel comfortable doing so. In general however, a good rule to go by is not to do to other people what you would not want done to you; this includes intrusion into personal space, photographing people in potentially compromising positions, or under duress. I do not believe in taking photographs of the homeless, because I feel this is both exploitative and does not help them in any way. Similarly, paying somebody money to take their photograph may be an acceptable way to make a living in certain countries where there is no choice, however this is not something I want to encourage because I feel that widespread proliferation of this both discourages social documentary as well as taking away from the authenticity of the image.

Christo comes to Kuala Lumpur. Sony RX100

Street photography has an element of reportage or the documentary to it.
Given that a strong photograph must have a distinct subject and a clear idea, the easiest way to do this in a street photography image is by capturing a moment. This is where HCB’s idea of the decisive moment becomes critical; in that one moment, all of the elements in the frame come together to tell a story. There is only one decisive moment for each story, but many possible stories for any given scene. If all street images have a story to them, then becomes clear that what we street photographers are collectively doing is capturing daily life for posterity. In areas where the pace of change is increasingly rapid – especially in developing countries – I feel there is a certain element of social responsibility here for all able photographers. (Or, at very least, the desire to show your descendants what life was like during your time.)

Outside the W. Leica M9-P, Zeiss ZM 2.8/28

Street photography is not restricted to black and white.
There are many reasons why historical street photography was done in black and white; most of them because that was either the only film available, or because it was a lot cheaper than color – especially in the quantities that prolific street photographers tend to shoot. Today, I sometimes get the feeling that black and white is overused as a distraction to cover up the fact that the image itself is fundamentally mediocre. Instagram certainly does not help things. Is important to remember the fundamental rules of color and composition to decide when black and white or color may be more appropriate. (Black and white works well for strong luminance contrasts and oblique lighting; color should be used when it is the primary means of isolation of your subject.)

Looking up. Leica M9-P, Zeiss ZM 2.8/28

Street photography takes place in public spaces.
In a private, or restricted access space, the people who use the space tend to be known to each other, which changes the dynamics of interaction between them (and the photographer). Public spaces maintain a degree of unpredictability simply because you never know who is going to be your subject.

Street photography doesn’t always have to have a purpose, but each image must aim to say something.
In fact, most photographers tend to shoot in the street genre simply because they feel like going out to photograph, but may not necessarily have any specific subjects in mind; I do this all the time. This of course does not mean that week images are acceptable!

Contemplating the markets. Leica M9-P, Zeiss ZM 2.8/28

Street photography doesn’t require you to fill the frame with a random stranger’s face.
One of the common misconceptions is that street photography always requires a clearly identifiable stranger or or person dominating the frame; let’s take a step back and think about the way we perceive the world when we are out walking on the streets. Our eyes scan around us, taking in the entire scene, and this generally corresponds to something around the 28mm field of view. It is very rare that our attention lingers on any one particular person or point, unless they are strikingly outstanding. Personally, my photographic style is developing in a direction that makes me want to replicate and reconstruct what I see both in reality altered by the filter of my mind’s eye, which means that the perspective I choose to frame my images tend to correspond to what I see. These tend to take one of two distinct perspectives, the first of which is slightly wide, corresponding to my general field of view; the second is narrower, akin to when you are focused on something and the rest of the scene gets ignored – 28, and 85mm.

Escape route. Leica X2.

Street photography can be done with any equipment.
Although there are some cameras that are better suited to street photography than others, there is really no reason why you can’t use anything you happen to feel like using on the day. There are two ways of shooting street; the first is always to be set up and ready, which requires you to preset focus and exposure and work solely on framing at the instant of capture; the second is to be reactive and have a camera that is capable of both focusing and exposing very quickly. However no matter how fast the camera, a degree of anticipation is required in order to capture the decisive moment – there will always be some lag between you seeing the moment, due process happening, and the shutter firing.

Shadows. Leica M9-P, 35/1.4 ASPH FLE

Street photography and travel photography are largely interchangeable.
The only difference between the two is purpose and intention: the former can be when you are shooting with no specific goal or project in mind; the latter is almost always when you want to capture the feeling or mood of a place that happens to be both unfamiliar to you and fleeting or temporary; there’s a time limit on how long the photographer has to absorb and observe. That also introduces a perspective difference: when you travel, you look at a place through different eyes than a local; however, most street photographers operate primarily in their home cities.

Bangkok bus. Leica M9-P, 35/1.4 ASPH FLE

Having broken down my thought process in this article, I’m actually no longer sure that there is a concrete definition of street photography. At the same time, I don’t think that it should be a catch-all genre for everything else that doesn’t have its own category. Perhaps the simplest, and most accurate, definition is simply to think of it as ‘reporting on life’; through our images we are documenting the daily life of the people around us. I wouldn’t go so far as to think of ourselves as social anthropologists, but who’s to say what these extensive collections of images – assuming they survive – may be used for a few hundred years from now? MT

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Filed Under: Articles, On Photography Tagged With: article, defining, essay, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, opinion, photography, street photography, thein, what is street photography

Candid thoughts on the online photography ecosystem

October 31, 2012 by Ming Thein

Let’s start off with a bit of a definition: the ecosystem covers all of the photography-centric bloggers, reviewers, pro photographers with blogs, corporatized review sites, e-commerce sites that might have some reviews, rumor mills, niche manufacturers of little photo-related widgets, gadget websites that might cover photographic equipment, testing houses, subscription review sites, point-and-click review factories, brand forums, community forums, photo sharing and hosting sites, facebook pages for photographers, columnists, contributors and so on and so forth – anything that’s photography-related, offering an opinion, and online.

This post is going to potentially offend a lot of people, but in the interests of continuing transparency and trust, I feel it is necessary to fully clarify my position.

There seems to be a bit of schism that’s taken place over the last couple of years, as the photography industry has both matured and moved truly into the digital age: correction, the primary consumer market of the photography industry has moved into the digital age. By that, I mean that increasing numbers of camera buyers are actually spending the time reading and then relying on the opinions of a relatively small (but growing) group of reviewers and websites. What I basically mean, is that photography online is becoming very much like either the automotive industry or the hi-fi industry. (I can understand why it’s so important to seek opinions in the auto industry – a car is a large, long-term purchase and you’ll probably only own one or at most two at a time; curiously photographers tend to own dozens of pieces of gear, whose combined purchase price probably exceeds their cars.)

Everybody and their dog (and their dog’s trainer and groomer) have an opinion, and many become self-proclaimed experts overnight.

It’s now both easier and harder than ever to check credibility: the louder a person shouts – and there are some bloggers who shout very loud about nothing much, or worse, illogical nonsense – the more weight an opinion seems to be given. This ‘expert opinion’ becomes repeated, quoted, and taken as gospel – all when the writer probably hasn’t done a shred of research, or worse, said something as a throwaway comment. People who in the real world, are generally sensible and making considered, planned decisions, are now following the town crier with their wallets open and thousands of dollars in their hands. Worse still, major camera makers are encouraging this by supporting the people with the loudest voice – not necessarily the most factual credibility. Where has common sense gone?

Perhaps it’s a case of information overload; the more text we have to read, the less we want to spend time looking for it, and so the first item on Google (or maybe the second, too, if we don’t have any meetings lined up) is all we read. The writers get more and more popular, and it’s a self-destructive cycle. The problem for the camera makers is that in the short term, people will follow the loudest voice. Obviously, this helps to sell a lot of cameras, which is what the companies want. In the longer term, as consumers get more educated, they’ll discover the louder voices are often incorrect, which discredits the previously ‘expert’ loud sources – and individuals are less inclined to trust future claims, which will have a negative impact on sales. It seems that feast now, famine later isn’t a problem for most executives because this year’s bonus assessment is coming up next month, and somebody else will be the one in the middle of the future famine.

As a consumer, you’re spending a not inconsiderable sum of your hard-earned money on something. Make sure that you know yourself, and what you’re going to use it for, before trusting the opinion of somebody who’s never used the item in question for your intended purpose. Most importantly: give weight to the review according to the output, i.e. the images. If a reviewer writes badly but is able to produce stunning images, then chances are they have enough knowledge that their opinion is meaningful. Do not trust reviews with mediocre (or worse, no) images – this is an obvious sign that the reviewer has no clue what they’re doing, and probably doesn’t even know what the equipment is for.

As a manufacturer, there’s a natural inclination to support those who are blindly loyal to promoting your product, especially if it’s at the expense of other companies. Wake up: if you can’t see that using many products gives a reviewer if anything even more credibility, then you might run the risk of being caught with your pants down when your customers (or somebody else with an even louder voice) says something to the contrary. A case of the Emperor’s New Clothes you do not want.

Forums full of equipment-masturbating fanboys are probably the worst hotbed of this kind of activity: people with relatively little knowledge go to seek the company of other people with similarly little knowledge, to try and reinforce the validity of their purchases – sometimes at the expense of common civility, or just being openly hostile to any challengers. Wake up: there is no absolute right or wrong piece of gear, the very reason that there’s a variety is because there’s no such thing as one size fits all. I don’t need my choices to be validated by somebody else to be able to take a good picture – that’s stupid.

One related trend that’s popped up and taken to the fore in the last year or so are the rumor sites: they serve an underlying malcontent insecurity amongst hobbyists who prefer to spend money on equipment in the mistaken belief that it will solve all of their problems and make them instantly better photographers. Worse still, titanically huge noises are made when the rumors aren’t as expected, and people forget that a) most rumors are intentionally leaked by manufacturers; b) nothing that might be released tomorrow will change your skill level or ability today; c) they’re rumors!!

What I really cannot understand is how people – and a lot of popular ‘reviewers’ fall into this category – can pass opinion on something that neither they nor anybody else have physically handled or used, and then treat this as gospel. Once again, the problem is that if something is repeated enough, and a sufficient number of people believe it, it becomes true.

But I’m probably preaching to the choir here: I don’t think the majority of my readers are under the illusion that practice and skill come second to equipment.

And that brings me to the crux of the matter: yes, cameras are now more than sufficiently prolific to be considered consumer goods (and with similarly short life cycles) – but ultimately, the pursuit of photography is about the production of images, not the collection of gear. There is nothing wrong with collecting cameras for the sake of collecting cameras*, or because you enjoy the designs, or for whatever other reason – just don’t confuse it with photography. It annoys me to no end when I’m challenged or criticised by people online, often hiding behind the anonymity of an ambiguous username on a forum, on something I’ve written that perhaps offends them because they purchased something I might have deemed to be slightly inferior to something else, or who insists on arguing a point that makes absolutely no difference in the real world. It is clear that these discussions are pointless, because a) you’re never going to convince a fanatic, but they can definitely waste a lot of your time; b) more often than not, they either haven’t posted a single image anywhere, or certainly none worthy of note: these are not photographers, they’re equipment fetishists.

*I highly doubt that anything mass produced and reviewed by every popular site on the internet is ever going to be collectible; there will simply be too many of them out there to appreciate in value – simple economics.

With that, I want to make some things clear about the principles under which I have so far and will continue to operate this site:

I am a photographer first, a writer second, and an equipment reviewer a distant third.
Everything I write about, I do so because it’s either interesting to me, or because I plan to (or already) use it in my professional or personal work. Time is far too limited for me to review things to promote them for manufacturers (several accusations) or bother testing extensively and reviewing a bad product. That is pointless, especially when I have to spend my own money to buy it!

My methodology is consistent.
I am a scientist by training, and know that a comparison with no baseline or repeatability or consistency in methodology is meaningless. I also know when the results are so close that the differences are within the margin of probable error, it’s impossible to call one superior over another.

If something seems off or unexpected, I double and triple check my results.
If there is a question in the results due to the possibility of sample variation, I will test enough samples to rule this out. The best example of this is the D800 and its focusing issues: I was accused of a) covering up the issue (!!) and b) crying wolf initially. I tested five bodies with a good spread of serial numbers variety of lenses; every single combination exhibited the problem. We can therefore conclude that there is a problem. If it had only been one out of the five, it would most likely be an individual sample defect.

I won’t ever post unedited JPEGs or similar images.
This is like making a judgement on a restaurant by eating half-cooked food. It isn’t giving the equipment a fair chance against other equipment, nor does it take into account the potential – and as a photographer, that’s what I want to have some concrete idea of. Would I buy a camera with crappy JPEGs but incredible RAW files? Of course, because I don’t shoot JPEG for the reason that I’m not maximizing the potential of my equipment.

I don’t do quantitative testing or pixel-peeping.
There are other sites that do this if you’re so inclined; however, sensor and camera technology has long past the point of sufficiency for the vast majority of uses, and even for those of us who make a living from images, our clients haven’t said anything about image quality for some time now (assuming of course you’re maximizing the potential of your camera). The fact that I need 3x higher a shutter speed to handhold adequately, or the fact that I can’t reach several of the major controls without contortion is far more important to me than the fact that the signal-to-noise ratio might be 5% better than its predecessor. One affects the way I work in practice, the other doesn’t.

I try to keep things relative.
In a previous life, I served as Editor and Contributing Editor to a photography magazine for over five years; in this time, I reviewed and used just about every major piece of equipment made; this totals some 300+ reviews. Using a variety of equipment both allows me to pick the best tool for the job, as well as have a good basis for comparison for one piece of gear against another. It’s of course impossible to use everything, but it’s also important to use enough that you can’t get called out for a glaring error.

I am not allied to any brand, though I work with many of them.
The brands I work with are fully accepting of the fact that I do so with no exclusive interest, and because I feel their product is the best for whatever I happen to want to do with it. I have full editorial freedom over what I write. And yes, there are brands and companies (I think you can figure out which ones by elimination) that I do not work with because they insist on censoring everything written first. That completely defeats the point of having an independent review, not to mention undermining everybody’s credibility. Saying something is good when it really is good is fine; it’s when people say something is good when it clearly isn’t that problems of objectivity arise. You won’t see me saying much (if anything at all) bad about most things, because it if’s bad, I won’t waste my time using it, or potentially affect my relationship with the brands by posting something negative that might be later constituted as inflammatory.

If I don’t know something, I’ll admit it.
There are aspects of photography where my knowledge is next to zero – sport, videography etc – and I’ll be the first to admit that. I’ll also not pass opinions on something that I have no knowledge of, or no ability to support through fact or experience.

My opinion is subjective, but I do try to be as objective as possible.
The outcome of any qualitative assessment is open to interpretation; photography very much qualifies as subjective in this regard. It is impossible to completely remove any interpreter bias, even moreso when it comes to the aesthetic considerations of an image – yet this is the area in which I receive the least (almost zero) discussion and challenge, by a long margin. I’ve always strongly encouraged my students and readers to seek a second opinion and not make a choice solely based on what I say; what works for me may not work for you, and what I like may differ from what you like. Seeking the opinions of multiple credible sources helps you to build up a objective, balanced picture – and hopefully make a better decision.

The primary focus of this site remains the creation of images.
From day one, this site has been about the pictures, and the creation of images. Everything else is a tool, technique or enabler, nothing more. It is information for the reader to absorb, and in turn allow themselves to be guided or influenced (or not) as they choose in their photographic journey. I initially didn’t want to review equipment, but eventually saw that it was a necessary part of photography – because so much of the way we see and create is inextricably linked to the tools we use, it is important to have an objective view on these tools from the point of view of a person whose primary focus was images. Don’t get me wrong: I like a good camera or lens as much as the next person (probably more so because I’ve used enough crap to be able to tell the difference) – I just don’t and will never let it be the dominating factor.

One final point: above all else, I value integrity and honesty – it takes a long time and several lucky breaks to build up a solid readership; but only one or two mistakes to erase your credibility. The danger comes when the commercial value of being dishonest is greater than the commercial value of being honest; this site remains a labor of love and a platform for me to share my knowledge with the photography community, and is nowhere close to being my primary source of income. (I think in over the last three months I’ve made a grand total of $400 or so from referral fees; nice pocket money, but not even close to being enough for a decent lens.) This allows me to maintain a level of objectivity that is impossible for pretty much everybody else – and I intend to keep it this way. MT

One final reminder for Malaysians: Today is the last day to enter the Maybank Photography Awards. Lots of great prizes up for grabs – and yes, I’m judging. 🙂

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Filed Under: Articles, Off topic Tagged With: article, essay, forums, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, opinion, reviewers, rumors, the blogosphere, thein

Film Diaries: Revisiting film under the pretext of creative development

October 29, 2012 by Ming Thein

Followers of my facebook page and those who joined me for the Tokyo workshop will know that I’ve recently acquired two vintage cameras, ostensibly in the name of investment, however in reality it’s simply because I enjoy using cameras of this generation; they really don’t make them like they used to.

For the curious, my acquisitions were a 1979 Nikon F2 Titan, and what is approximately a 1986 Nikon 58/1.2 Noct-Nikkor Aspherical*. In my mind, these two represent pretty much what is the pinnacle of 100% completely manual technology. The camera body is 33 years old, and looks just as pristine as the day it left the factory floor. (I doubt my D800E will be functional 10 years from now, much less 33; I think the batteries will be long dead and unavailable, and the media and file formats either unsupported or unreadable. Hell, my D2H is already dead, and judging by the slow disappearance of cameras from just six years ago on the secondary markets, it’s likely that a lot of those have either died or entered a quiet retirement too.) Testing the shutter speeds using a digital stopwatch and point-and-shoot on long exposure with the film back open is proof that despite its age, the mechanicals are still functioning perfectly. This is actually fairly amazing given the condition of the camera, because either it has not been used, or was shot by exceedingly careful and paranoid photographer. It is unclear, though unlikely, that the camera has ever undergone a CLA. At the time of writing, the accompanying lens has not yet arrived from Japan so I will refrain from drawing conclusions; however, given the relatively simple nature of the mechanics inside lenses, I’m not expecting any issues.

*In case you’re wondering why I selected this combination, there are some simple reasons: firstly, because I’ve always wanted an F2T since seeing one – the paint finish and weight are much like a modern Nikon, but the rest of the camera is entirely classical. Secondly, it’s familiar to me because I shot extensively with an F2A before; thirdly, the camera distills everything down to the bare minimum – no custom functions or AF issues to worry about; you focus where you want, you adjust exposure manually, hell, it has no meter, let alone DX coding or exposure compensation. Part of what I want to do is retrain my eyes to be my meter – I have this skill, but it isn’t accurate enough for my liking – a stop plus minus isn’t good enough for slide film or digital. At the moment while I’m learning, my Sony RX100 has now become a ridiculously over-specified meter.

For a person whose photographic credo throughout the digital age has pretty much followed the pursuit of perfection through control, you probably are going to think that the use of film is a little unexpected, to say the least. My history and experience with film so far has been somewhat chequered. Not counting my use of film cameras in the days before I had any meaningful interest in photography, I had a brief affair with a Nikon FM3a in my early digital (D70) days; I couldn’t get along with it and in the end landed up trading it in (with one of the rare black 45/2.8Ps) for a 12-24. I think I shot all of four rolls with it. Then, when I got serious, I picked up another film camera (Nikon F2A); the majority of my learning of photographic techniques was accomplished in parallel on both film and digital. In fact, I even shot watches on slide film (of all things), manually calculating guide numbers, diffusion factors, magnification factors and bracketing just to make sure. I got so used to shooting film, that I was almost treating it like digital. This led me to put on the brakes once again; I simply could not afford to pay for the amount of slide film and processing that I was running through on a weekly basis, much less find time to do the scanning.

At this point, we enter a silver halide desert. The next time I even so much looked at a roll of film was in mid 2009, when I picked up a Leica M6TTL as a backup body to my M8. The two biggest things I remember about that experience were that I completely wasted the first roll because I loaded it incorrectly, and as a result landed up with precisely zero images on it; and secondly the feel of the horizontal cloth focal plane shutter of the film Leicas is completely different – much smoother and quieter – than the vertical-travel, metal-bladed units in the modern digital Leicas. I think I must’ve used it on and off for a couple of months, and then decided I wanted the 50 Summilux ASPH more – so off it went.

By this point, I was too preoccupied with both work and the seemingly newfound degree of control that I was able to obtain through digital capture. There were also things I simply could not easily do with film – such as dodging and burning – unless I developed it myself – and I definitely didn’t have time for that. Ironically, this is one of the reasons that I am choosing to revisit film at this point. I’m finding myself spending far too much time in front of the computer post processing. It isn’t because I’m slow – far from it; it’s because I’m trying to do more with each image, and I’m simply shooting a much larger number of images these days.

Of course I am not shifting my commercial work back to film; that would just be stupid. There is no way, I can achieve the same degree of control and quality as I can with digital. And I’m certainly not going to take the risk of something unforeseen happening to the film in the intermediate process between shooting and client delivery. For the mall, there is simply no way I can keep up with the volume if I have to develop and scan every single print plus don’t forget this also dust spotting, retouching and color/ density correction required. Needless to say, I don’t think any of the clients these days would be impressed if you had to bill back the film costs – especially if you shot the same number of images as you normally would with digital.

For my pistol what however, I feel that it’s time to shift gears. I’m definitely experimenting and shooting more, but the improvement seems to be incremental and diminishing. Perhaps part of the problem is that I’m simply shooting too much. I need to be more selective before I take the picture; and again after take the picture. If this sounds like a breakdown in the editing process, that’s perhaps because in some ways, it is. Even though I usually throw away 98% of what I shoot in the quest for perfection every single frame, that 2% is starting to become quantitatively a very large number. Combined that with ever increasing file sizes, and the usual photographers attachment to the images which they shoot, and you have a recipe that’s going to eventually result in either of two things: you spend all of your time processing your personal work and doing nothing else, or you eventually give up shooting for yourself altogether. Obviously, neither of these is a ideal; the first results and you not having any income; the second, creative stagnation. (I’m not sure which is worse for a photographer. I suppose we’re all somewhat accustomed to the former.)

The unstriped come up with, is that I need to find a balance. A change to my shooting process that forces me to think even harder about the image before capture; to minimize the amount of postprocessing I have to do by ensuring that the critically important elements of a strong image are already in place before I press the shutter; and moreover something that forces me to think differently from a creative point of view. I need to play mind games with myself in order to improve to the next level. I suppose I could accomplish most of the former by forcing myself to shoot cameras with relatively small files, and even then only with a very small card – say 2GB, which is probably good for about the equivalent of two rolls of film in a D800E, or even 512MB, which would get me just over a roll from a D700.

The problem is really the creative portion. Although I find changing equipment does frequently force me to think differently, I spend just as much time figuring out how to get the most out of the equipment as shooting, which of course results in more experiments, more files, and even more computer time. This would just land me back in square one, not to mention significantly worse off thanks to the depreciation costs of new equipment. I even seriously considered switching to medium format at one point. However, this would have to be as much a commercial decision as a creative one, and the market in Malaysia, plus the majority of my overseas work being macro-centric simply does not justify the increased expenditure.

It seems as though once again there are good reasons to revisit film. In some ways, it’s much like shooting with a compact; you are removing an element of creative control so that you are forced into making the most of the others. This element of course is postprocessing and post-capture control**. The other added bonus is somewhat progress; every time you press the shutter it cost you money – I calculated to be around $.40 per shot, including processing. This makes you think very carefully before you push the button. I’ve met a lot of people say, that if you get one keep up on a roll you doing well; however, I think my keeper rate is far, far higher with film the digital; simply because it forces you to do everything you can to get the image right the first time. A nice bonus is that it’s also possible to try larger formats for not that much money; possibly because nobody seems to want the equipment anymore, and partially because the gear will be second hand, and therefore not lose a lot of value when you eventually move on and resell it. (You might well even make money on some of the rarer equipment – at least, that’s part of my plan with the F2T and 58/1.2; I also see a Hasselblad 501CM in my future.)

**Granted, I will be digitizing the negatives using one of the Nikons and a slide coping adapter, which of course creates the opportunity for me to intervene digitally at this point, but that’s not the objective of the exercise – there will be far fewer images to deal with, and I’m almost certainly not going to be doing any heavy duty RAW processing.

You’re probably wondering why there are no images to accompany this post. The reason why is simple; it’s because I haven’t developed any film yet. Instead of shooting hundreds of image a day, I’m now shooting perhaps half a dozen, if that. And I’m fairly sure (providing I didn’t mess up loading the camera), that the images I do eventually show will have helped my creative development. You’ll just have to wait and see. MT

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Filed Under: Articles, Film Diaries, On Photography Tagged With: article, creativity, essay, f2 titan, film, film diaries, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, nikon, opinion, photography, thein

Technology, art, and pushing the boundaries

October 19, 2012 by Ming Thein

Even from the earliest days of photography, there has been an inextricable link between the medium and the technology used. Classical artists saw it as an abomination: where was the skill required to recreate the form of a subject when the device did everything for you? If anything, the early photographer was more engineer and chemist than artist. Relative unfamiliarity with some properties of the medium – depth of field, perspective, etc. and near complete unpredictability with others – tonal reproduction, exposure, colour, lighting, emulsion quality etc. meant that results were hit and miss, and more often about getting any image at all – rather than one of any longstanding artistic merit*.

*I believe the popular analogy goes ‘what’s amazing is that the horse can talk at all, not so much what it has to say’.

And for this reason, many of the images we see from the early days of the medium – especially portraits – resemble conventional paintings in the posing, light and general composition. Is it any wonder that early photographers weren’t taken seriously by artists? In fact, I think we can argue that photography as an art medium didn’t really come into its own until the second half of the 20th century, coinciding with not one specific event, but a few technological ‘enablers’:

1. Built-in meters.
2. TTL flash.
3. Consistency – both in the cameras themselves, as well as the processing
4. Mass market processing of film.
5. Later on, autofocus.
6. Still later, digital.

Each one of these things has brought its own little impact on the way photographers work; arguably, making executing a technically good photograph a lot easier than it used to be, but also removing the other distractions and freeing the photographer to concentrate solely on the contents of the frame. All things equal, if you don’t have to think too much about exposure, or focusing, or whether you need to remember to adjust the lens a few degrees past the mark to get true infinity, then you should have a bit more spare brain power to spend on composition – which in theory, should make for stronger images.

But on the whole, I’m not sure we’re seeing this. I remember a statistic that said 10% of all images ever taken were shot last year – that’s mind boggling. By simple laws of statistics, more images means more better ones as an absolute number – but perhaps not more as a proportion. I think maybe making things easier has actually resulted in taking a photograph both crossing the threshold of ‘something you do casually without thinking about it’ as well as opening it up to a whole bunch of people who might otherwise have been intimidated by all of those buttons and knobs. Give a random person your Leica M3 to take a photo of you with in the 1950s, and he’d probably do okay. Do the same today, and chances are they’d run off with your camera.

Yet for those of us who are taking the whole photography thing seriously – and I’m not talking about the gearheads and collectors here – it’s a golden era. We photographers have never had such a wide choice of equipment to use; all of which performs well above the sufficiency threshold. Arguably, even the enthusiast compacts of the current era can deliver at a level that was very much cutting edge for anything below medium format not so long ago. Beyond that, the expansion of the overall market has made room for niche equipment makers to survive and thrive; a good example would be a tilt shift bellows for M4/3, made by Novoflex – combine that with the small sensor, and never-ending depth of field, anybody?

And that brings me to the core of this essay: in a creative form that has always been tied to its technological roots, we might as well embrace it and use the technology to open up new creative doors; I think the current generation of photographers is doing that well, but perhaps not taking it as far as they could be. I’m talking about vision, imagination, and the idea; the ability to see in your mind your final frame before you shoot it. And it doesn’t have to come out of the camera that way; there are some things that must be done in post-processing, like compositing or retouching – so what? The only limitation in the results is very much down to how far ahead the photographer can see; how well they can visualize the effect or potential applications of the new tools. At the same time, though, we must be careful not to get caught up in pop culture: a good example would be that not all HDR has to look like a multi-colored psychedelic tone map. What else can we do with HDR that would result in a frame that a) doesn’t look like every other HDR frame, and b) allows you to present a different view on the world? At the same time, it’s important to note that for journalism purposes, a degree of integrity is required in images: changing the tonal presentation is fine, but changing the contents of the image is absolutely not.

I want to talk about some of the emerging and maturing technologies that make me excited because I can see creative applications for them; I’m sure that there are plenty more I’ve not even heard of. So bear with me.

3D/ Lytro.
The presentation aspect of this has some ways to go before it becomes really mainstream; I’m more interested in the ability to fix a ‘near miss’ after capture, or to have perfect focusing all the time, or have control over the depth of field after taking the shot. For this, we wouldn’t need to have an infinite number of light fields to enable focusing at any distance, but just a few before and after the captured focus point to be able to tweak things afterwards. With sufficiently high density sensors, we wouldn’t even have to take much of a hit in resolution – and I’m sure a smart algorithm could make use of the nearby non-image forming pixels to reduce noise or improve dynamic range.

Composite sensors.
It’s a bit surprising that the conventional Bayer array CCD has lasted this long, actually. Although the idea of Foveon – with multiple photosites per pixel – is a good one, there’s no way that vertical stacking is going to be able to deliver the same noise and dynamic range results, because by the time the light hits the lowest layer of the sensor, it’s already been attenuated severely by the filters above it. And if you don’t have much light in the first place, all you get is noise. What would make more sense is some form of pixel binning – especially with the increasingly dense sensors we’re seeing today. The OM-D’s 16MP sensor is a quarter of the size of full frame; that would make a 64MP array at the same pixel density. But what if the pixels were grouped into bunches of four – RGB and luminance – for true color at each photosite? The luminance pixel could be used to further improve dynamic range and noise, too. And I don’t think a real resolution of 16MP is anything to sniff at.

Speed and HDR.
Input dynamic range should not be confused with output or display dynamic range. Even though the display methods we have today are limited to ~8 stops because they can’t all be lightbulbs to replicate the brighter areas – an LCD for instance, or a print – that doesn’t mean we can’t use more input dynamic range. What this lets us do is choose where and how we allocate the output tonal scale, according to our artistic intentions for the scene. The current limitation is that single-capture DR is around 14 stops maximum; whilst this is far ahead of anything we’ve had previously, there are still scenes that exceed this dynamic range, yet remain clearly visible to us in real life without clipping to black or white. At the same time, capture speed is getting faster – why not take two shots very close together with the mirror up, and then merge them in camera to prevent clipping? We’re already nearly there with the back end coding, but the speed (and camera/ subject motion related to it) needs a bit of work. No reason why at say shutter speeds above 1/1000s we couldn’t have a 1/1000s and a 1/2000s exposure…

Extreme perspectives.
Slowly but surely, lenses are getting both wider and longer. They are also quite unwieldy to handle or compose with – how close do you have to be to something with an 8mm lens on FX to make it fill most of the frame? Very, is the answer. But yet there are plenty of creative photographers who are using these tools to create interesting perspectives. On the opposite end, the Phantom HD camera used by the BBC to film Planet Earth comes to mind – it lets us get close, at a surprisingly natural perspective, without having to either endanger the lives of the crew, or scare off whatever it is we’re filming/ photographing. No doubt it’s a bit voyeuristic, but hasn’t that always been the nature of photography?**

**A good example of this is Miroslav Tichy – although pretty much seen as a pervert during his lifetime, he’s now considered an artist. And yes, he made his own cameras out of cardboard and string.

Miniaturisation.
I think it’s impossible to separate perspective from location – getting the camera into places previously impossible, or inaccessible, is also a big part of this. Aside from the obvious aerial rigs to get us remote unsupported shots in the middle of the action (at the Olympics, for example) – there’s also the whole field of miniaturisation. Perhaps the best example of this is what the GoPro camera started: POV filming from absolutely any point of view. What if we could do that to a decent image quality level with still cameras? In my mind…taken to the extreme, I envision sticking the end of an extremely fine endoscope inside a watch movement to photograph it. I’m sure you all can think of other uses.

Endurability/ survivability.
Taking perspectives and location even further – we’re now sending cameras to places where we physically can’t go, like space, or the deep ocean, for instance. The more advanced our technology gets, the more options we have. Just like in the early days of being wowed at capturing any image at all, eventually there might be some thought given to composition, framing and the artistic merits of the photograph – once we’ve sorted out getting the photograph at all.

Increases in sensitivity and color accuracy.
Since the D3 generation of cameras – I feel we have been able to get a useable image under conditions previously unimaginable, or where we’d just say ‘forget it’. But that kind of flexibility ha, if anything, made me even more aware of the other even more difficult shooting conditions under which I can see a shot, but it remains beyond the ability of my camera to capture. Or we can capture it, but it doesn’t quite come out looking as we saw the scene. The ability to really reproduce what your eyes can see, under all conditions, is something where technology has made great strides but still isn’t quite there yet.

Integration with the photographer
Here’s a crazy idea: what if you could just download the image you saw directly from your eye/ optic nerve/ brain? I wouldn’t be surprised if some research lab somewhere is working on it. We’ve already seen integration of CCDs with the optic nerve to be able to restore sight to some degree, so why not the other way around?

It’s definitely an exciting time to be a photographer. At the end of the day though, it’s important to remember that all of the technology is but an enabler: it’s up to us to push our own creativity to come up with something different, and create your own vision. And although that will always remain the biggest challenge, there will be also always be some people who conquer it and move the medium forward as a whole. MT

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Turning pro: Six months in

October 11, 2012 by Ming Thein

Well, give or take a week or so, at any rate. As those of you who’ve been reading this site from the beginning know, I’d made the decision to be a full time photography/ creative professional sometime back in 2005; I subsequently spent the next seven years building up the courage to do it. In addition to sharing my knowledge, creating something a serious thinking photographer might like to read, and connecting with the global photographic community in general, a good portion of the objective of this site was to chronicle my journey as a photographer for others thinking of following the same path, or those who might like to live a little vicariously. This is where things like the On Assignment series of posts come into play.

It was pretty clear to me that to make things work – i.e. be able to pay the bills – I’d have to spread myself around a bit, and work on the logic of ‘a bit from many places’. Despite what it might appear, this site has not been my primary focus, and can never be; it’s simply impossible for me to write from the perspective I do if I’m not a photographer first and a blogger second. This means that whilst I’ll try to accommodate requests for gear reviews, particular topics etc – it might be a while before they hit the internet because I have to find time to do them, and find a slot in the posting schedule to put them up. Reviews of equipment are limited to what I can get loaned to me (if I think it’s worthwhile evaluating, i.e. I may consider buying it because as a tool, it does something my current gear does not) or what I buy in the course of my work. I’m not going to start reviewing Canon gear, for instance, because it simply does not make sense from a workflow point of view. By the time I get up to speed with it, I’ll have invested a huge amount of time, effort and money, and still not be as good as the established users out there.

I also don’t write daily, though thanks to the wonders of scheduled posting, you do get new content every day. That’s because I don’t have a fixed chunk of time every day, and writing – like any other creative pursuit – comes in fits and starts. I might do six articles in one particularly productive day, then nothing for a week. And yes, like a magazine, I have an editorial schedule and I also make sure I don’t repeat myself or cover something from the same angle somebody else has already done. (When you actually read this, I’ll be in Japan doing the pre-workshop reccie before I start teaching tomorrow.)

On the whole though, it’s been pretty exciting. And time has flown by. Yes, there have been boring moments, slightly bleak moments where the pipeline looks empty and the crystal ball cloudy – I’ve since come to realize that’s normal for every creative – on the whole, I’ve had a ball of a time. Even the people around me say I’m much smilier than when I worked for the man. Right now I’m just grateful that I can wake up in the morning, do something I enjoy, and make a living in the process. I don’t know how long this will continue, given the current state of the creative industry – especially in Malaysia – but I suppose it makes one appreciate it all the more.

I also want to say a big thank you to my supporters and readers; without you, I wouldn’t have written, or continue to write, and in the process push my thinking, understanding and experimentation even further; so in a way, giving back has helped me to grow creatively. Thank you also to my students of the Email School, workshop participants, DVD supporters and downloaders – what you contribute in reality isn’t money, but the freedom of time to enable me to create.

In true post-consulting style, I’ve also prepared a little dissection and analysis. MT

Things that worked out like I planned

Commercial work around my areas of specialization – watches, food, architecture.
Teaching and teaching-related activities have formed a nontrivial chunk of my income.
People like to read gear reviews.
I’m happier.
…and that’s about it.

Things that didn’t

The local market here for photography is tough: both very price sensitive, and quality-indifferent.
I’m not doing as much architecture, food and watch work as I thought; the commercial-type stuff has been getting more and more prevalent.
Payment collection is absolutely terrible, and difficult. The larger the company, the slower and more difficult.
I miss photojournalism.
The traffic volumes I have now. That said, I think I’ve reached a natural barrier: my audience is pretty specific, and definitely your more serious sort of photographer; I don’t know how many of them are out there worldwide, speak English, and would be interested in reading what I’ve written.
A lot of the smaller companies in the US and Europe who make interesting specialist gear have no interest in having their stuff reviewed, even if you are pushing a serious amount of traffic through their target markets (about 60% of my readers). I didn’t even get a reply from a lot of the companies I emailed – this is both rather disappointing and shortsighted on their part.

Things I completely didn’t expect

The friendliness, openness and civility of the international photo community. I’ve made a lot of great friends in the course of both working professionally and running the site, and it’s completely different to what the DPReview forums might have you expecting.
I’m working far longer hours than when I had an office – and I thought that was bad. These days, 14-16 hour days are normal. 7 days a week. But you know what, it doesn’t feel like work half the time.
Sometimes saying no to a bad client is the right thing to do. It feels odd at first to walk away from a job you have the capacity to do, but avoiding pain and having that veto power and control was one of the things I wanted over corporate. So I’d better learnt to make the most of it, I suppose. Happiness is now achievable.
Shooting full time for work doesn’t make you more creative. When there are clients on the line, unless they’re very, very good clients, you tend to be more conservative, if anything. This tends to limit the quality of your output somewhat. It’s tough to be creative on demand. And to make things worse, you don’t always feel like going out to do your own personal work afterwards – I almost have to force myself on some days. It’s not always easy to find inspiration for articles, or material for reviews. I think I’ve exhausted all of the places to shoot in Kuala Lumpur.
I didn’t think there’d be that many people interested in my Photoshop workflow…

Where to next?

I think the biggest change will be for me professionally: I need to differentiate myself from other offerings by going beyond photography into other creative spaces like video, design, copywriting, branding, layout etc – these are things I already do, but not in a widely publicized way. And I think having a consistent feel to all of your creative work is definitely a big value add for any potential client. Plus, it of course diversifies my income streams.
There’s an iPad app in the works. Not only will it feature some brand new content specific to the platform, but it will also let you read your favorite blog daily and search the archives in a much more meaningful way. And to go with it, there will be small video tutorial segments along with ‘request an answer’ type functionality – no more waiting for DVDs in the mail!
At the first year anniversary of this site, I plan to collate and publish the more interesting and time-independent posts into an ebook. I notice that a lot of questions asked have already been answered in detail in other posts, which says to me either people are lazy, or my indexing is rubbish – probably the latter. Plus it’s a shame to go to all that effort and just have things lost in the ether. According to WordPress, there’s over 400 posts and 600,000 words of content on the site – that’s the equivalent of three or four thick paperback books. I might even print a few if the demand is there.
I will continue to remain brand agnostic – using the best tool for the job – but in the interests of full disclosure, I have and will continue to work with Leica, Olympus, Shriro (Carl Zeiss, Profoto and Gitzo) and several other local partners.
Trying to figure out a better search/ indexing feature for the site.
More workshops! This time, I’ll go where you want me to, not where I think might be interesting. Big difference.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: article, essay, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, opinion, six months, thein, Turn, turning pro

What makes an outstanding image? (part 2)

October 7, 2012 by Ming Thein

Continued from part one.

Cinematic light. Nikon D90, 18-200VR

3.5 Context
Context is the way the viewer of the image creates the story of the primary subject, using the secondary elements in the frame as mental markers. The secondary elements help to place the subject in terms of time, location, culture, era, mood, as well as giving countless other psychological clues such as wealth, poverty, uncertainty, danger, unasked questions, etc. A subject in isolation is fine for a commercial product shoot, but it lacks the emotion and narrative richness that well-framed surroundings can add. The photographer also has to ensure that the elements in the frame have the correct relative prominence, which is to say the framing should direct the eye of the viewer to the primary subject first, and then the secondary subjects in order of importance. If this is not the case, then the message of the photograph can land up being quite different to the intention of the photographer at the time of capture. Properties of a subject that affect relative prominence include size, position in the frame, relative brightness, and contrast/ color vis-a-vis the background.

The importance of context. Leica M9-P, 35/1.4 ASPH FLE

Perhaps the concept of context is best illustrated by an example: let’s take the classic photojournalism shot. Wide angle, strongly directional lighting, some atmospheric haze, angry person waving a gun front and centre standing in a shaft of sunlight, close to the camera. The background scene contains other people grimacing (we think – they’re too small and far from the camera to tell) and greatly reduced in prominence to the primary subject, some destroyed/ burned objects, and a fire, all set to an destroyed building in the background. First thing we think when we see an image like this: war. But what if the angry person wasn’t highlighted in a shaft of sunlight, the camera was closer to the other people, who now turn out to be laughing, and we see that the destroyed background building is actually abandoned and the only one in a relatively prosperous-appearing urban area? Would these two images not have a very different story?

The price of progress. Leica M8, 35/2 ASPH

4. Cultural background and history
There are some images which will never mean anything to any observers outside a closed group of people; this is because the compositional elements and subjects make reference to things that are culturally unique or specific to a historical time period. The trick to making images like this work is that they must have enough context for the viewer to be able to make a reasonably accurate guess at the context, even if they have no idea of the specific references invoked. Good examples would include any sort of cultural or religious ceremonies; historical events that were not publicised outside a particular country; or ethnic differences between different racial groups. (I doubt most viewers would be able to tell the difference between Dinka and Masaai tribespeople, for instance. But there would be enough visual cues in the frame to correctly think ‘Africa’.)

It just has to be Paris. Leica M8, 21/1.4 ASPH

I’d probably widen this to include any technical sort of photography where a good portion of the visual impact comes from the subject – fully conscious of the fact that this also covers a good portion of my own work. I could take images with identical lighting and camera/ subject positioning of say a Lange Datograph and a Lange Double Split, but only the horological afficionados are going to display any meaningful difference in excitement for one image over the other.

Seeking understanding. Leica M8, 21/1.4 ASPH

5. Human psychology
Something related to cultural background – think of it as a collective culture for the human race. There are things that universally invoke a reaction amongst the vast majority of people; for subject matter, this includes anything taboo such as death; anything universally celebrated such as birth or marriage, smiles, tears, tension, anger and anything other strong emotional cues (feel free to add to the comments if I’ve missed anything). The ability to include such cues in a very obvious way in an image further increases the overall impact of the shot – seasoned photojournalists such as those who produce reportage for National Geographic, Time, Life etc are very good at this.

Does this scene make you feel warm? Why? Nikon D700, 85/1.4 G

There’s also a second set of elements related to the human psyche that can form useful toolkit – these include use of color (or B&W); directionality of lighting, and particular hues or shades to provoke a reaction. It can be as simple an image of a place with predominantly warm hues (reds, yellows) feels cosy and inviting; the same place with shifted white balance or cooler lighting resulting in blues and whites can be made to feel clinical and sterile. Part of our response to color is down to conditioning imposed by lifestyle – incandescent light, hearth fires, sci-fi culture, medical clinics etc.# – and part of it is probably a physiological thing from our time in the jungle. It’s well known that in the natural world, brightly colored animals and plants are either that way to attract the attention of mates or other members of their species, or to warn potential predators of toxicity.

No missing the subject here. Nikon D700, 60/2.8G

#I’m sure you all had an image in your mind at every single one of these examples – now think, what was the predominant tone, color or white balance in each of those images? This article goes into the psychology of color in more detail, and this one deals with how to achieve control over color.

Finally, there are compositional rules that most people react to, to varying degrees. These include a preference for balance and symmetry; responding to leading lines, and singling out things inside natural frames. There’s also the expectation of the top of the frame being lighter than the bottom; I’m not sure where this emerges from, but I’m fairly confident it has something to do with the sky being brighter than the ground in real life.

This shot probably means more to me than it does to you, because I’m married to the subject. Leica M8, 35/2 ASPH

6. The personal connection
The one element that the photographer has almost no control over for the majority of his audience – assuming that the image is to be viewed by more than those who commissioned it or who have direct involvement in it – is to do with the personal response of the viewer. A good example would be pictures of a wedding – they’d mean something to me if it was my wedding, and I might even be able to overlook compositional shortcomings because of the moment they capture (though I suspect my wife might disagree) – but to somebody with a detached and critical eye, the images may hold very little merit. Or perhaps a well-executed still life of bananas; I might love fruit and therefore be more inclined to like the image over somebody who’s allergic to them, or perhaps suffered from one too many banana peel pranks as a kid – they, on the other hand, might be made very uncomfortable by the image indeed – and possibly not even know why.

Moral of the story: take some time to understand your audience, and you’ll be surprised at the difference in the response. It’s one of the first questions I always ask a client: is it for you, or your customers? And what would your customers want to see?

Blink and you’ll wonder if you really saw it. Nepal, Nikon D700, 24/1.4G

7. Timing.
This concept is best encapsulated in HC-B’s decisive moment philosophy: unlike with a video, you’ve only got one frame to tell the entire story. This means that everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen in the future must be captured in that one frame; it’s the relationship between the events clearly occurring in the frame, and the cues given from which the viewer’s mind interpolates what’s on both sides of the timeline. Although each of the other factors almost always have multiple possibilities that ‘work’ as an image (albeit with different stories) – there is only ever one decisive moment for each message or story. If you miss it, there are other moments, but they each have a different story. Time is a continuum and an artificial human construct, but at the same time the flow of causality is one-way. (This is getting a bit more metaphysical than intended; for more have a look at this article on the relationship between quantum mechanics and photography.)

City Hall, London. Leica M8, Voigtlander 50/1.1

8. The X factor.
Truly outstanding images have something that goes beyond items 1-6; it’s an unquantifiable something that is perhaps almost born out of luck and chance, and never to be repeated. You have to have the right subject, at the right moment, in the right light, with just enough context to tell the story but not so much as to overwhelm, and some sort of personal or emotional connection created with the viewer. (And if you’re a commercial photographer, you’ll have to create all of this from scratch on demand on a repeatable basis.) I actually think the final part of what makes an image work is a degree of controlled imperfection; this appeals at a subconscious level to the humanity of the viewer; it’s almost as though it says ‘what I saw affected me as much as it should affect you’. (Of course, there is a time and place for this, and in commercial shoots, camera shake is just sloppy.) Finally, never underestimate the importance of luck: being in exactly the right place, at the right time.

Sometimes, the patient are rewarded. Schonbrunn, Vienna. Leica M9-P, 28/2.8 ASPH

9. Conclusion
I want to finish on a high note. Even though there are a lot of elements that one has to manipulate – and a couple that you can’t control – to make an outstanding image, it’s clearly possible, because outstanding images happen all the time. And probably more frequently than we think, too – not all of them are shared with the world; Vivian Maier’s work is a great example of that. The single most important element of all isn’t covered in any of the sections above, and that’s practice and preparation. It’s also the best advice I can give to any photographer at any skill level. No matter how deep one’s understanding of the concepts is, if you don’t have a camera with you, or can’t figure out how to get the effect you want, or find the spot metering button, or accidentally shoot in a thumbnail-sized jpeg or something similar, you’re going to miss the shot. If your eye isn’t trained to passively seek out compositions all the time, then you’re going to miss something. The best thing, however, is that the element of preparedness is 100% under the control of the photographer. MT

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Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: article, composition, essay, good, lighting, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, opinion, photography, seeing, technical, thein, what makes a good image

What makes an outstanding image? (part 1)

October 6, 2012 by Ming Thein

Apples. Nikon D800E, Zeiss ZF.2 2/100 Makro-Planar

Of the 400 or so posts I’ve published up to this point, I recently realized that the one enormously gaping hole I haven’t yet covered deals with the one of the major fundamentals: how do you actually determine if an image ‘works’ or not? What makes it good? What makes it outstanding? I think it was both a discussion on composition in our reader pool forum on Flickr, as well as the strongly mixed reactions to this photoessay post that did it – context, even a mini-article, sometimes simply isn’t enough if you’re missing a cultural familiarity, or local view. This is obviously not a simple question to answer; despite an extensive search online, I haven’t been able to find any good articles that provided any sort of conclusion. (Clearly, I must be a bit of a masochist in deciding to write this article.) Perhaps it’s because it’s an extremely subjective question to begin with; or perhaps it’s because to come up with an answer that makes sense requires a thoroughly multidisciplinary approach: strong images resonate technical, compositional, cultural, psychological and personal chords. And the final two are of course highly observer-dependant.

Two old men. Olympus OM-D, 75/1.8

In fact, it’s a wonder that we have any images at all that are globally recognized and appreciated. Rather than analyze specific images, I’m going to spend some time looking into some of the more abstract characteristics and their implications for one’s photography. I’d recommend finding a comfortable chair and grabbing a drink because this is a pretty heavy article. So heavy, in fact, I’ve decided to split it into two parts. It’s also turned out to be one of the most difficult articles to write, occupying a good couple of days thanks to the extremely vague and ill-defined nature of the subject matter. Finding the right photos to illustrate the article was just as tough; excuse me if there are some repeats of previously-posted images here.

The diving board, Hong Kong. Leica M9-P, Zeiss ZM 2.8/28

One of the most important things for a photographer to know is specifically why one of their images works, and why another one doesn’t. I was going through my contacts’ uploads on Flickr the other day and noticing that there were three types of photographers:
a) upload everything, no QC or editing whatsoever, mostly poor images;
b) upload most things, has one or two really good images, mostly mediocre;
c) only uploads good stuff, and shows a consistent level of quality.

Type a almost certainly has no idea of what makes a good image, or perhaps they don’t really care; we must remember that social media is also used for indiscriminate sharing. Type b appears to be a more serious amateur, and wants to make good images, and probably knows a good image when they see one, but is unable to deconstruct their successful images into a series of things that they can replicate. The final type, c, knows what works, and either doesn’t bother shooting the rest, or hits the delete key pretty fast when something isn’t quite right. I want to get us all to type c.

*Note that this article contains a lot more links than anything before – it’s because I’ve previously explored a lot of these individual concepts in some depth, but never unified them in a single article – this one.

Omega Speedmaster 9300. Nikon D800E, 85/2.8 PCE

Let’s begin.

1. Subject
There is simply no point to a photograph or image if there is no subject. An image is a representation of something: if there’s nothing to represent, or it isn’t clear what the representation is trying to be, then why bother at all? This doesn’t mean to say that abstract images don’t work; in such cases, the abstraction and entire frame are the subjects themselves. But in the broadest possible sense, if you look at an image and it isn’t fairly obvious what the image is about, then it fails. A photograph without a subject is like a meal with no main course, or a story without a plot – it can fill an immediate transient need, but it will not have any lasting consequence or memorability.

The cloud. Sony RX100

The sole implication for the photographer is that you need to know what the subject of your image is going to be before you take the shot, and how the other elements in the frame relate to it and tell the story. Or maybe they don’t relate to it and create an inverse story of juxtaposition and contrast; it all depends on what you’re trying to say with the image. The subject also needs to stand out and be visually obvious, it should be the (metaphorical and optical) focal point of your image. We’ll deal with that in section three. Bottom line: you need to have a clear picture in your own mind about what the image is about; invariably not everything is executable, so this picture gets increasingly blurred as it comes closer to physical execution – hence ensuring that you start off with as strong an idea as possible is paramount.

Hommage a Claude Monet. Nikon D800E, Zeiss ZF.2 2/100 Makro-Planar

2. Execution and technicalities
Next comes the simplest of the ‘secondary’ criteria. Even this is relative, however. Generally speaking, a good image is properly exposed for the subject, is in focus, and doesn’t take processing to the extremes. The executional characteristics of the image should not be the first thing you notice when you look at the photograph: you can overdo it**. They should support the compositions, but not detract or outweigh it. This is one of the things I don’t like about overdone HDR, Instagram and other photo apps – the processing is so overdone to the point that fundamental compositional structure is overshadowed, and any flaws hidden. You only see the processing, and not the subject.

Seeing the wood from the trees. Leica M9-P, 21/3.4 ASPH

However, there are always exceptions to every rule. And in the case of the technical qualities of an image, if you have an exceedingly strong subject or composition, then no matter how poor your execution, the subject is what you’re going to see first. Nobody remembers Robert Capa’s iconic Normandy landing shots for their technical perfection, but rather the subject matter and how he managed to convey the chaotic, haunting, gritty sensation of actually being there.

Service – with just the right amount of motion blur. Sony RX100

I include processing under technical execution. The biggest fundamental choice you have here is whether to work in color or black and white; some subjects are particularly suited to one or the other; some could go either way. Whether you should use one or the other depends mostly on whether your subject is best isolated by luminance/ brightness or by contrast in color. (This topic is subject to an entirely separate article here.)

**I cover processing workflow in general here, and here for B&W.

After work. Olympus OM-D, 45/1.8

3. Composition
In its simplest definition, composition is how the various elements of an image are located relative to one another, and how this spatial relationship tells the story of the main subject or conveys the desired message. However, there are some restrictions – firstly, we are representing a three-dimensional space in two dimensions, and secondly, there are perspectives imposed by the field of view we choose to employ. The reduction to two dimensions has both strengths and weaknesses: you cannot rely on depth perception to create perspective; instead, we have to artificially impose it through our choice of focal length. However, its removal also means that we can do things that aren’t possible via native human vision, such as have everything in the frame simultaneously in focus. Mastery of composition is knowing when to use the right tool to enhance the presentation of the subject.

Dessert, before and after being enjoyed. Nikon D700, 60/2.8G

That said, for any given subject and situation, there is no one perfect composition – rather, there are probably any number of compositions that can work. However, the big difference is that they will not all tell the same story. Again, there is no right or wrong here: the best story for a given situation will depend very much on what the end objective is for the image.

This article and this article both enter into more detail on compositional theory.

Vanishing point. Leica M8, 21/1.4 ASPH

3.1 Isolation/ separation/ focus
This concept lacks a single defining word – I suppose ‘focus’ would be closest, but the problem is that tends to induce confusion between the subject distance and the concentration around the idea or subject of the image. The ideal qualitative effect is that the eye of the viewer must go straight to the primary subject of the photograph, and then only on to the context that surrounds it, in the order that the photographer desires. This can be accomplished through the use of a number of different tools – leading lines, natural frames, negative space, bokeh etc. The subject itself must stand out from the background or surroundings; in that sense, some sort of natural frame is always required to provide the necessary isolation – it could be a doorway, or a plain color background of a different color to the subject, or a contrast in texture. The sole exception is a whole-frame abstract, where the entire image is the subject. Note that lighting is the other major source of subject separation. (And yes, there is such a thing as too much bokeh.)

Before the take. Nikon D700, Zeiss ZF 1.4/85

3.2 Perspective
There is no right or wrong perspective for any given subject. The sole aim of perspective is to either emphasize or de-emphasize the foreground relative to the background. Does the subject need to be larger than life, or minimized? Does the image require context to understand properly, and how prominent should these contextual elements be relative to the primary focus of the image?

Trees. Ricoh GRDIII

In general, wide-angle perspectives need a clear subject placed in the foreground. This need for a defined foreground decreases as the focal length increases, to a point where it could really go either way at roughly 50mm and above (35 equivalent). Above that, the foreground and background are of similar prominence, and subject separation is no longer achieved through perspective, insofar as depth of field is a consequence of a particular focal length and perspective. Images shot with a wide lens that lack a clear foreground can work, but only under specific circumstances which almost always involve leading lines, or large amounts of context and unusually good subject separation. Similarly, one must also take care with the use of telephotos – you can focus on the subject to the point of exclusion of all context, which can actually weaken an image.

Mt. Yotei. Nikon D700, Zeiss ZF.2 2/100 Makro-Planar

3.3 Balance
I’ve always found this to be one of the more difficult things to define. Instinctively, you know whether something is balanced or not on looking at it – but what it is specifically that creates, or destroys, that sense of balance is much more difficult to quantify. The eye of the viewer needs to linger for about the same amount of time in every portion of the frame; if you have half of the frame that takes a split second to understand but produces no context, against the complex opposite half of the frame where there’s a lot going on and a few moments of deciphering are required, then you generally might as well not bother with the quicker part.

Breguet Tradition. Balanced, but not perfectly symmetric. Nikon D700, 60/2.8G

Doesn’t make sense? Boil it down to opposites. Balance is like symmetry, but not quite; the mirror images do not have to be identical, nor do they have to be symmetric around the dead center of the frame. If the left half of your frame has something in it, then the right half must too, of roughly the same size and level of detail. This is independent of the subject. Now quarters: you can do opposite top-left and bottom-right and leave the other two corners empty, but if you do three corners and omit one, the eye is going to go straight to the empty corner because it’s the odd one out. You might actually want to do that, but make sure it’s a conscious choice. You can keep subdividing your frame and finding opposing points around the middle to balance out, but generally once something gets to be say less than 10% of the frame size in any linear dimension (1% area) then it’s usually inconsequential enough to ignore – so long as it doesn’t intrude into your subject.

This of course also applies to your subject too: don’t make it too small, otherwise no matter how balanced your frame, it won’t stand out!

There are always exceptions to every rule. Nikon D800E, Zeiss ZF.2 2/100 Makro-Planar

3.4 Lighting
I just completed a whole series on lighting here – intro to equipment, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and tips and tricks.

With no light, there can be no photography. The direct meaning of ‘photography’ is ‘writing with light’. Light identifies and isolates your subject; the softness or hardness or uniformity of it determines the amount of definition and contrast, as well as the tonality; the color and hue determine the feeling of the scene. And the absolute amount of it has an impact on the technical quality of the image, too. It’s inescapable that every good image must have good light – you can make an ordinary subject into an arresting photograph if it’s properly lit, but no amount of photoshop or the most unusual object is going to surmount flat or uninteresting light.

Prague. This would not be interesting on a flat, gray day at noon. Olympus E-PM1 Pen Mini, 45/1.8

Photographers must therefore either be able to recognize when the light is right, and seek out subjects to be illuminated by it – or go one step further and learn to control it. In fact, you have to do the former before you can do the latter – understanding the origin of a particular look makes it much, much easier to reverse engineer and replicate. Distilling things further, we’re arrive at the inescapable conclusion that successful lighting hinges on directionality, nothing more and nothing less. The right directionality creates the right kinds of shadows and highlights, which in turn creates contrast, texture and subject definition. And the less common the direction (light), the better – why do you think psychologically, we don’t find images shot in noon sunlight or under common indoor artificial light to be particularly arresting? It’s because that’s what we are conditioned to seeing most of the time. However, golden hours or special lighting effects are much less common. But I’m starting to digress into psychology, which I’ll leave for section 5.

Come back tomorrow for the conclusion in part two.

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Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: article, composition, essay, good, lighting, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, opinion, photography, seeing, technical, thein, what makes a good image

OpEd: The democratization of photography and the state of affairs in Malaysia

October 4, 2012 by Ming Thein

Inclusive? Exclusive? Fair? You be the judge. Nikon D5100, AFS 85/1.4 G

This article was originally written by me to provide context for the 2012 Maybank Photographer of The Year Awards, for which I’m serving as Chief Judge. It was published in The Malaysian Reserve, 14 September 2012 edition. Reproduced with permission. A scan of the original article is available here.

Humans are visual people: we are drawn to things that look different, things that are aesthetically pleasing, and above all, things that communicate with us at an emotional level. This applies to both objects and photographs; in fact, half of the neural connections in our brains are related to vision in some way. What’s changed notably in the last eight years – since 2004 – is an explosion in visual content creation, sharing and awareness, fueled by proliferation of internet access, falling prices of digital cameras, and more recently, the rise of social media.

I pick 2004 as the turning point because it was a landmark year for photographers: it brought the affordable consumer digital SLR. Professional quality was now accessible to the masses at a tenth of the former cost, reducing the sole differentiator of photographers again to skill. More importantly, the learning process became extremely fast thanks to instant feedback. With film, you might not see the results of your experiments for days or weeks.

This gave birth to a new generation of digital-only photographers who have no affinity to Velvia or Neopan or Tri-X. Today’s generation even further removed – film is merely what the various Insta-whatsit or Hipsta-thingy app filters try to emulate. Yet, mostly due to that instant feedback loop, the average standard of today’s generation of photographers is higher than ever, with increasing numbers of people getting interested in and trying to make a living from photography. In fact, there are so many photographers everywhere now that it’s normal for the most people to sling a DSLR around their necks when they leave the house, and share everything with their friends online later. We communicate visually.

I’m of the transitional generation. I started pre-2004 with both film and digital – one helped me understand the other – and ‘turned pro’ in early 2012. There are two definitions ‘pro’: one, is that you make the vast majority of your income from photography or related activities; the other is that your images are of a consistently high standard, regardless of the conditions or subject. There are plenty of the former, but precious few of the latter – and the majority cut their teeth during the silver halide days. I aim to be both.

What photography clients often overlook is that you generally pay more for experience, translating into consistency. And it’s as much about time as it is about the number of experiments you’ve done or things you’ve tried. A chimpanzee could probably make ten incredible images out of a million through random chance alone. A professional should hit that mark nine times out of ten. As the client, it’s your responsibility to be educated about the services you’re paying for. Needless to say, selecting a provider with price as sole criteria – sadly a common practice in Malaysia – is a poor guarantor of quality. Thanks to the internet, it’s very easy to find specialist photographers and quickly identify if they’re good or not; in fact, picking a niche and excelling at it is probably the only way professional photographers can survive commercially in the longer term.

There are actually a number of world-class commercial photographers in Malaysia – but we don’t hear much about them here because they do the majority of their work outside the country. Much of my own business comes from Singapore and Switzerland – I specialize in watches, food and architecture, which also happen to be personal passions.

As organizations and individuals, it’s important that we do what we can to support the creative industries, beyond photography. The government can budget for ‘innovation incentives’, but something more than that is needed to make creativity flourish and grow: an ecosystem. Any industry creative will agree that inspiration isn’t always available on demand, but the environment is a large contributing factor. Take The Louvre, for example. Its archive gives inspiration to budding artists, and supports an ecosystem of its own, providing intellectual nourishment for future generations. Malaysia needs a legacy like that.

In a previous life, I was a director in the education and professional services sectors. Come recruitment time, I was saddened after interviewing many graduates with great paper scores – they were simply unable to perform at all in a professional environment. The missing elements? Creative thinking and initiative. At the same time, there’s still a ray of hope: at a recent major competition I judged, the best entries by far – and the bulk of the shortlisted ones – came from the student category. There is potential out there; we need to nurture it.

Support comes in many forms. There is commercial recognition – giving fair value for a professional service, recognizing and rewarding quality. Then there is also intellectual recognition – public acknowledgement and respect for the creator’s (and photographer) intellectual property rights. (Don’t know what an image license is? Don’t be afraid to ask). People are proud to show their best work – especially to a wide audience.

Equally important is teaching and encouragement. Since early this year, I’ve tried to do my part via http://www.mingthein.com. I aim to give back to the greater photographic community by openly sharing thoughts on technique, philosophy, and the life of a professional photographer – something beyond the other million gear reviews. The response has been fantastic so far – over a quarter of a million international visitors every month.

Collectively, this is why as a professional, a creative, and a Malaysian, I was proud to be invited to serve as Chief Judge for the inaugural Maybank Photographer of The Year Awards. It’s great to see a major company recognizing the importance of creativity, and giving Malaysians an opportunity to showcase their work, and the incentive to up their game. There are some pretty sweet prizes, too. As tempted as I am to enter instead of judging, I’m much more excited about seeing the entries. MT

The Maybank Photographer of The Year Awards may be entered online at www.maybankphotoawards.com. Submissions are open from 3 September to 31 October.

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