It's not the camera...

One of my Facebook friends, who lives in Bishop, California, which is along the 395 (the highway to the eastern Sierra) posted a photo this morning of this Ansel Adams quote:

“You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”
And when I read that, it distilled into a single thought how I feel about what tool photographers use to capture an image. 

I often get comments from friends and people I know about how they can't take a "good photograph" with their devices, like an iPhone or smart phone. And I respond back to them a rough paraphrase of this quote (even though I wasn't aware of it until today). 

Creating a photograph has very little to do with which device is used, but it has everything to do with the person creating that image. I don't care if a person is using a top-of-the-line Nikon, or a Canon point-and-shoot, or their cell phone: if they don't have a sense of what makes a good photograph - either an inherent sense or an educated sense - then the device is going to yield poor results. But if they understand light, composition, or have educated themselves on the tools of photography, then even if they are using an iPhone, their images can be stunning. 

Conversely, many photographers invest in the tools that they know will help expand their vision and improve their photography. In my photographic journey I went from 35mm to medium format (which created an image that was 2-1/4 x 2-3/4" in size), and then eventually to large format, which goes from 4x5" to 11x14". I did that because I felt that my work would improve (and it did) as I increased my skill level. But today, I feel I capture stunning images with my Samsung, which I can even import into Lightroom and further enhance the image.

But it all starts with that ability to see the image, and, as Adams stated, bring all that we have seen, the books we've read, the music we've listened to and the people we have loved. 

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