New Cameras
As technology is advancing what we can do on a camera is also dramatically changing. Is this leading to the death of the decisive moment? The creation of Photoshop enabled us to easily manipulate images, however you were still unable to change the fundimental things of the photograph, such as focus and point of view of the image.
‘You can’t correct it (a photograph), if you have to correct it, it’s the next picture’- Henri Cartier-Bresson
Cartier-Bresson believes that by correcting an image it is now a completely new image, this leads on to new debates such as ammeters vs. professionals, a professional seemingly doesn’t need these new cameras as they are able to create a good standard of photograph with the resources that we already have, however this isn’t to say that having these new cameras won’t enable us to do new things and break more boundaries using the technology that we now have.
By being able to make such drastic changes to an image it allows almost anyone to be able to create a professional standard or at least looking image. The camera is the tool to capture the decisive moment, its all about a particular moment and the photographer being there, at the right time and right place to capture it;
‘Life is very fluid, sometimes a picture has disappeared ad there is nothing you can do.’- Henri Cartier-Bresson.
By having these new cameras it means that the photographer has less work to do as the camera does more of it, by being able to change things such as focus does allow you to consistently create the image you want to, but is this really an advantage? This camera allows anyone to make these almost perfect images making it a lot harder for professional photographers to make a living. As well as this will it really give you that good feeling when you create a good image, as whether the original was as good as you wanted or not you could always save it.
Lytro camera:
‘The manipulated moment’
- Doesn’t do traditional things
- Captures all the light information in the surroundings for the picture
- Can change the focus of the picture even after it’s been taken
- Not on a professional scale yet, only in small formats
- ‘The headaches of focussing a shot go away’- New York Times
- The power is starting to shift from the photographer to the subject
- It starts to dictate the way we work, not too worried about the focus as you know you can change it after
- ‘We shape our tools and thereafter they shape us’ – If we have the tools to change things such as focus we won’t think about it and try to make the perfect picture, this enables us to be lazy while taking the images
- It is only screen based at the moment, will this translate well to print? Or is it an entirely screen based medium, transferring photography primarily to the digital side
- Is there an original? how do you get back to the original if there is one?
Red camera:
‘Every moment’
- Has the power to record ultra high definition (4K, 4000 pixels, opposed to HD, 1080 pixels)
- Fast shutter speed
- Some films are made on them in the film industry
- Able to take stills straight from the footage, and still at a very high quality, more than enough for a billboard or a magazine
- Canon movie digest- captures up to 4 seconds of the action shot before it is taken, constantly capturing 4 seconds and deleting it until the shutter is pressed
- Don’t want to miss the decisive moment, this way you never can
- Could radically change sports photography: maximum number of frames per second
- You can’t miss it if you are recording, you will always capture the decisive moment, and be able to get a high quality still from it
- Instead of finding it within the world you are finding it within the footage
- ‘I love the limitation of the information you get. I love the mystery of one frame (about photography)’- Elinor Carucci, there is no limitation if you are filming the whole situation, you will always find the shot and not experiment
Google earth/street-view:
‘The non-moment’
- Going out into the world and deciding what to put the window around is no different to using google street-view to find the decisive moments
- No camera is needed
- Is this a lazy way of image making? are you as involved considering you may not have ever actually been there?
- Captures the true moment, no manipulation, no bias, it captures whatever was there at the time, this may or may not be significant
- Street-view is a new archive and something that is waiting to be documented, it has new information and is a new level
- If you were do interested in a place, why wouldn’t you go there and capture the images yourself? be involved?
- Is this the way that documentary photography should be made?
- Is this real reporting?
- It is still portraying the truth, an untouched truth
- It allows you to put your own point of view to the image, no opinions can be pushed on you
- If anyone wants to recreate these images it is very easy