Camera Position 27 : The Mind & The Machine

Tryptich - Rialto Market, Venezia, 2003 - Photograph by Jeff Curto

Click image for a larger view

Whether we like it or not, photography has technology at its base. Sometimes, changing up the equipment we use can allow us to change the way we look at the world in a significant way. This episode uses a triptych image I made in using smaller-than-my-normal 4×5 camera and color film (A Hasselblad and Fuji NPS 120 film) and examines how a change in the tools we are using can change everything about the way we see and photograph. The image above can be clicked to provide a larger view.

2 thoughts on “Camera Position 27 : The Mind & The Machine”

  1. Jeff, thanks for another great podcast. Along the same lines one of the things I’ve been working with in trying to expand my creative vision is to see through someone elses eyes. Normally when I photograph I take the pictures I want. Lately, I’ve been working with my wife to take the pictures she wants. My wife has a completely different way of looking at things than I do so I work the camera but she dictates to me the composition. She is teaching me to see differently and I’ve noticed that some of the pictures I take when she is not around look like some of the pictures she asks me to take.

    On a completely different subject, I’ve been meaning to ask you for a long time, do you have a list of books you think every photographers library should include?

    Thanks again for another great podcast.

    Don

  2. Thanks, Don;

    On the topic of “someone else’s eyes”… I have an assignment that I give to my students in my History of Photography class. They have to research the work of a photographer whose images really move them, and then make several images in the style of that photographer. The idea is to go out to make photographs and get out of their own skin. How would Bresson respond to this place? I always get some interesting responses to the assignment, primarily because the student’s work is usually some hybrid of what they want to do and what their chosen photographer would do.

    Your idea of a collaborative image is another interesting exercise along the same lines as my history assignment… working through the process of editing out what you don’t need for a photograph with someone else’s eyes… a nice idea.

    You know… I *do* have some ideas of books that I think are pretty useful for every photographer to have… and I think that sounds like a great topic for a podcast. Look for it soon!

    -Jeff

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