Blue Pixel

Friday, August 17th, 2007 by Reed Hoffmann

I spend a lot of time teaching workshops, and that lets me see how people handle all the new digital photography tools and technology. This past weekend I helped a few friends with a couple days of shooting and editing, and was reminded again how far we've come in this business.

The friends were two couples that live here in Kansas City. Three of the four attended an American Photo Mentor Trek (http://www.mentorseries.com) I led in Tucson last spring, and had called me about doing a mini-workshop here at home. The fourth person, Piti, didn’t attend the Tucson shoot, and in fact was fairly new to digital SLR photography. Not having a camera yet, I loaned her a Nikon D40 with 18-135mm lens.

We spent the mornings out shooting (in near 100-degree heat!) and the afternoons going over photos, discussing workflow and editing. The cameras ranged from a Nikon D200 and D40 to Canon Rebel, 20D and 30D. Everyone made some good photos, and we had a lot of fun.

On Sunday afternoon, going through what everyone had shot, we got to the photos from the D40. Piti used the camera on Saturday, and to keep things simple, we set the camera on Auto and let her concentrate on making nice images. She took it home with her Saturday night, and then to the neighbor’s house for a pool party. And she made some wonderful photos. The photos with this entry are all hers.

What amazed me wasn’t that she made good photos – it’s obvious she has an eye for good images. What’s impressive is that she was able to do it the first day she had the camera in her hands, and one of the few times she’s shot with a digital SLR. It reminded me once again how far the camera manufacturers have come in building cameras that can focus, expose and shoot so accurately with so little effort on our part. And Sunday afternoon Piti told me she had so much fun with that camera she was buying one.

Does this mean I’m going to switch all my cameras to Auto? No. I want to have more control over how the camera operates. What it does mean, though, is what so many people have learned over the last few years – with a good modern camera, you can go well beyond shooting snapshots, without spending years learning the technical side of photography. And that’s what I learned 35 years ago with my first camera: I couldn’t draw or paint, but I could make art with a camera. And have a lot of fun doing it.