Gluttony - Seven Deadly Sins Of Photography

Gluttony: does not accept the natural limits of your needs. It does not preserve any natural balance. This does not pertain only to food, but to entertainment and the pursuit of material goods...

In photography the sin of equipment gluttony is often compounded by the other deadly sin of camera envy. The results are negative and counter productive though for different reasons.

When a case of photographic gluttony begins the sinner in question begins to labour under the delusion that if some camera equipment is good then more is even better!

Now this can be OK if said person takes the time and effort to fully learn and utilize all that equipment. However in reality they tend to do one of two things and both are bad.

Option 1: They become totally equipment obsessed. The technical brain dominates the creative brain. Their piggy eyes see only into their camera bag they never look up and see the beauty around them. Photography becomes about the obtaining of camera equipment.
Option 2: The confusion of so many creative tools available causes endless mistakes, missed opportunities and botched images. Their potential is hindered not helped by their gluttonous acquisition of photographic equipment.

I'll end on a true story. A few years ago I went to London on a course in candid street photography. I arrived with one small discrete camera on a wrist strap. It had a small prime lens mounted on the front. There was a small flash in my pocket for any abstracts I saw along the way. In short I was mobile, discrete and blended in nicely.

Another course member exploded onto the scene with around six huge white telephoto lenses, two huge professional camera bodies, an enormous backpack and a ridiculous 'photo-vest'. He was somewhat 'high key'.

Within minutes of arrival and comparison the equipment junkie proceeded to mock me and several other delegates for twenty minutes solid. It quickly became apparent he was delusionaly impressed with the size of his own equipment and had assumed this view was universal. I tried to explain my choice of light, discrete minimal kit. I felt it was more suited after all. In the end we just sat in silence as the gear glutton pontificated from the top of his camera bag.

We spent half a day on our classroom lesson then in the afternoon we went out on assignment into the city with our cameras. The gear glutton crept noisily into a small square and raised his gargantuan camera to his eye. A small teenage boy looked shocked and pointed at his lens with the exclamation, "what in hell are you doing with the Hubble telescope!?!?". Everyone immediately noticed and most people laughed aloud. His candid moment was completely blown. This or similar happened all afternoon. His photographs where predictably poor.

The moral of the story is often less is more. Stick with what you need and what's appropriate.

Lust - Seven Deadly Sins Of Photography

LUST: Self control and self mastery prevent pleasure from killing the soul by suffocation. Lust is the self-destructive drive for pleasure out of proportion to its worth. Sex, power, or image can be used well, but without knowledge of yourself they tend to go out of control...

The photographic sin of lust is a strange sin indeed. It is often the subject of much discussion amongst photographers. It manifests in the form of an unsuccessful and un-original photographer. One who is so influenced and so enamored with a particular photographers style that they seek to emulate every aspect of it. Their lust to actually be that photographer takes over and they cease to be their own creative entity. This manifests in their endless dry and technical emulation of their idol.

Of course they will only ever manage to be a pale immitation of the person they placed on the pedestal. Worse still, as is the way with all meaningless lust, their loss of an individual visual identity damages them. Their passion for photography dies and the tiny seedling of originality withers in the ground.

To make a distinction from this erroneous path I'll add this footnote: By all means you should look at the work of many other creative individuals. You can draw great inspiration and pleasure from the experience. One can learn and grow simply by being open to a creative experience as represented by another. In fact being honest with yourself for a moment is it not a natural thing to want others to appreciate your photographs? So would it not be hypocritical to not extend that courtesy to others?

This is where it should end though. A healthy love of the work of other people tempered with a knowledge of yourself. Not a lust to be another person at the loss of your own creative identity.

Digital Workflow - (Part3) - Clones and Space Invaders

Screenshot Of NoClone Version 4

After the last workflow article I was asked if I had experience of a program to save space by finding and removing duplicates on a hard drive. The use of a program like this this being obvious too anyone with Gigabytes of .tif photographs and .mp3's clogging their hard drive.

Now as it happens I discovered a superb program for this exact purpose some time ago and have used it for Two versions now. The software in question is a very cheap little utility called 'NoClone' which is available from Reasonable software as a download. It's at a price like their name would suggest.

Use couldn't be simpler. Pick some file paths to search for duplicates. Tell the program what duplicates you want to look for. Something like 'Exact content duplicate files'. Next tell it what kind of file. An obvious choice from the drop down box being 'Images'. Click [Search] and wait for a short time.

The program will rapidly search the folders you request and mark up what it thinks should be deleted and place it in a list next to the suspected matching duplicate file. It will pick older files or whatever other preferences you choose to set. You can check the files and delete away. Couldn't be simpler. I saved 12.9 Gb on an 80 Gb Hard Drive in 5 minutes. Well worth it's $32.90 asking price just on $'s per Megabyte it saved me along with a few hours work.

Hellen Van Meene interview goes live.

In late 2006 I had the great experience of interviewing renowned portrait photographer Hellen Van Meene. She was a fascinating articulate person with great thoughts and opinions about her craft. So much so that I had to do the harshest edits I've ever done in an article. That or it would have been three times as long as my editor would like it!

Hellen's work focuses on teenagers, mostly young women, who are on bordering on adulthood. The images have an almost otherworldly quality. She discusses the reasons for this and how she approaches her work in my article. I've included an excerpt of below as a taster. The full article can be found here on ePhotozine.com where I work as Professional Photographer Portfolio Editor.

Hellen felt part of her talent as a photographer was to draw something more out of her models something from within them. She felt sometimes this meant strong direction of her models which often means having to ask them how to pose or how to look. Guiding them through the process. Her description of this was dramatic referring to it as "like sculpting on a living soul" She feels a strong responsibility for her models and the look she gives them as she has chosen them in the first place for qualities they are perhaps unaware they have at this point. She adds after pausing for thought "I try to get the best things out of them. If it means I have to turn her around or anything else, it’s my responsibility and that is a big challenge every time. It’s too easy to make a photo of an insecure girl. I mean…there’s nothing in it. It’s much more of a challenge to take an insecure girl and change her into Queen Elizabeth. That’s more difficult".

I really hope you enjoy the article and as always if you have feedback, suggested photographers to interview or would like that kind of exposure yourself please drop me a mail.

Hellen's Book is available from Schirmer Mosel Publishing. I have my own copy already and am delighted with both the content and the print quality.

Previous interviews on ePhotozine.com:

Photo-journalist Jonathan Taylor

Wildlife Photographer Andy Rouse

Sloth - Seven Deadly Sins Of Photography

SLOTH: The other sins work together to deaden the senses so we first become slow to respond then drift completely into the sleep of complacency. In short we become a lazy good for nothing photographer.

This is really simple so I'll keep it brief. If you don't have your camera with you you can't take pictures. If you don't go out looking for pictures they will not come and knock on your door begging for you to pop out and take them. If you don't make an effort to find the pictures all around you, while moaning that there is nothing to photograph, then you are guilty of the sin of photographic sloth.

The cure is simple. Get up off lazy complacent backside, put down the pie and turn off the television. Make an effort. No one took a great picture by sitting doing nothing. You'll find Ansell Adams actually walked about a bit to take pictures. In order to practice what I preach I got up at an ungodly hour on a cold and windy day to take the photo in this article. I could have stayed in bed but I personally think it was worth the trip.

NOTE: The sin of photographic sloth should not be confused with photographing sloths which is a noble though slightly obscure pass time of wildlife photographers.

Pride - Seven Deadly Sins Of Photography

PRIDE: Seeing ourselves as something we are not. Pride and vanity are also collaborative. If someones pride really gets your goat, then you have a lot of pride.

In photography the sin of pride is a devastating sin. It will prevent you learning. It will prevent you accepting advice. It will make many a potential mentor shun you without you ever realising they have. Your development into a talented photographer will simply never occur. And why is that you ask? There's a simple and obvious answer to the question. If you are so prideful that you already believe you are a great photographer why would you struggle to actually be one? If you are so vain as to believe you already know best how can you ever listen and learn to a more experienced photographer? How can you ever see virtue in the work of anyone else if you are already the greatest? Also why on earth would anyone want to pause and help anyone so arrogant as yourself?


Now opening up to the fact that you are not the greatest at landscape, portrait, street or whatever type of photographer is difficult. You must subsume that huge ego. John Cleese once described this process of divesting yourself of ego as going to sleep thinking you're Atilla The Hun but waking up to find your a Budgie. Now it's very difficult to accept you are not always perfect but the benefits are enormous. If you are open to the fact you are flawed and have room to improve. You begin to strive to improve. You begin to be honest and examine your work more critically. You learn to listen and to take on board the opinions of others. That's how you grow as a photographer. It's how you approach greatness.


If you follow that advice then I am sure that one day you will be very proud of your accomplishments in photography. On that day being justifiably happy with what you've worked hard to accomplish is an entirely different ball game to just deluding yourself about your own greatness.


PS: The picture in the article is:

A/. The greatest picture ever taken.
B/. Has been posterized to hide the fact it's out of focus.

Which point of view will help me improve the most?

Envy - Seven Deadly Sins Of Photography

ENVY: Resents the good others receive or even might receive. Envy irrationaly ignores the reasons for other peoples good fortune and despises the success of others.

Camera envy is one of the deadly sins of photography for a very good reason. It gives people the delusional excuse that if only they had the same camera as photographer x,y or z then they would take the same wonderful pictures as them. This insidious little delusion manages to insult the talent of the accomplished photographer by crediting only their equipment while simultaneously excusing them from responsibility for their own creative ability.

Rather than argue about the importance of what camera you use I will simply quote three professional photographers I interviewed recently and you'll see the pattern emerge yourself.

Deutsche Börse nominee Philippe Chancel when speaking about his work was interrupted by the cry of 'Great prints! What camera do you use?' looking very confused for a moment he said the following.

35mm. I don't know what one sorry, it's not important.

Philippe found the use of repeated motifs and symbols to tell a story far more important than any camera.

Johnathan Taylor a successful photo journalist when asked about his cameras of choice was using film cameras of a 30 year old design. The kind even a mild camera snob would ignore. His reason was relevant to his trade and revealed something about why he is good at what he does.

I like them as they have a small body so your face isn’t covered

Jonathan knew it was far more important to avoid creating a barrier with his subjects than to obsess over the best camera.

Hellen Van Meene brought a smile to my face and made a very relevant point at the same time. To quote from her own FAQ's:

Hellen started making photos on plastic snapshot camera she got from Santa Claus. She advises to get to know about color in the darkroom like she did, or simply by experimenting with Photoshop (like she does now, but based on what she learned among the chemicals in the darkroom). Learning to view the world like a photographer is the only thing that matters, not the hardware, film or settings used.

Hellen's full attention is on her connection to her models not what camera she has.

The moral of the story is covet not thy neighbors camera just focus on the content of your images, your approach to your chosen subjects and then really work at it. The rest will come and it won't ever matter what camera you use.