A Photography Tale by Martin Davis (A 10 minute read)
Tom is an ordinary sort of bloke. He lives in East Cleveland near the Northeast coast and is married with two children. The family, and particularly the children, take up a lot of his spare time. His interests are pretty eclectic and likes to entice his family out to the beach, countryside, stately homes and old ruins. The family go along with him, some say humour him, as he takes in the sights that he sees.
As a record of where they have been, he takes snapshots with his smart phone and a small digital camera he bought at the local camera shop. The smart phone, he feels, takes pretty good pictures and the digital compact does the same, if he leaves the settings knob on ‘Auto’. Occasionally the knob gets knocked and moves to ‘manual’ or ‘shutter priority’ and then as he ‘chimps’ this snap (looks at the digital image on the back of the camera immediately after he has taken it) the image appears blurry, out of focus or dark or very bright! He his reminded of the time when he was a child and his parents and grandparents used to take pictures of him and his siblings.
At that time, digital cameras were only installed in spaceships and rockets. Mere mortals bought film on a roll, took a load of pictures, winding the film on each time, and when the end of the film came took it to be developed at the chemists. They never saw what they had taken until they went back to the chemist’s shop or camera shop several days later, picked up, and paid for, an envelope of 6”x4” prints that had been developed, by some method best not enquired about. In shuffling through the 12 or 36 prints, depending on the film and camera used (posh people had small transparencies they were able to project onto the wall of their living room), they realised that most of the pictures were blurry or rather muddy looking and generally not that good. Anyway, the envelope was taken home and put in a draw, where it still resides today. Only those photos that turned out well or marked a particular occasion (weddings or birthdays), were placed on the mantelshelf and proudly shown to whoever had the misfortune to come and visit.
Tom felt he was very fortunate to have the benefit of digital technology. Having bought the camera and card, that replaced the film, that could be reused time and again, he didn’t have the added expense of buying film or having to pay to get that film developed. Instead, he could leave his images on the card or download them onto a hard drive on his computer or even into ‘the cloud’ via the internet, filling up some remote hard drive, relaxed in the knowledge that he could go back and look at them whenever he liked. The fact is he only looked back at one or two of them once in a while, and then only to remind his family of a particular image he had taken, such as the time his sister, Aunty Barbara, was standing, wooden like, in front of a lamppost, on the promenade at Skegness. If only he took photographs like those he saw in magazines and travel brochures. He might then pay to get them printed and hung on his lounge wall, but only If his wife approved. He had seen pictures presented in this way in the library.
Tom had heard that there was a camera club called Saltburn Photographic Society who held weekly meetings and occasionally displayed printed photographs in the local library or at Kirkleatham Exhibition Hall. Those were the sorts of photographs that he aspired to take. He made some enquiries and found out Saltburn Photographic Society, or SPS as they like to call themselves, meet on a Wednesday evening in the Methodist Church Hall in Milton Street, Saltburn, between September and May.
One wet and dark Wednesday evening, Tom decided he would go and see what happened at the SPS meeting. He went in through the red doors of the Church Hall, turned left and climbed the narrow steep stairs to the large room above. He noticed there was a lift but decided walking up the stairs was OK for him.
As he entered the large, well-lit room he noticed a projection screen at one end, a number of chairs in rows, several people chatting amongst themselves and drinking tea or coffee. He approached a lady at the back of the hall and said, “Hello! I’m Tom. I am interested in knowing more about taking photographs.”
“Hello!!”, the lady replied. “You have come to the right place. If you join the Society, you will learn a lot from the other members and from the frequent talks held here on a Wednesday night.”
“Can I stay and see what happens?” said Tom. “Of course!” was the reply, “We usually charge a small fee for visitors as we are non-profit making and like to cover the cost of the hall and refreshments as well as the expenses we provide for visiting Judges and lecturers. Tonight, we have a Judge, a member of the Royal Photographic Society, who is giving his comments on prints and digital images submitted by the members for one of our Monthly Competitions. The prints and digital images will be projected onto the screen, the judge provides comments and then places are awarded for those the Judge thinks are the best.”
“That sounds good”, said Tom, “I would like to stay for the evening.”
Tom paid his nominal fee and then noticed several photographic prints, on tables, along the side of the hall. He started talking to other members who explained these were the prints submitted for the competition. The images would be projected during the evening so everyone can see them at the same time. All the prints were mounted and of a uniform size, and showed what could be achieved by the members.
Shortly everyone sat down. The Chairperson welcomed everyone to the meeting and introduced the Judge for the evening. The Judge gave a bit of background of his experience and then, one by one, commented on the images as they were projected on the screen. The Judge mentioned all sorts of issues that Tom didn’t, at first, fully understand, like ‘depth of field’, ‘leading lines’, ‘blown highlights, ‘exposure control’, ‘rule of thirds’ (That was important and should be followed unless it wasn’t!). But after comments had been given on a few images, Tom began to realise what the terminology was about and towards the end, also noticed for himself how the photographer had created the image he was looking at on the screen.
Later that evening on his way home, Tom reflected on what he had seen and on what he had heard. He made a promise to himself to try out some of things he had learnt that evening and, as soon as he got home, started to read the instruction book on his digital camera and get to know the settings. He realised there are people who take photographs and then there are photographers. The following day the sun was shining so he practised taking photographs of things in the garden and then realised that he could not only take a photograph of something but also take an image about something that evoked a memory or an emotion.
Tom was hooked.