On photography
How would you know if you have passion for the photography? I wondered that a few days ago and I think it shares the same answer with another question:
You have the chance to go to the most beautiful place on the galaxy and you have two alternatives: a reliable digital camera or a pair of comfortable shoes. Which one would you choose?
My answer is going to be shoes. My desire is to explore, to travel, to stop to think. The camera is my optional medium to don’t forget. For that reason the programs I use (a simple raw converter, stitching software) are to stay away of photography or what camera sees and closer to what my eyes see. If I couldn’t have a camera then I’d draw as I did a time; if I couldn’t draw then I’d tell in words; and if I couldn’t tell then I just would remember.
I’m architect, although a time I thought I could study photography online I think that would be a wrong road. In Peru I just see that photographers are just hired to shoot boring weddings and girls in her twenties to edit them in Photoshop to alter the skin with a lot of shallow depth of field (I prefer a simple selfie) or their photographs looks like copies of the foreigners photographers, for example when they came to my city have that obsession to shoot people on poverty (perhaps a racial prejudice), usually without give them opportunity to take a bath and with a sad face, when instead we like to smile :P, after that convert the photo to black and white toned in old sepia or apply an evident hdr and sharpen the skin… If that is what a professional photographer has to do then I’m a proud snapshoter, I’m someone that see something that I find beautiful in its meaning and don’t deserves to be forgotten, and point the camera and nothing more.
Once I read to Armando Robles Godoy, a notable Peruvian dead a time ago, that religion domesticate the spiritually. I think that can occur also in any art, I think mostly the photographers in my country are more worried about following an idolized photographer, test cameras or use people on misfortune to get fame.
One exception is Mario Testino, I like so much his photographs of models, I never think in the camera used but in the expression of the model or details like that. Days ago I saw a free and public exhibition of his photographs about ladies in typical costumes. He shot them with dignity, they were smiling naturally and I felt a sane pride. The ladies were closer to my own civilization.
There is nothing better than take photographs with innocence. Just for fun.
Qhapaq 