One of the good things about being a photographer is that you get to make pictures. There are many other occupations where people do things but they don’t make anything.
But as digital technology progresses, we move further away from working with our hands and further from actually making photographs. When I was your age, photos didn’t just pop out of a camera or a computer, they were birthed in a darkroom :–)
Old-time photographers will tell you that working in a darkroom was therapeutic, stress-relieving and magical. You were hands-on with your photography as you created your finished pictures. Note those two ingredients: working with your hands and being creative.
With today’s cameras, you get to be hands-on with a computer keyboard. This is certainly faster, easier and less messy than being in a darkroom but it’s not as beneficial as when you got your hands wet. We don’t really make photographs today but rather we process digital data.
The feeling of satisfaction and pride you got when delivering prints to a customer was (and still is) far greater than the feeling you get today when you click the “send” button.
The Need to Create
Most of us have the innate need to be creative and work with our hands. We need to make something rather than just do something. This is often why many folks enjoy a hands-on, creative activity such as gardening, knitting, painting, sculpting, woodworking, restoring old furniture, playing a musical instrument and, yes, photography.
For the first several years of their lives, children are encouraged to be creative and work with their hands: drawing, colouring, cutting and pasting, lots of Lego and Play-Doh. This is done not only to keep the kids busy but also to build self-confidence and self-esteem. We need this not only as children but also throughout our entire lives.
Research has shown that being creative and working with your hands enhances your mental health and makes you happier. There’s those two ingredients again: working with your hands and being creative.
As we move more toward automatic photo editing software and one-click photo effects, we move even further away from any hope of being hands on. Today’s photo software is less about the creative process and more about dumbing things down to a mere keyboard click. But it’s the process that matters most.
In her 2012 book, “The Creativity Cure: How to build happiness with your own two hands”, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carrie Barron wrote:
Technology has made many aspects of our lives easy, efficient, and fast. We are inundated with external forms of stimulation that require directed thinking, as opposed to undirected thinking. Directed thinking mandates deliberate focus, whereas undirected thinking involves letting the mind wander. We have far less time for a free-floating mind, yet undirected thinking is crucial for creativity, health, and satisfaction.
With our . . . fingers tapping keys rather than making or doing, we lose vitality.
( . . . )
Process, not product, is what we need to feel alive and well.
US author and motorcycle mechanic Matthew Crawford wrote about the value of working with your hands in his 2009 book, “The Case For Working With Your Hands: Or Why Office Work Is Bad For Us And Fixing Things Feels Good.”
In his TED presentation, Crawford talked about making things, craftsmanship and how progress is dumbing things down. He didn’t mention photography but perhaps you might see some parallels:
You are the creative process
A photographer is still hands-on with the first half of the process, the picture-taking part. But even this is eroding away. Cameras and lights now have almost automatic everything. Most of the technical decisions can be made by the equipment itself.
At one time, technical decisions were part of the creative process. Most photographers I know are happier when problem solving with their cameras rather than just showing up and snapping pictures.
The important part of any creative process is adding a bit of you to the project. Adding more “auto” means nothing.
The darkroom days are never really coming back. This means that adding more “you” to a project means adding more craftsmanship and less “software slider.”
I suspect most older photographers understand this. They know how to use their cameras and software as opposed to leaning on them. They know the creative process is the destination and there’s no software slider for that.
