Funny you should bring this up, John. Along similar lines I wrote this
earlier today for another forum, regarding the "useless" normal lens:
===
"The vast majority of truly great, memorable photographs have been taken
with the normal lens for whatever format was being used. I think there are
many reasons for this.
For one, viewers can more readily relate to the natural perspective. Sure,
we photographers are in love with what our wide angles and telephotos can
do, but in most cases viewers don't notice or care.
Example: My mom is learning photography. I recently shot a series of 3 pix
of her fishing, one each at 100mm, 200mm and 300mm. Sure, she was a little
surprised to learn that telephotos appear to compress space, making the
boathouse in the background seem larger with each successive photo. But did
she really care? Nope. What she cared about was that the photos made her
"look fat."
Also, photographers of the Modern era - arguable photography's golden age -
weren't equipment hounds as we tend to be today. They couldn't afford to be
in that economy. They had relatively ordinary equipment, less of it, and
learned to master it.
Finally, I believe the main reason the normal lens has fallen out of favor
with 35mm photographers is because of the intimidation factor. It's easy to
assume that all the best photographs possible to capture with the normal
lens have already been taken. After all the great images from the Great
Depression, World War II and the mythical '50s, what's left?
So we turn to macro lenses to find a fresh image amid the buds and bugs,
telephotos to capture - from a safe distance - dangerous looking animals who
are really confined in some of the world's largest zoos, and wide angles to
wow ourselves with our own exaggerated sense of self.
Yeah, the normal lens has its place. Every photographer *should* discipline
himself or herself to work with it at times. Consider it a sabbatical for
refreshing the visual senses."
===
Serendipity indeed, hmm?
-----------
Lex Jenkins
-------------------------------------------------------------
Visit "Vistas Tejas" at http://www.photoscene.com/lexjenkins/
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======================================================================
From: "John A. Lind" <jlind@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [OM] [OT] And for Your Next Assignment
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2000 00:21:09 +0000
Read an interesting article in the newspaper yesterday morning...
-------------------
The gist of it was many (?? I think it's only some) amateur photographers
spend a lot of time and money traveling to exotic far-away places to take
photographs of exotic far-away places. These include "photo safaris" that
take their tour crowd of "wanna-be the next Ansel Adams" to the exotic
location at the right time of day, tell them exactly where to stand, which
direction to point the lens, and when to fire the shutter release. There
are special wild game farms with exotic wild animals to photograph in
pseudo-natural settings also.
The toughest and least photographed area by most amateurs is in their own
home town. People, places and other things are so familiar that the
interesting is all too easily missed by those that have lived there for a
long time. Your next assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to
shoot the sights within about 10 miles of your home: people, animals,
landmarks, historical objects or markers, or interesting architecture and
scenery. It's a *great* exercise for developing the "mind's eye" or
creating a "vision" for a photograph and makes finding these things in
unfamiliar places that much easier.
--------------
An amazing coincidence, I did this last Sunday, a few days before the
article hit the newspaper. Shot a 36 frame roll of Kodachrome as part of a
project to build up a small stock of photographs from the city and county.
The author was right. It's not easy. Just picked up last weekend's slides
this evening and put a few of them out on the light table to ensure they
were my roll of chromes. A lady standing next to me remarked that I must
have gone on vacation to some exotic island. "Nope," I said, "These were
shot at the Kokomo Reservoir last Sunday." Looking at me in disbelief, she
said "I've lived here for 30 years, no more than a mile from the reservoir,
and I don't ever remember seeing anything there that looked like that!"
"Yep," I replied, "mid-morning, about 10 AM, north side, about half-way
down the reservoir looking west toward the earthen dam in the distance."
The exercise last Sunday was well worth it. I have a few more chromes for
my slowly growing stock, found a few more things I want to shoot that I
didn't have time for last Sunday, and a few places to visit at a different
time of day (different lighting).
-- John
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