Embrace your camera limitations

In my Garden: March 18, new growth from daylilys.

There are so many wonderful little digital cameras available these days, each of them vastly superior to the “Instamatics” of old, and each vastly more capable than those nifty but landfill-prone, disposable cameras that can be found in drug-stores, at grocery check-outs and sometimes even in truck stops.

Modern digital point-and-shoot cameras are amazing tools for capturing those informational, who, what, when, where types of images known as snapshots. But how good are they at capturing poetry, emotion, mood and art?

For me, they are to photography what penny whistles and woodwind recorders, hammered steel drums and Hohner Harmonicas are to music. They are relatively affordable instruments that can either be played carelessly or artfully, depending very much upon the player. Sometimes people just want to make a certain amount of playful noise, and in that same way, some just want to be able to effortlessly snap an image to prove they were there or show others what they saw. Others feel a need to comment much more carefully upon the things they encounter, to express, to interpret, even to try to dance with what they see . . . or imagine. Needless to say, both approaches are well within the capabilities of these sophisticated little digital cameras and neither is even one iota more or less valid than the other. And though the physical quality of the images will always be somewhat limited by the quality of the equipment, the emotional quality, the amount of ‘magic’ or ‘jazz’ or musicality any camera can capture, well, that is mostly always determined primarily by the person holding it. I suspect it is much the same with making music.

So how beautiful an image can an inexpensive point-and-shoot camera capture? How beautiful a song can you play on a ten dollar recorder? Can the pictures rival those of a high end camera? How much will the quality and price of the camera’s used determine the aesthetic differences between two different people’s images of the same garden?

Will a better camera make better pictures? Really better?

I’ll try to explore this topic bit by bit over the next few weeks, leaning toward shooting more images with my point and shoots and sometimes even shooting the high-end and low-end cameras side by side, attempting to show the differences in how they capture and see, and how they then convey what they see thorough the different images they capture.

For today though, a few images from my little Pentax Optio W-20. I bought this camera primarily for fishing snapshots, having just drowned a much nicer Canon prior to this purchase when I took an accidental swim while crossing the Yakima River in the near dark. The Optio is a wonderful little snapshot camera, but it has very real limitations for imagery beyond that. And yet . . . when I set my mind to dance within its limitations rather than merely be frustratingly limited by them, I find I can make visual music every bit as crispy, velvety and/or playful as a much more expensive instrument. And I can do it in places that I simply would not risk, or could not get the other cameras to work and survive. So, keep an eye out here in the next few weeks. I probably won’t be using the very same camera model you have, (there are so many different brands and models out there), but the ideas should translate, just the same.

Imagine yourself, if you can, a musician hiking into a high alpine lake basin with a too-heavy pack and one small concession to your absolute need to make music: a lightweight woodwind recorder or a harmonica. If you crave music and find much of your own meaning in its expression, then that limited music that you could make in that setting with your lightweight and very basic little musical instrument might seem like absolute magic. Certainly it would not be the full orchestra you were used to playing in, or even the tricked out garage band. But it would be music, it would add layers of depth and meaning to your time in that place, magic made in a magical setting. And perhaps your heart’s purest way of speaking of it. It might well prove to be some of the most moving music you had played in months. Simple, humble instruments can do amazing things in the hands of those with something to say. If you decide to follow along, we’re going to practice figuring out how better to ‘say’ it.

Yes, even with little digital point and shoots, wonderful things are possible. My hope is that in your time here, you’ll find more reasons to play... more permission, and a few more easy-to-use tools right there within the cameras you already own.

All images but the last were made with a Pentax Optio point and shoot camera.