Welcome!
Hello.
It's us, isn't it?
It is.
It's who are you?
I'm Kevin.
And I'm Kelly.
And I am a professional photographer.
And I look great in leggings.
Welcome to TOG TALK with Kevin Ahronson and Kelly Perrin! Hi, my name is Kevin Ahronson from Hampshire School of Photography. And welcome to TOG Talk.
Four, three, two, one, zero. All engines running. Liftoff. We have a liftoff.
Today, we are talking technical skills versus artistic vision. Which is quite good actually for this week because I did a shoot last week and I had to do a second shoot which wasn't a replacement shoot, it was just a follow up shoot at a different location and the feedback that they gave me from the first shoot, well the photos were slightly too arty.
Oh.
Yes.
What's one more to find?
Well, a little, yeah. Nobody likes to be told that people don't like your work. I need you to be far more corporate.
Yeah, and it's never happened to me.
Oh, sure.
Oh, love. I thought it'd be quite nice for them to have some slightly different styled images. Yes. But, no, they wanted everything the same. So actually my shoot today was really boring. Because I wasn't allowed to shoot anything on an angle, at all.
You just spent two days with Lotus. Lotus motorcars.
Yeah.
Found a factory, found a racetrack, ooh.
I know, the annoying thing is though, I'm not allowed to share any of the photos publicly.
I did a Tesla thing about four or five years ago. I could, I did.
Yeah. It was
good.
When I've done Aston Martin I've been allowed to share
things. Shut up, shut up, you're not my friend.
We are very off topic. I'm going to bring you back.
What are we talking about then? Go on.
We are talking technical skill versus artistic vision.
Yeah.
So let's kick this off with you giving us a little definition of both of those phrases.
Oh, you didn't tell me it's going to get complicated. Okay. What was it again?
Creative technical, technical versus artistic. Okay. Okay. Funny you should ask me that question. Every month I run a free round table gathering of amateur photographers, local, because you have to turn up and we meet in a hotel and sit around a big table and have a bit of a chin up. What, chin wig? Chin wag.
Chin wag, that's it, yeah.
What's a chin wig? Someone that can't grow a moustache, or a beard.
Guys, you never want to do a podcast with this woman, it is ridiculous. So we had a chin wag. Anyway, yeah, we were chatting around the table. We chat once a month. I gather well, it's like a two, two and a half hour session around the table, and we talk about the journeys that photographers go on, particularly the guys who are around the table.
So there's about eight of them, usually. And we look at what journey they've been on as photographers, what their pitfalls have been, what their successes have been, critique some of their photos. And they get loads of advice from me because they can ask me all the questions they don't know the answer on.
And why didn't that picture work and why can't I do this? And at the same time, what I get from them is what's on the mind of current photographers. So, as I keep tweaking workshops, you know, I'm current and up to date and I can be very relevant. Now, one of the things that we look at in detail is the photographer, per se, or is it per se?
It's per se, right? Yeah, per se. And we look at the fact that you can divide photographers into two types. There's the technical photographer and there's the creative photographer. So we all know what I'm talking about here. There are photographers who actually really have no issues with understanding the technical side of photography.
I remember one guy in particular who came to me for a year. In fact he and his wife both came to me for a year on separate days because he was the technical. In other words, He knew all the technical stuff and she was the naturally capable person of seeing a shot and getting a nice image. She had a much more creative set of eyes than he did.
And if they were to come together, it would be a nightmare scenario because I have to teach them differently. So she was really good, even with a camera in auto getting great pictures, but didn't understand the technicalities at all. And of course, A husband had tried to teach her, but it's like trying to teach your wife to drive a car.
You just don't do it. Yep.
That was a very telltale reaction, that one. Knowing your husband, I could completely understand that. So, he on the other hand, He knew the answer to every technical question that I threw at him. And when we were talking, if I was going off in a direction talking about some deeply technical stuff, he's already ahead of me and he's got it, he knows it.
There was nothing I could teach him technically. But his pictures were disappointing. And he thought so and his wife thought so. So, Two people in the same family, one's gifted with good creative eyes, but not very good with the buttons and the other one's the other way around. And it's very common. It's very common.
Isn't it annoying? You join a photographic course, you sign up for a year and Everybody there's new, and there's one person on that course who takes amazing pictures every single month. But they don't know how it happens, and they couldn't replicate it.
Yeah.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Yeah. That's what we're talking about, isn't it?
That's
what we're talking about. Those two polar opposites.
Yeah,
so there is a Do you want me to keep talking?
I do.
Yeah, so
That's what we're here to do, Kevin.
Do you know why I like these recordings? Because my wife never says that.
You just keep on talking.
Oh my god, I'm so happy. And ladies and gentlemen, I'm just going to give you a clue as to what I've got in my hand.
Yes, a little glass of the amber stuff and I'm not talking beer.
That might be why it might be a little bit of a giggly podcast because we don't normally record in the evening but we are recording in the evening at the moment.
Yeah, and you telling me that you just got in from having some wine and I've just cracked open some single malt.
Yes, although I'm drinking hot chocolate now, so I probably should have put a little have you heard of tough nut the moonshine It's unbelievable. It's vodka based should have put a bit of that in it
Anyway, I you know, we go off at tangents quite a bit This this is cool. This is this particular one. I'm drinking now one the whiskey of the year globally for this year And I did tell you, didn't I, that it was brewed.
It was distilled in the same town that you were photographing in for the past two days.
Yeah.
Norwich, not Scotland, not even Japan who have got an amazing reputation. This was English and it's one suit whiskey. The just spilled some.
It's all over my hand. Well, anyway, back to the show, what we've got now is the technical photographer and the naturally creative photographer. And in a kind of simple way, We refer to them as the left brain and the right brain photographer. There's, there's this kind of Thing that's been going on. It's like a modern myth.
It, it actually isn't based on any kind of truth at all. Well, loosely, based on a true ishm, the the left side of your brain, if you are predominantly left brained, you are more analytical, more logical. You are probably a mathematician or an accountant or a solicitor or an architect. You might be into computer programming, but you're very technical.
very logical person. If you're a right brainer, you're more intuitive you're more creative. You could be an artist, you could be a photographer a musician, and so on and so forth. So left brain are the technical analytics, right brain, right brain are the creatives.
And then I guess, I'm going to use some great terminology here.
You have a both brainer, which is somebody who's brilliant at both. And then you have a middle brainer, which is someone who's got a little bit of both. And what do you call someone who's absolutely rubbish at photography? A no brainer! A no brainer!
So where, where do you sit? This is like, this is like Eric Malcolm, Nearly Wise.
You're feeding me the comedy line. Sorry, sorry. Yeah, so you've got the left and the right, and of course, most people are somewhere in between. You have this sliding scale, don't you? And one of the questions I often ask people is, on a scale of one to ten, where do you put yourself in it? And to try and find out where you are.
And in a group, in a master class group, you can always guarantee there's, there's a mix, predominantly towards the creative, but there's always a difference. two or three, which are quite technically minded. And when you talk to them, you discover they've come from careers which are quite technical and require a lot of logical thoughts and, you know, strategic and yeah, they tend not to be ballet dancers.
Yeah. Yeah. I also like to think of it as autistic dyslexic.
Ooh, that's interesting.
So you're autistic.
Yeah.
Tend to be a more logical. Mathematicians. Yes. Yes. And your dyslexics a hundred percent creatives.
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. You know, so in my household, I'm, I'm the sort of wacko in intuitive fly by my pants wing, every decision kind of person.
Yeah. That's why we get on so well
as the creative lovey. Yes. Mm-hmm . And Linda, my wife. Her job before she retired, get this, her job was to go through the contracts of huge corporate pension schemes, looking for errors in the text, and meeting with the trustees and going through all that fine detail.
Ah, she's chalk and cheese. Fortunately, she, she actually still has a little bit towards the right. And, and, and she can be incredibly creative. But she's predominantly analytical. And when we look at a problem in the house, I just don't argue with her. Do it darling. You know I
don't. We're the same. We're the same.
My husband is an insurance broker.
Oh.
Very boring. Sorry about that. I know. I mean, I knew when I married him. Mistakes we make. And He is very technical, very technical. So with the house, for example, I do all of the designing and then he builds it. So, yeah.
We've gone, we've done it again, haven't we?
We have. We've gone off again.
Maybe it's just one of those subjects.
Yes, maybe it is.
Also, this is what happens when you put two creatives together. Yes.
Two, two lovies. Two lovies. You have to snort, because lovies always snort.
Oh, I can't snort.
What do you put in the main line? Do you mainline the drugs?
Yes. Yeah, yeah.
See, I'm so innocent. I didn't actually know what you were talking about then. Go on.
So, I've kind of given the background to what we're talking about today. That we have got two types of, there are two personality types picking up a camera. One knows what all the buttons do, the other one doesn't.
One can point their camera virtually anywhere and get a great shot, the other one struggles really badly. Their shots are technically brilliant, but they're just very uninspiring.
Yes, so what can we do then to help our technical friends who aren't creative?
I'm just trying to think of the best way of answering this.
I'm wondering whether a bit more background might be helpful at this stage. I think I'd like to do that actually. So the question I asked myself once I started looking into this, and I started looking into this a few years ago, so not in preparation for tonight, it just interested me that people were so different.
and why is it that People are the way they are. If you've got a room of 10 people, why are maybe three or four of them going to be distinctly more logical thinking than those who aren't? Why am I scatterbrained? Why am I intuitive? Why can't I be as logical as my wife? And much of it appears to be very much dependent on our early upbringing.
So if your parents were That, of that creative type, the chances are that they would impact you. You would be given freedoms as a child to explore and experiment creatively. You'd be bought crayons and, and coloring sets and paints and maybe, you know, you sent off to learn the violin or the guitar or the piano or, or whatever.
But your creative side was allowed to grow, whereas you might, you may have had parents who were working in professions which were already quite analytical, logical. So perhaps your father or your mother was a solicitor, an accountant. Maybe someone was a scientist, maybe someone taught mathematics at school, and then you What tends to happen, you, you, you often find, not always, but there's a high proportion of kids who grow up in those kind of environments who are pushed towards those kind of careers.
So they don't really get much chance to, in inverted commas, waste a lot of time doing silly arty thing. You want a career, my son, my daughter, you've got to learn. This, this, this, this. Learn, study your science, study your mathematics. Don't worry about art and technical drawing. Unless you want to be an architect, of course.
But you're pushed as a youngster to go in one way or the other. And you may grow up with friends who are the same way. And it may even be you, you're at a school where it's one school can be a bit more open to creative arts or, or not. Or one is very, very deeply technical on its courses and its teachers.
And so all these things influence you. So you grow up in an environment where you learn either to explore your creative possibilities Or you don't, and then what happens is that you get to middle age or you're approaching retirement and you think I really want something to do in these later years that's going to give me a chance to chill out.
I know I'll take up the guitar or photography or watercolors and you find all these people joining these groups who have come from a technical analytical background and that's the problem. They really grasp the technicalities of it. Because that's what they're used to doing, but they struggle with that boundary, which is very free, very easy, and can be easily broken, and you're encouraged to break, which is where you release your artistic stuff.
Mm. Do you think you can learn to be artistic?
Yes.
Okay. That was very clear yes.
I absolutely do.
I mean, obviously, there are things with composition of photos that we can learn. And I remember learning the rule of thirds and trying to place a subject and, you know, on the crossover corner points and things like that.
And then the more I looked into photography, I, I learned about flowing lines and triangles and everything else. So I do get that you can learn it. But sometimes. I see a photo and I think, wow, that's next level.
Yeah.
So, you know, if you've got a creative vision, how important is it to have the technical skills to back it up?
Gosh. Okay. I thought we were going somewhere else the way your question started. Now we've gone somewhere else.
I know, I kind of changed direction halfway through.
Can we come back to that one about, is it possible to teach someone to be creative?
Yes.
Yeah. What was the last thing you asked me?
I asked if you have a, if you have a, if you see a photo.
Yeah.
And you want to create it. Yeah. Or you have a idea in your head. Yeah. How important is it to have the technical skill? to be able to recreate an image.
There's a guy locally who's a photographer, and he once said the difference between an amateur and a photographer, an amateur and a professional, is that a professional takes a picture and he can go back and take it again.
An amateur takes it, and he doesn't know how he did it. And, he's not entirely right, because there are other reasons. The differences are more than just that. But it's, it's, it's, it's a good one. And it wasn't me who said it, but his name was Kevin, actually. If he's listening to this, yes, I am talking to you.
You know who you are. You know who you are.
And I'm going to find out after. So,
I've forgotten the question again. I think we need to put the whiskey away.
We probably do. So, yeah,
How important is it to know the technical skill?
The problem is, if you just rely on sticking your camera in auto and rely on your eye, you're losing so many creative opportunities.
It's one thing to have the ability to see a shot. It's another thing to be able to control your camera or the light to get the shot you want. Most great shots by lucky creatives are just pure luck and they, it's just fluke. If you know how to control your camera, how to control the exposure, to control your depth of field, how to control your focus, how to control whether things are super sharp through high speed shutter speeds or creatively blurred through slow shutter speeds, color temperature, the editing process of things you can do there.
When you've got control of all of those, your creative abilities just go through the roof. You wouldn't consider being an artist with paints without having spent a lot of time learning how to paint. You wouldn't expect to be able to go and play at the Albert Hall on a grand piano if you hadn't spent years learning how to play the grand piano.
The problem that photography has, it's created itself. Photography is the most accessible art form on the planet because you can just pick up a camera, point it and take a picture. Yeah. And so, too many people think, that's all I need to worry about. We are in a culture which wants things instantly, so photography is the perfect hobby for them because they can get things instantly, but by their very nature, creatives are quite impatient people.
They want things straight away. It is, it is part of that personality trait. And, so, a camera It ticks all the boxes. It's an instant creative image, doesn't require any skill other than a creative eye. Well, that's wrong, of course. To be good at anything, you've got to put in the effort. You've got to put in the years of practice.
It is years.
Yeah, 100%. And I love what you told us that Kevin said, the other Kevin. Oh, the other Kevin. Because it immediately made me think. When I first got a camera, I put it in you know, when they have programs like sport mode and landscape mode and things like that. And I think I had it in like portrait mode and I'd had it about a week and we went to Longleat.
And I got this absolutely stunning picture of some lions. You put it in lion mode? I put it in lion mode. And you shoot it raw? LAUGHING Oh God. LAUGHING Sorry. Put the whiskey down. And And I, I remember saying the words to so many people, because I shared that picture with everybody. I was so proud of it.
And I remember saying to people, it was a lucky shot. It was a lucky shot. And then there's an absolutely no way I could have at the time recreated that photo had no idea how I got it. I just pointed the camera. I'm a very creative person and I will often visualize what I want my image to look like first.
I can remember instances where I had a really clear vision of what I wanted and then I had no choice but to go and learn how to do it. An example of that is, is the water. I wanted that image of mystical, magical water flowing over on a waterfall at Virginia Waters. And I had absolutely no idea at the time, and we're going back years, of how I was going to create that.
So I had to figure it out, you know, I had to have a lesson, I had to learn the technical side. So, for me, as a creative who went on to learn the technical side of photography, and now I do. I can genuinely say hand on heart, I can recreate any image I'd like to think but I just, I'm curious, I'm so curious when it's flipped the other way and the people that enjoy the technical side, how do they, how do you become creative?
The power of books. My journey in, in recent years, as as, as a writer, It changed quite a bit as, as a photographer, particularly once I started teaching on a regular basis and promoting myself as a photographic tutor. Well, whatever you call me, I've always struggled to find a good description, a good name for what I do.
I've always referred to you as my mentor.
Mentor, that I do, photographic mentor, yes. So I'd got to the stage around about 2017 where I was teaching lots of people in this very room. I was one of them. You were one of them, yeah, yeah. And everybody I was teaching one to one. Mm. Mm. Mm. I became so heavily booked that I wasn't just working during the day, I was working evenings and weekends, and I had no time to myself.
I genuinely began to frazzle my brain, and I was bad tempered, I was kicking the cat, and Linda wasn't having any of this at all. And we decided that something had to change, and I didn't know what. Because I loved what I did, but It was, it was just overwhelming I came across this book, I can't remember how I came across it, called The Key Person of Influence by an author called Daniel Priestley.
And I was fascinated. It was saying how you could, how you could be a business person in your chosen niche and it was very important that, it, it, it was important for him to It stressed you, you had to pick a niche, not to generalize. If you're going to be a photographer, you do one type of photography.
If you're going to teach photographers, it's one type of photographer. Your market needs to be small so you can focus in on them. And this book is how about you become influential within your sphere. Now that, I was very resistant because I hate it when people big themselves up. I really hate personalities.
Personality photographers, personality chefs, personality writers, I just want people to be normal and everyone is so into promotion themselves on the internet like what we are. Yep. Right now? Yeah. Anyway this book was absolutely riveting and I read it more than once and in it there was this thing which says, Go to my website, go to this quiz thing, and you can assess your, and it will assess your business, and you get a score, and you can see where your business is strong, where it's weak.
So I did that. Two weeks later, I got a phone call. There's a point to this. I'm not sure what it is. I've lost it already, but perhaps I'll pick it up as I keep telling the story. I got a call. Oh, hello, this is Daniel Priestley's office here. And I went, Oh my God. He's heard of me.
And she said Daniel was meeting with a small group of people up in London in a private club and would like you to join him. I, I would have sold my children to go to that. Anyway, it was free, I didn't have to pay. I went there, I met him, and as soon as I told him how it worked, he said, you can't scale that, that's a rubbish way of, he didn't use these words, that's a rubbish way of working.
And so I invested four and a half grand with him. Spent a year with him and he changed the way I work into workshops. That way I could see more people at once rather than come and see me every hour. And suddenly it freed up my time. So that was a really good year for me, I have to say. And it completely transformed much of my life.
And I began a process of reading more and more books as a result. Because if you want to be good at anything, you need to immerse yourself in that. If you want to be, if you want to be good at being a lawyer, you immerse yourself in law. If you want to be good at being, I don't know, a footballer, you've got to immerse yourself in sporty stuff.
If you want to be good as a creative, albeit in my case a photographer, you need to immerse yourself. With lots of photography or art books. I want you to be good as a business man, because like most photographers, they're really good photographers, but they're crap at running a business. There is a point to this, stay with me.
So I was reading book after book after book after book and eventually I came across this book. It had been really well reviewed and well welcomed, well received by lots of people. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, D U H I G G. This was fascinating. I was listening to this book in the gym. This is when I used to go to the gym.
And I'm on the treadmill and I'm listening to this book and I'm thinking, this guy's incredible. And the book was full of loads and loads of research about how the memory works. And in this book he talks about how everything you and I now do is based on habit. Everything, every decision we make as grown ups is based on habit, something we picked up from the past.
A bit like people who are very technical, as they're younger they grow up to be technical photographers and those who are given a chance to be creative become creative photographers. So He talks about something called neuroplasticity, which is the brain's ability to grow regardless of age. So even at my age, even at 70 years old, even at that age, you can Affect the brain and through constant repetitive action and exposure to the right kind of stuff, you can change and transform the brain.
So, applying this to your question, because we've got there via a very long conversation.
Do you remember what the question was? The
question was, You tell me. How do you learn to be creative? You've got to, you've got to force yourself to do all this kind of, you've basically got to re educate your brain.
You've got to create new synaptic pathways between your neurons that create new habit pathways. So you don't think anymore about brushing your teeth. You just do it. Jump onto a bike. You just do it. You've got to work hard on that creative side through lots of hard work and exposure to creative stuff, start hanging around with creative people.
They don't have to be photographers, they could be painters, they could be writers, they could be musicians, ballet dancers, but anywhere where, The processes, the thought processes, the compositional elements are all around creativity. It will start affecting your brain. So the more you do it, the more you can transform your brain.
So yes, you can learn rule of thirds and foreground interest and leading lines, all that kind of stuff. That's kind of helpful. But the real creativity comes when you break those rules.
Yeah.
But you've got to get to that place. Now, I'm, I'm keeping going here. Part of the talk that we look at when I'm, I'm having these evenings that I spoke about earlier on.
You know, I said we have these once a month, these photographer's evenings where we have a round table chat and we look at photographer's problems and their journeys. We, we isolate one interesting fact. And that interesting fact is that last year. I paid a lot of money to have an online quiz. Mm hmm. So, When I was doing an online quiz, it was like 40, 45 questions about photography with a promise to analyze your If you took part, it told you a lot about your photography, where your strengths and your weaknesses were.
And it gave me so much data. I had just under a thousand people take part in the Southern England. And I had so much data. So much information come through, that it just taught me an enormous amount, not only just about photographers opinions, but their struggles. And one of the things it taught me was that apart from the problem of people having enough time for their photography, which is common for all hobbies, the single most important element, which is, which affected their personal growth was confidence.
22 percent of people who responded said confidence was the single most challenging element to their photography.
Yeah.
Confidence. That's like a whole different podcast. Oh, it is indeed. What it led to was me distilling some basic facts here. Now,
when you start photography, Everyone tells you to know your camera and you need to spend time getting to know your camera. Now for the analytics, the logical photographers, that's the easy bit. But then they need to know how to control the camera because there will be things they want to photograph which aren't straightforward, like In terms of getting the focus in the right place, or getting the exposure right in a difficult lighting scenario.
So one, you need to know which buttons to press to get you the camera work. And then you need to know how to control the camera to get anything you want. And so you can go back and do it again, which is what we said the professional does. When you've nailed the camera control, that gives you the level of confidence you need.
If you haven't got confidence with your photography, What happens is, you take a shot. And you think, oh, that's a bit dark. And you go back to the controls and you start playing with it. And you twiddle a few dials and try it again. That's a bit bright. Or the focus isn't right. And what, you're going through this process of, you don't believe you have the ability to take the shot.
So you're so concerned about the gear, that you don't think about the creative element. Hmm. You are more concerned about the gear or people watching you playing with the dials, which I understand. If you do that in front of a customer, it looks really amateur. You're more concerned about, Oh God, what are my settings?
I have loads and loads of students who panic about settings and don't think about the shot. Until you can control the camera, know which buttons to press so that that camera becomes effectively another limb of your body. You will be trapped. You'll never have that creativity that you really want. You've got to.
You really, really got to understand the camera, then understand how it works. Then you get a level of confidence. Now that is actually where a lot of the technical guys are. But where they lack is they haven't been trained on the creative side. So as a general term for all photography, Now the camera, now the controls, get your confidence.
Now then, once you've got that level of confidence, and for the left brainer, who's the logical, analytical thinker, yeah, that, that control is not just how I move the buttons around in my camera to get the shot. It's how I move myself around the subject, How I light the subject, what angle I take it from, whether it's high, low, from a distance with a long lens, or close up with a wide lens.
What the treatment is I provide in the editing, whether it's going to black and white or colour, whether it's got any nuances in the tonality and so da da da da da da da da ya de ya de ya. When you get to that point where everything is within your control and you don't have to think about it, which is where you and I are, you get confidence.
And when you get confidence, you are liberated from all those worries. You then take a picture because you can take the picture. And what happens? The last element, creativity, is released. It's camera, control, confidence and creativity, in that order. And it doesn't matter whether you're the creative who doesn't know which button to press, or whether you're the analytical and you don't know how to take an interesting picture, these rules apply.
Know the camera, know how to control it, know how to control the shots, know how to control the composition, then you get the confidence so that you don't have to think about it anymore. You just pick up your camera, switch it on. Take the shot.
And go for it. Lovely. So, I'm now gonna talk a little bit. Well, I say I'm gonna talk, I'm gonna lead you so that you can talk.
What about when creativity becomes too much? So, when I think of arty photos, there's one type of photo that I do. That I don't like.
Only one?
Well, for, for, for the purpose of this conversation. And it's, we talked a little bit about, before we came on air about me doing some panning of some very fast cars and, and that looks great.
Because the car is the subject. But when you remove that car and you just have a blurry picture, I can't stand it.
Intentional camera movement, ICM photos, is that what you're talking
about? Yeah, but when you, when you can't even tell what it is, it's just colour. I think you could have just painted that. I don't like it.
For me, that's, that's not photography. I don't like it personally. What are your views?
Sorry to the listeners that enjoy doing that type of photography, each to their own.
Okay. I'm hesitating because I'm not, not because I'm trying to avoid the question, because I'm trying to give a balanced answer.
Give an honest answer.
An honest answer? An honest answer is, if you'd asked me three years ago, I would have Reacted the same as you.
I ran a workshop last year on abstract photography and I gave myself a crash course on art, abstract art, and in the process of studying that, and if you go in my house you'll find a bookshelf full of books on abstract art. I became aware of how abstract art arrived on the planet and Why it was successful and why it works and it kind of changed, it transformed the way I look at pictures that I normally previously would never have taken.
Hmm. Interesting.
And I, I've been honest with you since I've been teaching photography, which is 15 years now, I've noticed. Because I've been immersed in the world and meeting so many different types of photographers, it has broadened my appreciation quite significantly. There are, so I have types of photography I can't stand and I don't mention it because I will upset even more because inside the Hampshire Photography Network, there's loads of people who do this and it drives me nuts.
I just cannot abide it. I'm not going to tell you what it is. I'll tell you all fair. Yeah.
Well, I've probably already upset people.
Well, no, it's good to challenge, isn't it? Because that's how we, that's how we grow. It's
just, it's not for me. I think if, if And you shouldn't apologise because you can't be expected to like all types.
Do you like all types of music?
No.
Exactly. I like most music, though. Do you?
Yeah. Anyway, let's stick with photography. Yeah.
Well, this is, this is the longest podcast we've ever recorded. I hope you realise that. It was coming up to well, it's going to be edited, but we're currently just over 47 minutes.
My answer is, do I like it? When it's done well, yes. We go through a period of learning and our early attempts are usually pretty diabolical, but they are whatever we and I see some pictures posted on. Not just on Facebook, but on other Other areas of the internet, and I think they're absolute rubbish, and I see others and I am blown away by them.
They're beautiful, absolutely stunning, and that's because I'm not looking at a photograph from what many would consider a photograph, which is something with a narrative with a, with a story. I'm looking at something which is in effect something which is attractive to my eye, and, and communicates an emotion through the color and the patterns and textures of it.
Which I think is equally viable. If we are to accept that photography is an art form, then it has to encompass, you have to accept that it will encompass all types of art. And so, yeah I have seen some stuff. Posted in the Facebook group, which has left me cold and I've seen some others where I think oh, geez I really got to try this but I haven't I really haven't tried ICM at all Intentional camera movement is where you to liberally move the camera during a shot to get blurred streaky images It could be trees in a forest or people walking down a road and you kind of stretch them upwards by the way You move the camera.
It's it's that kind of thing. It's a very abstract
Mm hmm I think I, when I first started seeing it, because I think it's definitely something that's become more trendy recently, I just thought, hmm, did the first person that did that, did they do it by accident and just decide to call it art?
Well, you have to wonder, you know, did Van Gogh start, start painting like that from scratch or did he?
Because I don't know the answer to this one, and although I've probably read his biography I can't remember the answer.
Well. I think that's it for now. Oh. It's been a very long podcast episode. But enjoyable.
We have gone off on some tangents.
We have, but, you know, people by people and I think they need to know that we're both a couple of idiots, really.
Oh, Bayek. Alright, well as always It's goodbye from me. And it's goodbye from Me?
That threw you, didn't it?
We just did a, we just did a reversal, didn't we? I'm slowly taking over.
Can I just say that if you just watch television now, ladies are taking over everywhere, all, every programme now is a female hero. Every secret agent with amazing fighting skills, they're women.
You know I box and shoot.
There you go. And I embroider. Thanks, Kelly. See you in a couple of weeks. Goodbye. Bye.
Hi, everyone. It's Kevin Ahronson. And I want to tell you about some exciting changes I've made to the Photography Masterclass, my in person course that's been helping photographers grow since 2019. Yep, this is an in person course in a classroom with me, face to face. This is not online. As we approach our 10th intake in January, I've made some significant changes to celebrate this milestone.
This masterclass goes beyond just technical skills. It's about learning to see the world as a photographer. I've shifted the focus to give even more attention to creativity with three entire modules dedicated to developing your photographer's eye. I retained the more popular modules on shooting landscapes, photographing people, and there's a new one on black and white photography.
This masterclass is more than just a course. It's a creative one year journey you'll share with other passionate photographers growing together and forming lasting connections along the way. Need more information? Visit GoHSP. com. Click on courses and select masterclass. I'll also provide a link in the show notes below.
Hello.
It's us, isn't it?
It is.
It's who are you?
I'm Kevin.
And I'm Kelly.
And I am a professional photographer.
And I look great in leggings.
Welcome to TOG TALK with Kevin Ahronson and Kelly Perrin! Hi, my name is Kevin Ahronson from Hampshire School of Photography. And welcome to TOG Talk.
Four, three, two, one, zero. All engines running. Liftoff. We have a liftoff.
Today, we are talking technical skills versus artistic vision. Which is quite good actually for this week because I did a shoot last week and I had to do a second shoot which wasn't a replacement shoot, it was just a follow up shoot at a different location and the feedback that they gave me from the first shoot, well the photos were slightly too arty.
Oh.
Yes.
What's one more to find?
Well, a little, yeah. Nobody likes to be told that people don't like your work. I need you to be far more corporate.
Yeah, and it's never happened to me.
Oh, sure.
Oh, love. I thought it'd be quite nice for them to have some slightly different styled images. Yes. But, no, they wanted everything the same. So actually my shoot today was really boring. Because I wasn't allowed to shoot anything on an angle, at all.
You just spent two days with Lotus. Lotus motorcars.
Yeah.
Found a factory, found a racetrack, ooh.
I know, the annoying thing is though, I'm not allowed to share any of the photos publicly.
I did a Tesla thing about four or five years ago. I could, I did.
Yeah. It was
good.
When I've done Aston Martin I've been allowed to share
things. Shut up, shut up, you're not my friend.
We are very off topic. I'm going to bring you back.
What are we talking about then? Go on.
We are talking technical skill versus artistic vision.
Yeah.
So let's kick this off with you giving us a little definition of both of those phrases.
Oh, you didn't tell me it's going to get complicated. Okay. What was it again?
Creative technical, technical versus artistic. Okay. Okay. Funny you should ask me that question. Every month I run a free round table gathering of amateur photographers, local, because you have to turn up and we meet in a hotel and sit around a big table and have a bit of a chin up. What, chin wig? Chin wag.
Chin wag, that's it, yeah.
What's a chin wig? Someone that can't grow a moustache, or a beard.
Guys, you never want to do a podcast with this woman, it is ridiculous. So we had a chin wag. Anyway, yeah, we were chatting around the table. We chat once a month. I gather well, it's like a two, two and a half hour session around the table, and we talk about the journeys that photographers go on, particularly the guys who are around the table.
So there's about eight of them, usually. And we look at what journey they've been on as photographers, what their pitfalls have been, what their successes have been, critique some of their photos. And they get loads of advice from me because they can ask me all the questions they don't know the answer on.
And why didn't that picture work and why can't I do this? And at the same time, what I get from them is what's on the mind of current photographers. So, as I keep tweaking workshops, you know, I'm current and up to date and I can be very relevant. Now, one of the things that we look at in detail is the photographer, per se, or is it per se?
It's per se, right? Yeah, per se. And we look at the fact that you can divide photographers into two types. There's the technical photographer and there's the creative photographer. So we all know what I'm talking about here. There are photographers who actually really have no issues with understanding the technical side of photography.
I remember one guy in particular who came to me for a year. In fact he and his wife both came to me for a year on separate days because he was the technical. In other words, He knew all the technical stuff and she was the naturally capable person of seeing a shot and getting a nice image. She had a much more creative set of eyes than he did.
And if they were to come together, it would be a nightmare scenario because I have to teach them differently. So she was really good, even with a camera in auto getting great pictures, but didn't understand the technicalities at all. And of course, A husband had tried to teach her, but it's like trying to teach your wife to drive a car.
You just don't do it. Yep.
That was a very telltale reaction, that one. Knowing your husband, I could completely understand that. So, he on the other hand, He knew the answer to every technical question that I threw at him. And when we were talking, if I was going off in a direction talking about some deeply technical stuff, he's already ahead of me and he's got it, he knows it.
There was nothing I could teach him technically. But his pictures were disappointing. And he thought so and his wife thought so. So, Two people in the same family, one's gifted with good creative eyes, but not very good with the buttons and the other one's the other way around. And it's very common. It's very common.
Isn't it annoying? You join a photographic course, you sign up for a year and Everybody there's new, and there's one person on that course who takes amazing pictures every single month. But they don't know how it happens, and they couldn't replicate it.
Yeah.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Yeah. That's what we're talking about, isn't it?
That's
what we're talking about. Those two polar opposites.
Yeah,
so there is a Do you want me to keep talking?
I do.
Yeah, so
That's what we're here to do, Kevin.
Do you know why I like these recordings? Because my wife never says that.
You just keep on talking.
Oh my god, I'm so happy. And ladies and gentlemen, I'm just going to give you a clue as to what I've got in my hand.
Yes, a little glass of the amber stuff and I'm not talking beer.
That might be why it might be a little bit of a giggly podcast because we don't normally record in the evening but we are recording in the evening at the moment.
Yeah, and you telling me that you just got in from having some wine and I've just cracked open some single malt.
Yes, although I'm drinking hot chocolate now, so I probably should have put a little have you heard of tough nut the moonshine It's unbelievable. It's vodka based should have put a bit of that in it
Anyway, I you know, we go off at tangents quite a bit This this is cool. This is this particular one. I'm drinking now one the whiskey of the year globally for this year And I did tell you, didn't I, that it was brewed.
It was distilled in the same town that you were photographing in for the past two days.
Yeah.
Norwich, not Scotland, not even Japan who have got an amazing reputation. This was English and it's one suit whiskey. The just spilled some.
It's all over my hand. Well, anyway, back to the show, what we've got now is the technical photographer and the naturally creative photographer. And in a kind of simple way, We refer to them as the left brain and the right brain photographer. There's, there's this kind of Thing that's been going on. It's like a modern myth.
It, it actually isn't based on any kind of truth at all. Well, loosely, based on a true ishm, the the left side of your brain, if you are predominantly left brained, you are more analytical, more logical. You are probably a mathematician or an accountant or a solicitor or an architect. You might be into computer programming, but you're very technical.
very logical person. If you're a right brainer, you're more intuitive you're more creative. You could be an artist, you could be a photographer a musician, and so on and so forth. So left brain are the technical analytics, right brain, right brain are the creatives.
And then I guess, I'm going to use some great terminology here.
You have a both brainer, which is somebody who's brilliant at both. And then you have a middle brainer, which is someone who's got a little bit of both. And what do you call someone who's absolutely rubbish at photography? A no brainer! A no brainer!
So where, where do you sit? This is like, this is like Eric Malcolm, Nearly Wise.
You're feeding me the comedy line. Sorry, sorry. Yeah, so you've got the left and the right, and of course, most people are somewhere in between. You have this sliding scale, don't you? And one of the questions I often ask people is, on a scale of one to ten, where do you put yourself in it? And to try and find out where you are.
And in a group, in a master class group, you can always guarantee there's, there's a mix, predominantly towards the creative, but there's always a difference. two or three, which are quite technically minded. And when you talk to them, you discover they've come from careers which are quite technical and require a lot of logical thoughts and, you know, strategic and yeah, they tend not to be ballet dancers.
Yeah. Yeah. I also like to think of it as autistic dyslexic.
Ooh, that's interesting.
So you're autistic.
Yeah.
Tend to be a more logical. Mathematicians. Yes. Yes. And your dyslexics a hundred percent creatives.
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. You know, so in my household, I'm, I'm the sort of wacko in intuitive fly by my pants wing, every decision kind of person.
Yeah. That's why we get on so well
as the creative lovey. Yes. Mm-hmm . And Linda, my wife. Her job before she retired, get this, her job was to go through the contracts of huge corporate pension schemes, looking for errors in the text, and meeting with the trustees and going through all that fine detail.
Ah, she's chalk and cheese. Fortunately, she, she actually still has a little bit towards the right. And, and, and she can be incredibly creative. But she's predominantly analytical. And when we look at a problem in the house, I just don't argue with her. Do it darling. You know I
don't. We're the same. We're the same.
My husband is an insurance broker.
Oh.
Very boring. Sorry about that. I know. I mean, I knew when I married him. Mistakes we make. And He is very technical, very technical. So with the house, for example, I do all of the designing and then he builds it. So, yeah.
We've gone, we've done it again, haven't we?
We have. We've gone off again.
Maybe it's just one of those subjects.
Yes, maybe it is.
Also, this is what happens when you put two creatives together. Yes.
Two, two lovies. Two lovies. You have to snort, because lovies always snort.
Oh, I can't snort.
What do you put in the main line? Do you mainline the drugs?
Yes. Yeah, yeah.
See, I'm so innocent. I didn't actually know what you were talking about then. Go on.
So, I've kind of given the background to what we're talking about today. That we have got two types of, there are two personality types picking up a camera. One knows what all the buttons do, the other one doesn't.
One can point their camera virtually anywhere and get a great shot, the other one struggles really badly. Their shots are technically brilliant, but they're just very uninspiring.
Yes, so what can we do then to help our technical friends who aren't creative?
I'm just trying to think of the best way of answering this.
I'm wondering whether a bit more background might be helpful at this stage. I think I'd like to do that actually. So the question I asked myself once I started looking into this, and I started looking into this a few years ago, so not in preparation for tonight, it just interested me that people were so different.
and why is it that People are the way they are. If you've got a room of 10 people, why are maybe three or four of them going to be distinctly more logical thinking than those who aren't? Why am I scatterbrained? Why am I intuitive? Why can't I be as logical as my wife? And much of it appears to be very much dependent on our early upbringing.
So if your parents were That, of that creative type, the chances are that they would impact you. You would be given freedoms as a child to explore and experiment creatively. You'd be bought crayons and, and coloring sets and paints and maybe, you know, you sent off to learn the violin or the guitar or the piano or, or whatever.
But your creative side was allowed to grow, whereas you might, you may have had parents who were working in professions which were already quite analytical, logical. So perhaps your father or your mother was a solicitor, an accountant. Maybe someone was a scientist, maybe someone taught mathematics at school, and then you What tends to happen, you, you, you often find, not always, but there's a high proportion of kids who grow up in those kind of environments who are pushed towards those kind of careers.
So they don't really get much chance to, in inverted commas, waste a lot of time doing silly arty thing. You want a career, my son, my daughter, you've got to learn. This, this, this, this. Learn, study your science, study your mathematics. Don't worry about art and technical drawing. Unless you want to be an architect, of course.
But you're pushed as a youngster to go in one way or the other. And you may grow up with friends who are the same way. And it may even be you, you're at a school where it's one school can be a bit more open to creative arts or, or not. Or one is very, very deeply technical on its courses and its teachers.
And so all these things influence you. So you grow up in an environment where you learn either to explore your creative possibilities Or you don't, and then what happens is that you get to middle age or you're approaching retirement and you think I really want something to do in these later years that's going to give me a chance to chill out.
I know I'll take up the guitar or photography or watercolors and you find all these people joining these groups who have come from a technical analytical background and that's the problem. They really grasp the technicalities of it. Because that's what they're used to doing, but they struggle with that boundary, which is very free, very easy, and can be easily broken, and you're encouraged to break, which is where you release your artistic stuff.
Mm. Do you think you can learn to be artistic?
Yes.
Okay. That was very clear yes.
I absolutely do.
I mean, obviously, there are things with composition of photos that we can learn. And I remember learning the rule of thirds and trying to place a subject and, you know, on the crossover corner points and things like that.
And then the more I looked into photography, I, I learned about flowing lines and triangles and everything else. So I do get that you can learn it. But sometimes. I see a photo and I think, wow, that's next level.
Yeah.
So, you know, if you've got a creative vision, how important is it to have the technical skills to back it up?
Gosh. Okay. I thought we were going somewhere else the way your question started. Now we've gone somewhere else.
I know, I kind of changed direction halfway through.
Can we come back to that one about, is it possible to teach someone to be creative?
Yes.
Yeah. What was the last thing you asked me?
I asked if you have a, if you have a, if you see a photo.
Yeah.
And you want to create it. Yeah. Or you have a idea in your head. Yeah. How important is it to have the technical skill? to be able to recreate an image.
There's a guy locally who's a photographer, and he once said the difference between an amateur and a photographer, an amateur and a professional, is that a professional takes a picture and he can go back and take it again.
An amateur takes it, and he doesn't know how he did it. And, he's not entirely right, because there are other reasons. The differences are more than just that. But it's, it's, it's, it's a good one. And it wasn't me who said it, but his name was Kevin, actually. If he's listening to this, yes, I am talking to you.
You know who you are. You know who you are.
And I'm going to find out after. So,
I've forgotten the question again. I think we need to put the whiskey away.
We probably do. So, yeah,
How important is it to know the technical skill?
The problem is, if you just rely on sticking your camera in auto and rely on your eye, you're losing so many creative opportunities.
It's one thing to have the ability to see a shot. It's another thing to be able to control your camera or the light to get the shot you want. Most great shots by lucky creatives are just pure luck and they, it's just fluke. If you know how to control your camera, how to control the exposure, to control your depth of field, how to control your focus, how to control whether things are super sharp through high speed shutter speeds or creatively blurred through slow shutter speeds, color temperature, the editing process of things you can do there.
When you've got control of all of those, your creative abilities just go through the roof. You wouldn't consider being an artist with paints without having spent a lot of time learning how to paint. You wouldn't expect to be able to go and play at the Albert Hall on a grand piano if you hadn't spent years learning how to play the grand piano.
The problem that photography has, it's created itself. Photography is the most accessible art form on the planet because you can just pick up a camera, point it and take a picture. Yeah. And so, too many people think, that's all I need to worry about. We are in a culture which wants things instantly, so photography is the perfect hobby for them because they can get things instantly, but by their very nature, creatives are quite impatient people.
They want things straight away. It is, it is part of that personality trait. And, so, a camera It ticks all the boxes. It's an instant creative image, doesn't require any skill other than a creative eye. Well, that's wrong, of course. To be good at anything, you've got to put in the effort. You've got to put in the years of practice.
It is years.
Yeah, 100%. And I love what you told us that Kevin said, the other Kevin. Oh, the other Kevin. Because it immediately made me think. When I first got a camera, I put it in you know, when they have programs like sport mode and landscape mode and things like that. And I think I had it in like portrait mode and I'd had it about a week and we went to Longleat.
And I got this absolutely stunning picture of some lions. You put it in lion mode? I put it in lion mode. And you shoot it raw? LAUGHING Oh God. LAUGHING Sorry. Put the whiskey down. And And I, I remember saying the words to so many people, because I shared that picture with everybody. I was so proud of it.
And I remember saying to people, it was a lucky shot. It was a lucky shot. And then there's an absolutely no way I could have at the time recreated that photo had no idea how I got it. I just pointed the camera. I'm a very creative person and I will often visualize what I want my image to look like first.
I can remember instances where I had a really clear vision of what I wanted and then I had no choice but to go and learn how to do it. An example of that is, is the water. I wanted that image of mystical, magical water flowing over on a waterfall at Virginia Waters. And I had absolutely no idea at the time, and we're going back years, of how I was going to create that.
So I had to figure it out, you know, I had to have a lesson, I had to learn the technical side. So, for me, as a creative who went on to learn the technical side of photography, and now I do. I can genuinely say hand on heart, I can recreate any image I'd like to think but I just, I'm curious, I'm so curious when it's flipped the other way and the people that enjoy the technical side, how do they, how do you become creative?
The power of books. My journey in, in recent years, as as, as a writer, It changed quite a bit as, as a photographer, particularly once I started teaching on a regular basis and promoting myself as a photographic tutor. Well, whatever you call me, I've always struggled to find a good description, a good name for what I do.
I've always referred to you as my mentor.
Mentor, that I do, photographic mentor, yes. So I'd got to the stage around about 2017 where I was teaching lots of people in this very room. I was one of them. You were one of them, yeah, yeah. And everybody I was teaching one to one. Mm. Mm. Mm. I became so heavily booked that I wasn't just working during the day, I was working evenings and weekends, and I had no time to myself.
I genuinely began to frazzle my brain, and I was bad tempered, I was kicking the cat, and Linda wasn't having any of this at all. And we decided that something had to change, and I didn't know what. Because I loved what I did, but It was, it was just overwhelming I came across this book, I can't remember how I came across it, called The Key Person of Influence by an author called Daniel Priestley.
And I was fascinated. It was saying how you could, how you could be a business person in your chosen niche and it was very important that, it, it, it was important for him to It stressed you, you had to pick a niche, not to generalize. If you're going to be a photographer, you do one type of photography.
If you're going to teach photographers, it's one type of photographer. Your market needs to be small so you can focus in on them. And this book is how about you become influential within your sphere. Now that, I was very resistant because I hate it when people big themselves up. I really hate personalities.
Personality photographers, personality chefs, personality writers, I just want people to be normal and everyone is so into promotion themselves on the internet like what we are. Yep. Right now? Yeah. Anyway this book was absolutely riveting and I read it more than once and in it there was this thing which says, Go to my website, go to this quiz thing, and you can assess your, and it will assess your business, and you get a score, and you can see where your business is strong, where it's weak.
So I did that. Two weeks later, I got a phone call. There's a point to this. I'm not sure what it is. I've lost it already, but perhaps I'll pick it up as I keep telling the story. I got a call. Oh, hello, this is Daniel Priestley's office here. And I went, Oh my God. He's heard of me.
And she said Daniel was meeting with a small group of people up in London in a private club and would like you to join him. I, I would have sold my children to go to that. Anyway, it was free, I didn't have to pay. I went there, I met him, and as soon as I told him how it worked, he said, you can't scale that, that's a rubbish way of, he didn't use these words, that's a rubbish way of working.
And so I invested four and a half grand with him. Spent a year with him and he changed the way I work into workshops. That way I could see more people at once rather than come and see me every hour. And suddenly it freed up my time. So that was a really good year for me, I have to say. And it completely transformed much of my life.
And I began a process of reading more and more books as a result. Because if you want to be good at anything, you need to immerse yourself in that. If you want to be, if you want to be good at being a lawyer, you immerse yourself in law. If you want to be good at being, I don't know, a footballer, you've got to immerse yourself in sporty stuff.
If you want to be good as a creative, albeit in my case a photographer, you need to immerse yourself. With lots of photography or art books. I want you to be good as a business man, because like most photographers, they're really good photographers, but they're crap at running a business. There is a point to this, stay with me.
So I was reading book after book after book after book and eventually I came across this book. It had been really well reviewed and well welcomed, well received by lots of people. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, D U H I G G. This was fascinating. I was listening to this book in the gym. This is when I used to go to the gym.
And I'm on the treadmill and I'm listening to this book and I'm thinking, this guy's incredible. And the book was full of loads and loads of research about how the memory works. And in this book he talks about how everything you and I now do is based on habit. Everything, every decision we make as grown ups is based on habit, something we picked up from the past.
A bit like people who are very technical, as they're younger they grow up to be technical photographers and those who are given a chance to be creative become creative photographers. So He talks about something called neuroplasticity, which is the brain's ability to grow regardless of age. So even at my age, even at 70 years old, even at that age, you can Affect the brain and through constant repetitive action and exposure to the right kind of stuff, you can change and transform the brain.
So, applying this to your question, because we've got there via a very long conversation.
Do you remember what the question was? The
question was, You tell me. How do you learn to be creative? You've got to, you've got to force yourself to do all this kind of, you've basically got to re educate your brain.
You've got to create new synaptic pathways between your neurons that create new habit pathways. So you don't think anymore about brushing your teeth. You just do it. Jump onto a bike. You just do it. You've got to work hard on that creative side through lots of hard work and exposure to creative stuff, start hanging around with creative people.
They don't have to be photographers, they could be painters, they could be writers, they could be musicians, ballet dancers, but anywhere where, The processes, the thought processes, the compositional elements are all around creativity. It will start affecting your brain. So the more you do it, the more you can transform your brain.
So yes, you can learn rule of thirds and foreground interest and leading lines, all that kind of stuff. That's kind of helpful. But the real creativity comes when you break those rules.
Yeah.
But you've got to get to that place. Now, I'm, I'm keeping going here. Part of the talk that we look at when I'm, I'm having these evenings that I spoke about earlier on.
You know, I said we have these once a month, these photographer's evenings where we have a round table chat and we look at photographer's problems and their journeys. We, we isolate one interesting fact. And that interesting fact is that last year. I paid a lot of money to have an online quiz. Mm hmm. So, When I was doing an online quiz, it was like 40, 45 questions about photography with a promise to analyze your If you took part, it told you a lot about your photography, where your strengths and your weaknesses were.
And it gave me so much data. I had just under a thousand people take part in the Southern England. And I had so much data. So much information come through, that it just taught me an enormous amount, not only just about photographers opinions, but their struggles. And one of the things it taught me was that apart from the problem of people having enough time for their photography, which is common for all hobbies, the single most important element, which is, which affected their personal growth was confidence.
22 percent of people who responded said confidence was the single most challenging element to their photography.
Yeah.
Confidence. That's like a whole different podcast. Oh, it is indeed. What it led to was me distilling some basic facts here. Now,
when you start photography, Everyone tells you to know your camera and you need to spend time getting to know your camera. Now for the analytics, the logical photographers, that's the easy bit. But then they need to know how to control the camera because there will be things they want to photograph which aren't straightforward, like In terms of getting the focus in the right place, or getting the exposure right in a difficult lighting scenario.
So one, you need to know which buttons to press to get you the camera work. And then you need to know how to control the camera to get anything you want. And so you can go back and do it again, which is what we said the professional does. When you've nailed the camera control, that gives you the level of confidence you need.
If you haven't got confidence with your photography, What happens is, you take a shot. And you think, oh, that's a bit dark. And you go back to the controls and you start playing with it. And you twiddle a few dials and try it again. That's a bit bright. Or the focus isn't right. And what, you're going through this process of, you don't believe you have the ability to take the shot.
So you're so concerned about the gear, that you don't think about the creative element. Hmm. You are more concerned about the gear or people watching you playing with the dials, which I understand. If you do that in front of a customer, it looks really amateur. You're more concerned about, Oh God, what are my settings?
I have loads and loads of students who panic about settings and don't think about the shot. Until you can control the camera, know which buttons to press so that that camera becomes effectively another limb of your body. You will be trapped. You'll never have that creativity that you really want. You've got to.
You really, really got to understand the camera, then understand how it works. Then you get a level of confidence. Now that is actually where a lot of the technical guys are. But where they lack is they haven't been trained on the creative side. So as a general term for all photography, Now the camera, now the controls, get your confidence.
Now then, once you've got that level of confidence, and for the left brainer, who's the logical, analytical thinker, yeah, that, that control is not just how I move the buttons around in my camera to get the shot. It's how I move myself around the subject, How I light the subject, what angle I take it from, whether it's high, low, from a distance with a long lens, or close up with a wide lens.
What the treatment is I provide in the editing, whether it's going to black and white or colour, whether it's got any nuances in the tonality and so da da da da da da da da ya de ya de ya. When you get to that point where everything is within your control and you don't have to think about it, which is where you and I are, you get confidence.
And when you get confidence, you are liberated from all those worries. You then take a picture because you can take the picture. And what happens? The last element, creativity, is released. It's camera, control, confidence and creativity, in that order. And it doesn't matter whether you're the creative who doesn't know which button to press, or whether you're the analytical and you don't know how to take an interesting picture, these rules apply.
Know the camera, know how to control it, know how to control the shots, know how to control the composition, then you get the confidence so that you don't have to think about it anymore. You just pick up your camera, switch it on. Take the shot.
And go for it. Lovely. So, I'm now gonna talk a little bit. Well, I say I'm gonna talk, I'm gonna lead you so that you can talk.
What about when creativity becomes too much? So, when I think of arty photos, there's one type of photo that I do. That I don't like.
Only one?
Well, for, for, for the purpose of this conversation. And it's, we talked a little bit about, before we came on air about me doing some panning of some very fast cars and, and that looks great.
Because the car is the subject. But when you remove that car and you just have a blurry picture, I can't stand it.
Intentional camera movement, ICM photos, is that what you're talking
about? Yeah, but when you, when you can't even tell what it is, it's just colour. I think you could have just painted that. I don't like it.
For me, that's, that's not photography. I don't like it personally. What are your views?
Sorry to the listeners that enjoy doing that type of photography, each to their own.
Okay. I'm hesitating because I'm not, not because I'm trying to avoid the question, because I'm trying to give a balanced answer.
Give an honest answer.
An honest answer? An honest answer is, if you'd asked me three years ago, I would have Reacted the same as you.
I ran a workshop last year on abstract photography and I gave myself a crash course on art, abstract art, and in the process of studying that, and if you go in my house you'll find a bookshelf full of books on abstract art. I became aware of how abstract art arrived on the planet and Why it was successful and why it works and it kind of changed, it transformed the way I look at pictures that I normally previously would never have taken.
Hmm. Interesting.
And I, I've been honest with you since I've been teaching photography, which is 15 years now, I've noticed. Because I've been immersed in the world and meeting so many different types of photographers, it has broadened my appreciation quite significantly. There are, so I have types of photography I can't stand and I don't mention it because I will upset even more because inside the Hampshire Photography Network, there's loads of people who do this and it drives me nuts.
I just cannot abide it. I'm not going to tell you what it is. I'll tell you all fair. Yeah.
Well, I've probably already upset people.
Well, no, it's good to challenge, isn't it? Because that's how we, that's how we grow. It's
just, it's not for me. I think if, if And you shouldn't apologise because you can't be expected to like all types.
Do you like all types of music?
No.
Exactly. I like most music, though. Do you?
Yeah. Anyway, let's stick with photography. Yeah.
Well, this is, this is the longest podcast we've ever recorded. I hope you realise that. It was coming up to well, it's going to be edited, but we're currently just over 47 minutes.
My answer is, do I like it? When it's done well, yes. We go through a period of learning and our early attempts are usually pretty diabolical, but they are whatever we and I see some pictures posted on. Not just on Facebook, but on other Other areas of the internet, and I think they're absolute rubbish, and I see others and I am blown away by them.
They're beautiful, absolutely stunning, and that's because I'm not looking at a photograph from what many would consider a photograph, which is something with a narrative with a, with a story. I'm looking at something which is in effect something which is attractive to my eye, and, and communicates an emotion through the color and the patterns and textures of it.
Which I think is equally viable. If we are to accept that photography is an art form, then it has to encompass, you have to accept that it will encompass all types of art. And so, yeah I have seen some stuff. Posted in the Facebook group, which has left me cold and I've seen some others where I think oh, geez I really got to try this but I haven't I really haven't tried ICM at all Intentional camera movement is where you to liberally move the camera during a shot to get blurred streaky images It could be trees in a forest or people walking down a road and you kind of stretch them upwards by the way You move the camera.
It's it's that kind of thing. It's a very abstract
Mm hmm I think I, when I first started seeing it, because I think it's definitely something that's become more trendy recently, I just thought, hmm, did the first person that did that, did they do it by accident and just decide to call it art?
Well, you have to wonder, you know, did Van Gogh start, start painting like that from scratch or did he?
Because I don't know the answer to this one, and although I've probably read his biography I can't remember the answer.
Well. I think that's it for now. Oh. It's been a very long podcast episode. But enjoyable.
We have gone off on some tangents.
We have, but, you know, people by people and I think they need to know that we're both a couple of idiots, really.
Oh, Bayek. Alright, well as always It's goodbye from me. And it's goodbye from Me?
That threw you, didn't it?
We just did a, we just did a reversal, didn't we? I'm slowly taking over.
Can I just say that if you just watch television now, ladies are taking over everywhere, all, every programme now is a female hero. Every secret agent with amazing fighting skills, they're women.
You know I box and shoot.
There you go. And I embroider. Thanks, Kelly. See you in a couple of weeks. Goodbye. Bye.
Hi, everyone. It's Kevin Ahronson. And I want to tell you about some exciting changes I've made to the Photography Masterclass, my in person course that's been helping photographers grow since 2019. Yep, this is an in person course in a classroom with me, face to face. This is not online. As we approach our 10th intake in January, I've made some significant changes to celebrate this milestone.
This masterclass goes beyond just technical skills. It's about learning to see the world as a photographer. I've shifted the focus to give even more attention to creativity with three entire modules dedicated to developing your photographer's eye. I retained the more popular modules on shooting landscapes, photographing people, and there's a new one on black and white photography.
This masterclass is more than just a course. It's a creative one year journey you'll share with other passionate photographers growing together and forming lasting connections along the way. Need more information? Visit GoHSP. com. Click on courses and select masterclass. I'll also provide a link in the show notes below.
