Photography Today Is Not Rocket Science

Sam A. Cooley and party, 19th century photographers. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
(click to enlarge)

It used to be difficult to make a photograph.  And I mean really difficult.  I’ve been around photography long enough to appreciate just how much thinking and work it once took to make a single image and how easy it is today.

When we step back a hundred and fifty years and remember what photographers used to have to go though to make a photograph.  If you’ve ever seen those old pictures of a mule‑drawn wagon with a canvas top (or sometimes a large tent), that wasn’t just transportation.  That was the photographer’s studio and darkroom.  The photographer may have had a light tight attachment to the wagon or even climb inside that wagon, in the dark, and coat a big sheet of glass with a liquid emulsion called collodian.  That wet glass plate had to be quickly placed inside a light tight holder then rushed into the back of the camera.   The photo then had to be made before the emulsion dried.  The plate was rushed right back into the wagon to be developed.   If he missed the timing he started all over again.  As I said, it wasn't easy.

Photography back then wasn’t something you did on a whim.  It was messy, slow, heavy, and unforgiving—and you had to really want to be a photographer to stick with it.  Not many people practiced photography back then because, frankly, it was a pain.  A pain, but historically important.  Thankfully, there were those who chose to go through all that.

Over time, things slowly got better.  Glass plates gave way to film which was lighter, easier to handle and far less fragile.  Instead of being under a dark cloth, cameras gained real viewfinders.  Flash units appeared.  Bellows disappeared.  Lenses began focusing within their own barrels instead of requiring complicated bellows extensions and movements.

Film and plate sizes shrank too.  Early cameras used monster‑sized negatives—12×20 inches or larger, then 8×10, 5×7, and 4×5.  Eventually, roll film came along and that changed everything.  But to me, the real game‑changers were 35mm cameras and film.  Suddenly cameras were small, portable, fast, and practical.  You could carry one all day instead of hauling it around like a piece of furniture.  You could take one anywhere with you.  You could make photos that, before, were almost impossible to make.  It was relatively easy and straightforward to use when compared to the huge cameras and processes of the 19th century.  That said, using the early 35mm cameras with only a shutter speed dial, aperture ring on the lens and very, very slow film was a lot more difficult than our tools today.  Consider there was not even a light meter to judge exposure, few focal lengths and primitive lenses.  Easy?  Not so much.  Easier?  Yes, but not nearly as easy as today. 

Film itself improved as well. Early film was painfully slow.  Portrait subjects had to sit perfectly still for minutes at a time, often braced with hidden metal stands so they wouldn’t move.  As film got faster, photography became more natural and spontaneous.  Eventually, film gave way to digital, and now we live in a world where a phone can handle focus, exposure, color, and even editing for you.  You just point it and tap the screen.

Jump to today.  Photography has never been easier. I don’t say that as a complaint, just as a simple fact.  Basically all you have to do is point and press the shutter.  In fact, you don’t even have to press a shutter button—just touch a screen.  That is if that's all you want to do.  The camera and lens will do the rest, and do it very well.  Photography today is not rocket science or, if you prefer, no need to know any science of any genre.  Easy, simple.  Create memories with little effort.

Easy.  Nothing to do but point and touch the screen. The phone does the rest.

And yet—here’s the interesting thing—the basics haven’t changed.

My thoughts are that when you strip everything away, drilling down to the very basics and minimal needed skills, creating good photographs still comes down to just four fundamental things.  I’ve seen it proven over and over again.  Not menus.  Not presets.  Not megapixels.  Not extensive camera features.  Just four essential things, in my opinion.

First, light.  You have to understand and be consicious of light.  Learn to read the light.  Good light (soft, directional, warm, cool, direct) makes a good photograph.  Bad light makes a bad one.  I think it is that simple.  Watch where the light comes from, how hard or soft it is, what color it is, how contrasty it may be and what it does to your subject.

Second, composition.  You need to understand good composition.  Where you place things in the frame matters.  What you leave out matters just as much as what you include. Photography is an exercise of exclusion.  You start with the whole world in front of you and you keep narrowing things down until you just have the essence of what you want to portray.  Your feet are often more important than your lens.  Good composition— I'll call it what naturally pleases our eye—makes for good images.  Bad composition makes us quickly move on to look at the next photograph.  Bad composition is uninteresting and turns us away.  You can have a beautiful subject or scene but if you compose your photograph badly, you've pretty much lost your audience.

Third, gesture.  Understand when it is the right time to press that shutter button.  Whether a unique expression on a face, hand movements, two people sharing a tender moment, wind bent trees or the blurring of water.  Know how to recognize gesture and know when to press the shutter.  Cartier-Bresson called it, famously, The Decisive Moment.  Missing the gesture may mean missing making a good photograph.

Four, exposure.  Know how to use your camera’s basic exposure controls.  Know how the exposure triangle of shutter speed, aperture, and ISO are interdependent and work together to get the result you want.  Not what the camera wants.  What you want to accomplish how you want you image to look.  Know how different shutter speeds affect your subject.  Know how the aperture must be applied to get the depth of field you want and know how the ISO works in conjunction with the other two.  Use them to get the exposure that makes your photographs special.  To fulfill your vision of your final photograph.

I think that’s it.  No magic.  No shortcuts.  If you fully understand those four concepts, you are well on your way to making satisfying and emotion-evoking images.

The tools have changed.  The process has gotten easier, especially when compared to our photographic forefathers.  But the heart of photography is exactly the same as it was back in those mule‑drawn wagon days.  Light, gesture, composition, and exposure.  Learn those four things, and it won’t matter whether you’re using a phone, a digital camera, or a hundred‑year‑old box with a glass plate covered in gooey wet collodian inside.

Photography today isn't rocket science.  Anyone can pick up a phone and make wonderful images, almost without thinking—mostly by chance.  Good photographs, in my opinion, require some knowledge and thinking.  Yet, those millions of phones produce some very nice images.

What is the estimate of how many photos are made these days?  2.1 trillion images made in 2025?   Yes, trillion with a “T.”  Amazing!  5.3 billion a day!  61,400 every second.  These statistics, from Petapixel, are mind blowing! 😳  But how many of those photos are the kind of images you would want to make?  Probably a very, very, very, very low percentage of them.  That’s okay.  Let those others make the photos they want.  You make yours for you.

Okay.  I know many of you may disagree with me.  That's okay.  What am I missing?  What other fundamental aspect of making photographs are just as important as the ones I mentioned?  I'm anxious to read your comments.

Part II next Friday.

Join me over at my website, https://www.dennismook.com.  

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!  

Dennis A. Mook  

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