Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love my old film cameras…

I can picture everyone’s eyes rolling as I’m writing this. Another post about how we should all go back to shooting film. How digital has ruined our craft. How all the young up and coming photographers have no fundamental understanding of the photographic process. Trust me, I am just as tired of this argument as the rest of you. Fortunately this post has nothing to do with the benefits of film over digital. I still shoot film and most likely will continue to do so until it is no longer available. However there was a time when I shot nothing but digital. That doesn’t mean you should go back to film. It really doesn’t matter either way. Just as a novel is not the product of the pen but of the author, a photograph is the product of the photographer, not the camera. Why I love my old film cameras has to do with simplicity.

The Razor Theory

Occam’s Razor (also spelled Ockham’s razor) was developed in the 14th century by an English logician and Franciscan friar by the name of William of Ockham. The theory states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating, or “shaving off”, those that make no difference in the predictions of the hypothesis. Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity. When multiple competing theories are equal in other respects, the theory that introduces the fewest assumptions and provides the fewest hypothetical answers is recommended.

Today Occam’s Razor is generally understood as “All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one.”

Assumptions

In order to apply Occam’s theory we must first of course make a few assumptions. According to Ockham, the fewer assumptions we make the better off we are. Treating the photograph as an object, these assumptions can be separated into two classes; necessity and result. To produce an image, we require a device with the ability to project light passing through the optics and recording it onto photo-sensitve material. In essence, a camera is necessary to create a photograph.

The only other variable is intent, and in this case it becomes quite important. For the sake of argument I will site my own motivation. It is my goal as a photographer and an artist to make photographs, not take pictures. I would much rather see my work printed 16×20 on the wall than in a flickr feed.

Simplicity and Sophistication

Thomas Aquinas made the argument that “If a thing can be done adequately by means of one, it is superfluous to do it by means of several; for we observe that nature does not employ two instruments where one suffices.” Excess, it would seem, is the photographers worst enemy. By “shaving off” the nonessential instruments we are left with only that which is necessary to produce an image. The rest of the process is left to take place between our ears.

While in the field, my bag contains the following: Two range finder bodies, a twenty-eight, thirty-five and fifty millimeter lens, a hand held light meter, and a handful of film. My equipment is light weight, quite and inconspicuous. I will never have to carry, worry about, run out of, or stop to change batteries. Without motor drives I am shooting less and thinking more. There is no internal meter to be fooled by tricky lighting scenarios. My manual focus will never fail in low light. Why do I need a camera with three different auto exposure bracketing settings if I know how to take a proper light reading? The list goes on forever.

In choosing to work with the most sophisticated state of the art equipment offering more technology and features then necessary, we end up either fighting the camera to make it work, or letting it do all the work for us. Both are bad habits. By removing the unnecessary elements from the process we allow ourselves the time to focus all our attention to what we place in the frame. Great photographs are made by inward thinking and careful observation along with the ability to use the camera as an extension of the eye, not as a substitute. As photographers we know how to read light not only with a meter but with our eyes. There is absolutely no need for a forty-eight point spot averaging metering matrix or shutter speeds to within an eighth of a stop.

Simplicity is the key to any process. The photographer as an artist must allow themselves the freedom to create without being hindered by the medium itself. Leonardo da Vinci, who lived after Ockham’s time, had his own variant of Occam’s Razor, sidesteping the need for sophistication by equating it to simplicity.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”