Ridge Visualisation

I was one of those photographers who begins their career tending to the technical, pixel-peeping side of the craft. The result is that the image begins with the camera and is bounded and judged by its technicality. So, from the photographer, to the photograph, to the audience, the golden thread of tech remains constant and the image begins and ends with the camera.

Contrast this with the philosophy that the image is outside the camera, in the mind of the photographer. Broadly, the distinction is between a scientist and an artist.

I'm starting to see though, that there is a further, parallel distinction between photographers who capture and photographers who contrive. The former look for the 'decisive moment', which must be hunted and captured but often escapes the shutter. The latter are not hunters, but farmers, who try to cultivate a decisive moment themselves by creating the scene, hiring the models, etc.

Hunters and farmers both have to learn the technicalities, but not every hunter will be Cartier Bresson, nor will every farmer be Eugenio Recuenco. To graduate is to go from being a scientist to being an artist going beyond the lens to the world outside and waiting patiently to capture or intelligently contriving their own decisive image.

Can someone sum this up better for me?! And in photography or any other profession, what are you? A hunter? A farmer? Does your character predict it, or determine it? Comments below. :)