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Rob Van Petten Kicking Daisies band Loading...

© Rob Van Petten

I shot the Kicking Daisies for their CD cover and promotional media. Because of the large-scale printing of the image, I chose my D3X. I...Read More

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My Favorite F/stop

From Nikon World Spring 2011

by Rob Van Petten

And Other Photo Irrelevancies

Not long ago I became a discussion group moderator at the Nikon Digital Learning Center at Flickr, which means I engage Nikon users in dialogues about Nikon gear and image making. I started by reading the threads to acquaint myself with the discussion, and I found the postings were primarily questions along the lines of which lens is best, what camera should I buy and what’s your favorite f/stop.

In other words, the topics were heavily weighted toward hardware, which made me realize that I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about hardware. I don’t think most pros and experienced amateurs do either. The camera is a tool; we learn it well and its use becomes second nature. We’re not thinking about it while we’re shooting. We’re watching the action and the light; we’re adjusting the composition; we’re directing a subject; we’re reading color, texture, the mood of the moment and a thousand subtle nuances. The same holds true if we’re shooting on the street, at an event or on vacation. We sense our surroundings and anticipate the action. We can’t be thinking about buttons or menus; we can’t let the magic black box get between us and our pictures. So the thought processes—the messages we send, the compositions we create, the way we direct our subjects, the choices we make, even the way we edit our photos—have become major themes of my Flickr postings. I like the subtle parts of those processes, the pieces that comprise personality, that establish style.

Each of us has an individual eye. You see an Arnold Newman portrait and you know it’s Arnold Newman, and you can see Newman’s influence, his style, in someone’s pictures. But when I asked people to describe their style in words, not pictures, the suggestion was met with much resistance and challenge. Like, “Why can’t we just shoot pictures? A picture is worth a thousand words already.” And so I argued the value of having an artist’s statement—something I talked about in my column in the Fall, 2010, issue—and talked about the impulse that makes us push the button when we do, the Rorschach test of our decisive moment. I asked why our images look like our style, and what makes each of us distinctively different.

That’s been the sound of my voice at the Flickr discussion group. The experience has been and continues to be thought provoking.

So, what’s the best lens to buy? That’s easy. It’s the one that sees the shot you have in mind. You can use the same lens to shoot lots of different kinds of pictures because it’s the idea, not the gear, that drives the shot. The best camera is not necessarily the one with the best sensor, but the one that best senses your concept. The light level you have for the shot, the file size you require to print the picture and the speed you need to shoot that picture decide the right camera. Everything’s driven by the concept.

So the first tool is the idea, and the gear is simultaneously important and unimportant. You don’t think, I have this camera and this lens; now what can I do with them? You think, I want to do this, achieve this, get this look and feeling; then you grab the camera and the lens and do it. Ideas rule, not cameras and lenses.

Want to join the discussion? A few well chosen words—like Van Petten, Nikon, Flickr— typed into Google will bring you to me. Or, you can just click here.

You can view a selection of Rob’s images and access his weblog at www.robvanpetten.com.