I ran across a quote today that emphasizes something I value in my own photography. The late war photographer, Robert Capa, said, “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough”.
This small precept could completely renovate many of the non-inviting, dull photographs out there. A close and personal face shot is much more valuable than picking some speck out of the crowd. Not only that, but even if a telephoto lens is used to bring a far subject in close, the lack of depth in the photo still somehow communicates a lack of closeness.
In doing a little searching on that quote, I ran across another photographer, quoting the same quote, singing the same song. And it is a song worth singing.
Applying this issue to the average point-and-shoot camera makes me think of the marketing hype around camera zooms. Optical zoom is actual glass that helps you zoom in (good); digital zoom is just a computer cropping your photo for you (bad). One, digital zoom is more difficult to use, and two, the photo will not have a high a resolution because it is only a crop of the full image.
Now, that is all an issue in itself, and not one to get into right now, but my point is this: we drop an extra $100 bucks on that new camera for the extra zoom, and really the inviting and interesting photos are close up. No, I am not saying the money is completely wasted, but if you want truly interesting photos, the best way to achieve that is to take a few more steps toward the subject, not zoom in.
