Photographers: If you could only have one lens

It’s what I do, I get a buzz out of doing it well in the same way a chef would when he sees happy customers eating his/her food.
I like to make images outside of work too.

Some of my favourite photographers:
Ralph Eugine Meatyard
MInor White
Paul Caponigro
Sally Mann
Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Gregory Crewdson
Arthur Tress

Well, I’d say subjects that the average person would find very difficult to catch….be it a rare occurence for example.

So, say, Monet is out, ‘cos he just painted stuff about folk lying around by rivers and other subjects that are not exactly earth shattering?

Now you’re being silly, I haven’t seen any photos taken by Monet.

Given that a photograph of a person is moment in time and given that no two moments in time are ever the same, any photograph of a person is thus a rare occurence.

True, however I would expect that the subjects in this particular situation were sitting still and despite the fact they were getting older, there was probably at least a few hours before anyone would have noticed!

Are you sure? I always thought he used a Leica M rangefinder camera and a 28mm lens.

I took it on a 50mm prime. Not him. Yes I believe he uses a 28mm

Well, I’d say subjects that the average person would find very difficult to catch….be it a rare occurence for example.
So, say, Monet is out, ‘cos he just painted stuff about folk lying around by rivers and other subjects that are not exactly earth shattering?

Now you’re being silly, I haven’t seen any photos taken by Monet.

In what way silly? What difference would it make if Monet had made photographic images instead of painted ones? Surely your criterion of rarity should apply to any art form?

I have a mechanically-minded (car mechanic at the time) uncle with whom I worked at weekends as a young teen. Upon my leaving school and pursuing a degree in art he gave me ‘that’ look and said ‘I don’t get art. If I like something I’ll take a photo of it. What’s the point of art if we have cameras?’

Of course not all photography is pursuant of art* so a discussion of the merits of lenses for specific artistic pursuits becomes vain and futile without both subject matter and motivation to consider?

*For example – some very keen ‘gear’ photographers would be happiest grabbing a full frame pic of the cockpit of a jet at an airshow using the most expensive lens possible as they just love gadgets and the satisfaction of grabbing a pic that would otherwise be out of reach?

Gary some wonderful work there for me to explore – thanks for sharing. Sally Mann immediately resonates!

It’s as if Kai left DRTV just to make a video that answers this thread:

I think as a photographer you have to care very little about what people say about your work and what you choose to photograph, after all not everyone will like the work you do. I think like anything where you are trying to convey a certain emotion some people get it and some don.t. Photographs aren’t there to be explained, they are there to be seen and experienced. Some photographs are there simply to document, to tell you that ‘this, is here’ or that ‘this person was here, doing this’ whereas others, like Gregory Crewdson for example want you to see their work as an experience that you simply ‘feel’ Much like a David Lynch film. They somehow exist outside the descriptions of mainstream photography and film. They aren’t as obvious as a sunset or an angry sky or as conventional as a film with a beggining, middle and end. With Bruce Gilden, things are simple, he photographs what interests him. Whether just visually or whether there is a more complex narrative. It doesnt matter. The people that he photographs will carry on existing and being real human beings whether he photographs them or not. They are what they are regardless of what narrative you place on them. Whether you think its wrong or contorversial is something that YOU bring to it.

For me, photograpy is about telling someone something. If you were walking down the road and you noticed something, you might say to the person you are with ‘hey, look at that, that’s interesting’. You could stop there, or you could go on about why you think it’s interesting, how it makes you feel, what else it reminds you of, what it means and so on. If you can put all that into a photograph you’re doing well.