{"id":702,"date":"2015-05-01T20:07:41","date_gmt":"2015-05-02T00:07:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jrileystewart.com\/blog\/?p=702"},"modified":"2020-09-25T09:30:00","modified_gmt":"2020-09-25T13:30:00","slug":"why-i-never-talk-about-my-photo-gear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jrileystewart.com\/blog\/why-i-never-talk-about-my-photo-gear\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I never talk about my “photo gear”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>
“One Morning at Liberty Furnace”–A nostalgic scene from the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As an art photographer, I’m continually amazed that so many of my peers think that everyone else\u00a0must be\u00a0as enamored with photographic equipment as they themselves\u00a0must be. Why else would they make it certain that I know what f stop, shutter speed, ISO,\u00a0camera model, and lens they used to take a particular picture?<\/p>\n

Maybe they think my knowing this information will be critically helpful when I show up at the same vantage point, and same time of day, and even the same day of the year and under the same lighting conditions, just so I can replicate\u00a0that very same picture. I can’t think of another reason why someone else would want me\u00a0to know this information.<\/p>\n

Or maybe their web gallery software assumes they want to communicate all the EXIF\u00a0 data, and there’s no way to turn it off. EXIF data are all\u00a0those pieces of\u00a0crap technical\u00a0information the camera (largely digital cameras) embeds into the picture file\u00a0where\u00a0it remains forever. Photo sharing sites like Flickr, Pbase, and others don’t make it easy to make EXIF data invisible to viewers. But it can be done, and they probably should make it easier.<\/p>\n

Or, maybe they have nothing else to say about the picture, but they think they have to say SOMETHING….<\/p>\n

I’ve written before about the importance of storytelling in art and especially in photographic art. Whether we, as artists,\u00a0write a narrative that helps\u00a0viewers see the same story as us or if we choose not to tell our story, the story is\u00a0still there. Sometimes, the title we give an image is the story. Sometimes the story is\u00a0meant to be ambiguous, so the less said the better.<\/p>\n

The problem I have with overt disclosure of EXIF data is that I find it very distracting. It may be because when I look at an art photograph, my mind wants to\u00a0 swim among the neurons on my creative, subjective right brain. Then BANG, I notice that the picture was taken with a Canon Mark XXXI with 10-500mm lens at f64 and 1\/10,000 sec, and the mood is destroyed. EXIF data excites the objective left brain which competes for attention with it’s right side. Too often the left brain wins.<\/p>\n

If you are among those who think that disclosing all that sexy EXIF data is important to anyone besides your camera, you should reconsider that thinking. It can turn people from enjoying the image on its artistic merits to, in some cases, objective revulsion.<\/p>\n

So if\u00a0all you have to say about an image you created is contained in the EXIF data, perhaps it’s time you\u00a0began saying\u00a0nothing at all.<\/p>\n

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As an art photographer, I’m continually amazed that so many of my peers think that everyone else\u00a0must be\u00a0as enamored with photographic equipment as they themselves\u00a0must be. Why else would they make it certain that I know what f stop, shutter speed, ISO,\u00a0camera model, and lens they used to take a particular picture? Maybe they think … Continue reading Why I never talk about my “photo gear”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[167,7],"class_list":["post-702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-perspectives","tag-art-appreciation","tag-fine-art-photography"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy I never talk about my "photo gear" - Thoughts on the Craft of Fine Art Photography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jrileystewart.com\/blog\/why-i-never-talk-about-my-photo-gear\/\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.jrileystewart.com\\\/blog\\\/why-i-never-talk-about-my-photo-gear\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.jrileystewart.com\\\/blog\\\/why-i-never-talk-about-my-photo-gear\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"J. 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