Developing World

Can a amateur with a digital camera compete with a professional photographer? Read more to find out!

Recently I read this BBC article written by the editor of foto8.com John Levy which I found very interesting. The author discusses the fact that nowadays almost everyone has at least one digital camera, which makes the photographs more skilled from the professional point of view.
John suggests, that thanks” to the ease of previewing images in-camera, on screen and printing at home”, the photography has become “a universal, vibrant everyday language continually evolving and growing”.
Amateur photography can compete with the professional photography in the sense, that most of us have devices and technology to do that. Moreover, with such a steep growth of weblogs and other communication medias, it only facilitates the distribution of the amateurs pictures.
But, according to John Levy, “shooting a greater quantity of photographs does not ensure greater quality”. Worse yet, the fact, that many pictures are produced, means that more bad pictures are taken.
And John Levy suggests an answer. He states that editing and archiving the pictures “will immediately make the final selection appear stronger and have more impact on the viewer.” Receiving the feedback from friends or family can also help to improve the quality of pictures.
On the other hand, according to the author, the disadvantage of the possibility to edit the pictures is deleting them. Therefore, its important to avoid “over-zealous deletion” because of two reasons. Firstly, images can have a completely different meaning over time. Secondly, “because the contact sheets of old were a unique additional asset giving photographs a useful context – providing the photographer’s daybook or timeline with the circumstance how a particular image was captured.”
For John Levy, the mantra that he follows is preservation, purpose, presentation.
To conclude, I would like to add, that to know the purpose is extremely important when taking pictures with a digital camera. Most of us become lazy, as we know that we can erase and reshoot any image we don’t like. As they say, its better to have less, but better quality.