P3D Mathphobia rationalized

["Andrea Blair" <asblair@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>>>George Gioumousis wrote: As someone who has taken stereo slides 
since 1971, and who often does math for fun, I find Andrea's advice hard 
to accept for myself.

I don't doubt that it is possible to take good pictures without much
theory. In fact, there is stochastic photography, where one shoots at
random (using up lots of film), and discards the poor images. <snip>

Ansel Adams makes quite a point of using theory and experiment to
establish proper exposure. He also has some very good advice on 
the relationship between focal length and distance to get a natural
appearance. If he considers these as worthy of study, who are we to
say "don't bother".<<<<

Contrary to popular belief, there are actually people in the real world 
that do not consider Ansel Adams to be the do all and end all in the 
world of photography (I'm not saying I'm one of them). Some people 
follow the teachings and advice of other photographers of their choice. 
Sometimes more than one. So let's put things in perspective.

IMHO - Everybody's right. We are all just offering a different way to 
get to the same end result: an image we like.

My advice is to do what you are comfortable with. If you don't like what 
one person says, don't do it. It's that simple. I think we have 
confirmed in our discussions that many (or most, if not all) areas of 
photography are open to numerous ways to accomplish the same task. If 
you are comfortable with simple, there's nothing wrong with that. No one 
should be intimidated into thinking that you *have* to have all the 
complicated math formulas and calculations. Heck, we've even shown that 
you don't need a light meter! But, be aware that there are alternative 
solutions. If a simple way of shooting does not yield the results you 
are happy with, know that there are other tools to further assist you. 
By discussing the high-end math, we have shown people that there are 
alternatives to look into.

Why do you find my advice hard to accept, George? Are you envious or 
disgusted that I get good results with little effort?  {:>)  (I don't 
consider my pictures taken at random - I do put some thought into how 
far I move the camera and I don't waste *lots* of film - but, again, 
that's relative.) I have nothing against people who use math. I just 
feel in a lot of cases it's overkill and very intimidating to people new 
to stereo. IMHO it's better to start simple and then develop a yearning 
to embrace the math later, instead of being led to believe you *must* 
learn the complicated math first and get fed up. Basics first.

Andrea S. Blair
asblair@xxxxxxxxxxx


  

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com


------------------------------