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Rangefinder Magazine
Features/February 2002
Look Ma, No Tripod! by Jane
Wingate
If it Looks Good, it Is Good, No Matter How it Got That Way
Whenever beginning photographers ask me for tips for making good “nature”
photographs, the first thing I tell them is to use a rock-solid tripod.
Always.
As the serious aspiring writer must first nail down the elements of grammar
and usage, so must the aspiring nature photographer steep himself in the
basics of old-school, old-style craft—craft which includes lots of
practice with a good tripod and tripod head.
Writers discover that once they learn to use language proficiently, they
can then “break” the rules, perhaps using— for just one
example—sentence fragments that they were taught were not “correct.”
It seems a leap to suggest that, likewise, practiced nature photographers
can also break the rules—for instance, the rule that says you must
not go forth into the landscape without lugging all that gear, including
those miserably heavy tripods, which we sling over our shoulders like
the cross of Calvary. After all, to get good, sharp photos, we have to
suffer, right?
Maybe it’s heresy to ask, but who of us wouldn’t like to toss
away that tripod (Free at last, free at last!) if he could?
For a year now, I’ve been shooting almost exclusively with a Sony
Mavica CD1000, and have not once put the thing on a tripod. (Ah, heresy
indeed!) Instead, I have made myself the tripod, using what I’ve
learned from my love affair with the real beast about stability and getting
things level.
To get the camera stable while shooting these “formal” poses
of flowers, I leaned against whatever was available—walls, kitchen
counters, backs of chairs, porch railings. At times I sat on stools and
braced elbows on knees, getting the camera close to the subjects in ways
that would be impossible with a camera mounted on a tripod.
Like most photographers, when I was given my first point-and-shoot (in
my case, a Kodak box), I snapped incessantly, indiscriminately. Also like
most photographers, I then learned, chiefly by doing, and by studying
the work of the pros, how to get better and better photos.
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| Milkweed buds |
Cinquefoil |
November rose |
I haven’t tossed out my tripod, and don’t figure to, but meanwhile,
I’m having a heap of fun tearing around with the CD1000, breaking
a few rules, seeing just what can be done with one hand-held digital camera
stuck to one human tripod. In a way, it’s a return to those first
forays in photography—snapping away, tripod-free, shooting tons of
photos (incessantly, though not always indiscriminately)—but now
armed with the intervening years of learning how to do it right.
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| Blue-eyed grass |
Meadowsweet |
Daisy |
Gladiolus |
Peter Schickele, also known as P.D.Q. Bach, says on his PBS radio music-rap
show, “If it sounds good, it is good.”
Maybe in the end, we can say that about a photograph: If it looks good,
it is good, no matter how it got that way.
Freelance writer and photographer Jane Wingate is based in Farmington,
N.H. She can be reached by e-mail at wingate@worldpath. net. Her web site
address is http://www.worldpath.net/~wingate/photo/.
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