The Camera-ist’s Manifesto

A Radical and Revolutionary Approach to Photography

The Pre-Mumble

    The fact that you are here, reading this means one of two things: You either stumbled across the site while hunting for your manifest destiny, or you are interested in taking up photography as a hobby.

    By hobby, I mean that you want to do more with a camera than take family snaps, and vacation memories. You want to express something within you, or preserve something you see and hope to show to others. Perhaps you are looking to document some activity you find important, or a place, things, people that will not be there some day, perhaps even some day soon.

     If those family snaps are your goal, you don’t really need to read this essay, although it will not harm you. All you need is a fully automatic Point & Shoot camera, either film or digital, and you are set. It isn’t necessary to learn photography to do snaps. The cameras are designed to take the work out of it, and they are quite good at doing so. Lest you think this is a put-down, I assure you, it is not. Not everyone has a passion for pictures. My sister-in-law is a gourmet cook and spends her day preparing multi-course dinners. The most complicated cooking I do involves adding water to cans of soup.

    What follows is my gourmet recipe for becoming a photographer.

The Fine Print, or Copyright and Copying

    This essay is copyright 2001 by Tony Spadaro. You are however authorized by him to print any or all of it for your own use and or the use of family or friends. What you are not allowed to do, is re-publish this work in any form without express permission of the author, and without this copyright notice. I could go into involved legalisms on the subject, but if you are honourable you will do the right thing, and if you are not, you’ll do what you do.

Why am I Doing This?

     I’m glad you asked that question son, but I’ll be damned if I know. I have taught photography, music and several other subjects in my life. I apparently have the "teacher" gene. I always worked one to one with my students in the past but physical problems now make it difficult for me to do this to any great extent. If however, you live in or near Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA and would like to take lessons I will be more than happy to work with you in whatever manner I can. In return for my expertise you would be expected to tote equipment, provide a human element, or hold reflectors, etc.

What Do You Need To Get Started?

    While it is possible to learn photography with any camera that provides full manual control, most camera types have drawbacks for the beginner. While nothing is set in stone, I seriously recommend you get a 35mm Single Lens Reflex camera. Film and processing are relatively cheap in this format. Learning involves using a lot of film. Larger sizes are significantly more expensive. Smaller sizes are terribly limited.

     You could just as easily use a rangefinder camera for most of the learning process, but again there are limitations that are very easily elided with a reflex. Digital cameras are, at this writing very expensive. There are a few advantages to using them, and a few dis-advantages. If you have one that allows full manual control it will most certainly do the job. Your next one may very well make film obsolete - at least for you

     The Equipment section will explain how to go about selecting an SLR. The article is also available at the Dark Alley Photography website

http://www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/magor/tony

Must You Accept Everything I say as Gospel?

     Please don’t. You need not agree with anything I say. You should try other ways, seek other answers, and question anything that strikes you as wrong or stupid, or mean spirited. If you strongly disagree with anything I say, please e-mail me. I’m interested in your view, and may change mine if you present a good argument for change. Please don’t write to correct my spelling however. Not even the spell-checkers can fix my spelling.

Technical Matters & Techie Talk

    I try to use as little technical jargon as possible. I also try to make explanations clear without getting into writing mathematical formulas. At times my writing ends up being simplistic, and possibly mis-leading. If an explanation does not work for you, please write and I will try to first make it clearer to you, and then make whatever alterations needed to make it clearer to others.