Sufficient Photography

Some things in life are necessary, but not sufficient. For example, we need food to live, but we also need water, air, exercise, and so on. Food alone is not enough, it is not sufficient.

While this seems obvious for some things like food, it’s harder to remember in other places such as when exploring new ideas, doing experiments, creating pictures, and so on.

For example, when taking typical pictures, things like proper exposure are necessary, but that is not sufficient to make a good picture. We still need to worry about proper focus, aperture, ISO, and so on, in order to produce a desired picture.

But even control of all the technical parameters is not enough if there is no artistic vision. There needs to be some sense of meaning and aesthetics in order to really craft a picture. Without those ephemeral things, we are simply making a snapshot. Maybe interesting, especially if the subject is profound, but generally not sufficient to create art.

Read more