Fuji Velvia 50, 120

Maple Leaves, Suffolk, 2011 (Paul Cooklin)

35mm, Canon 1V, Elitechrome, Film, Kodak EBX

120, Arax 60, c-41, Film, Ilford XP2

LCD Screens -
We’ve all seen them, used them or seen someone looking at the back of their camera at one. For some people, the use of the little (or sometimes quite large) display screen serves to empower their creativity by allowing them to take shots they might otherwise of missed.

Im sure that most digital shooters find the use of an LCD screen a benefit and useful if not an essential tool. Being able to quickly check that the image is as you would like it and/or make adjustments accordingly helps get what they, and their client, want. But does it help improve our photographic skills?  Are we producing ‘better’ images or just more images.  What are we learning from this and are we relying too much on the gear and not our own judgement and creativity.

When I shot digitally I generally found that I relied on the LCD screen too much;  I wasn’t allowing my own judgement to be a guide. It was quite nice being able to see what I had just shot and I enjoyed the instant gratification to begin with. However, as time went on, I felt that as a photographer learning the art of picture taking that I wasn’t going to improve without being able to instinctively get it right in my mind’s eye and trust my own gut instinct. It was too easy to ‘take a peak’ and make changes. I wanted to learn to take pictures without stabilizers.

But over time, after examining my own work continuously I began to learn about each film emulsion and its strengths and weaknesses. This was one part of my technical learning curve. When I realised what each film could do well and not so well I then chose each film accordingly. This cut down on a lot of ‘too contrasty’ exposures which slide film couldn’t handle. I learnt which black and white films I liked the look of and the exposure latitude of each.

When I had a better understanding of what each film could do, I began to store that information in my mind’s eye so that when I took a shot I knew pretty much what the end result was going to be. That’s not to say I didn’t (or still don’t) make mistakes, of course I do. But I began to learn to use my camera in its very basic form which allowed me to concentrate on picture taking without the need for constant reassurance. I was no longer missing shots because my eyes were on the LCD screen or scrolling through endless menus. I was beginning to take pictures which I liked which gave me a sense that “I took that”. I was no longer taking lots of shots, making adjustments as a direct result of the LCD screen influence or during editing, in the hope that one of them would be what I wanted. I was beginning to hone my skills as a ‘photographer’, not someone who would eventually get it right because out of the hundreds (if not thousands) of shots, one of them would be ok to use. I was no longer thinking to myself ‘I will fix it using digital editing software and no one will know’.

This reminds me of the original Star Wars movie where Luke is about to drop a torpedo on the Death Stars’ weak point and he’s got an ‘aiming device’ to use to tell him when to press the button. Obi-Wan Kenobi gets in touch and tells him to ‘use the force Luke’, so he puts the computer guiding system away and trusts his own judgement when to ‘press the button’ at the right moment. In this case, the torpedo hits where it should, the ‘baddies’ were destroyed (for the time being) and the universe was back in harmony. It does make me wonder what would have happened if he had missed. Suicide? A lot of guilt counselling? Who knows.

I sometimes wonder as we ‘advance’ in to the technological age that some things, like the ‘shoot now focus later’ technology mentioned in a previous post and other ‘advancements’ actually make us lazy or loose skills which we have worked hard to achieve. What did they do back in the day before LCD screens or Polaroids? There have been more shots taken digitally in the last 10 years than there has ever been in the hiostory of using analogue cameras! However, In my opinion most of the best photographs ever shot are pre-digital from people like Cartier-Bresson, Bailey, Duffy, Feininger, Eisenstaedt and the likes, who created iconic, powerful pictures with the simplest of tools.

Of course, my reasons are just that – mine. I fully accept for some if not most people there are a whole host of reasons why LCD screens are a good thing and we all go about taking pictures differently. There is no ‘right way’, only what works best for our purposes.

Disagree? Got an opinion? Leave a comment below.