5 photographer’s quotes

Many photographers decorate their websites with quotes from more or less famous photographers, camera books and photography schools are given a touch of meaning with famous names and recently there are even photographer quote acts on YouTube.

Cool. Generates traffic.

I’ll go along with that.

But I don’t take other people’s wisdom, I take my own.

If the model can smack you, you were far too close.

This is what I call the “waddle distance”. If the model can reach your camera, you are so close that you distort the perspective. You’re also invading their personal comfort zone. All this shit about “I won’t have any contact with the model” – that’s just overbearing and the model starts squinting when she looks at the camera. I’m usually between two and five metres away and have no problems with communication.

A new camera won’t make your pictures better, it will make them worse.

Your pictures are rubbish? That’s not because of the camera. Are you already taking good pictures with the old camera because you have mastered not only image composition, but also the tools of your trade? With the new camera, you first have to learn how it works again and will therefore make mistakes at first that you wouldn’t have made with the old camera.

If the organiser can’t afford light, he can’t afford a photographer.

There are events where the entire lighting consists of three coloured lights. Shooting there means either using bolides capable of ISO 25600 or working with extreme light intensities and paper-thin focus areas. The equipment becomes expensive. But these jobs are either poorly paid or not paid at all. You shouldn’t fall into the trap of buying equipment for customers who don’t pay and usually don’t even say thank you. The times when you could get fame with fat DSLR equipment are over.

Only use automatic systems that you know exactly what they do and when.

It is now fashionable for camera manufacturers to install many, many automatic functions, but not to reveal how they work. They usually fail exactly when it counts. They are good at standard situations – except that I don’t need an automatic, because I can do standard situations myself. Switching off and knowing for yourself is usually the best solution.

Always have a spare memory card with you! Always. Everywhere.

In your wallet, in the glove compartment, in your photo jacket, in your photo bag, everywhere. Even if it’s just a cheap, slow 4GB SD card. Three times a year, a card like this saves my arse.