Dwell has a great interview with film director Eric Briker about his documentary on Julius Shulman called Visual Acoustcs. He’s a famous architectural photographer who captured iconic images of modernism in Los Angeles. I’d seen his work but didn’t know much about him, can’t wait to see this film.

In the interview Eric mentions how Julius Shulman says that “The camera is the least important part of photography”. I couldn’t agree more with this statement. Too often we get caught up in having to have the latest and greatest equipment, lenses and software. It seems like when your talking with new clients or tell someone that you’re a photographer the first thing they want to know is what kind of camera do you have, how many megapixels, what type of editing sofware do you use, and my favorite… do you shoot in .RAW or .JPG.

These questions and issues remind about when I used to caddy for guys with $2,000 worth of golf clubs in their bag that couldn’t hit a fairway or green to save their life. Their money would have been better spent on a $200 starter set and $1,800 worth of lessons and range balls. Anyway, not to get too preachy but its nice to hear a professional like Julius Shulman remind us all that it’s not about the camera, it’s about how we use it. Remember that a bad picture taken with an expensive camera is going to look the same as a bad picture taken with a cheap camera. We should all focus on improving our composition, lighting and framing then worry about getting the latest and greatest. 

Check out the film’s trailer, I love the shots of Julius taking taking photos of the Disney Concert Hall with his dependable Polaroids and a large format camera.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 10th, 2009 at 11:55 am and is filed under Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.