Isn't it amazing how photography has evolved without getting better?

This was once said by the painter Charles Sheeler in 1960, and he is still right today, in my opinion. Regardless of whether you look at the leap from analogue to digital photography, whether you look at mobile phone photography, Photoshop, filters and so on, photos have become and are becoming technically more and more perfect or, as many believe, "better"... but that is not the case at all!

Those who do not know them should look at photographs by greats such as Yousuf Karsh, Ansel Adams, Man Ray, Herb Ritts, Richard Avedon, and will soon realise how lively and unique these photographs are. They speak a different language and become increasingly exciting with each viewing. It should be the task of every photographer to create something unique, to show history and content, to make the viewer think:

A technically perfect shot is far from being a good picture, and neither is the sharpest picture with the most pixels. Become a child again and concentrate on the essentials!

The moment the camera becomes a part of you, the moment you stop taking snapshots and start thinking in terms of angles, exposures and apertures, you have wonderfully learned to see a second time. You can learn more from the old masters of photography - some of whom I've mentioned before - by studying their visual language than by watching YouTube videos about what the new camera can do, or the latest plug-ins, or even worse, skin retouched to death that never looks natural! The mistake in today's photography is that it becomes even more of a make-believe world than it used to be, you completely twist the truth and the story in the shot, or that everyone is looking for the perfect picture but never finds it.

Photography is a universal language that anyone can misunderstand. Great photography is about depth of feeling, not depth of field.

see you soon, your Manfred

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