----- Original Message ----- From: "Bruce Rubenstein" Subject: Re: Do Smarter Cameras make Dumber Photogs?
> It's the wishful thinking of the masters of an arcane craft that the > pcitures created by photographers who have started since the early 80's are > inferior to older photographers. This is like saying that Shakespeare wrote > as well as he did because he used a quill pen. Actually, Shakespeare was a second rate hack, but lets pretend for the sake of argument that he was a master at the craft of playwright. Was he a master because he used a quill pen? Well, no. He was a master because he was well versed in the language of the day. He had learned the theory that he needed to master his craft. One could surmise that I am as good a writer as the Bard. While I haven't mastered the English language, I do have a spell checker on my computer. Oh, I hear the rabble saying "Robbs gone off his nut again, now he has pretensions of knowing how to put two words together in a cohesive way". Don't worry, I will never stand accused of that. However, the person who takes the interest to learn the fundamentals of any craft will do a much better job of it than someone who is depending more on technology and blind luck than knowledge. Knowledge isn't just the nuts and bolts of light and colour either. It's about knowing what you are shooting. Wanna shoot birds in flight? It might help a bit if you knew something about what goes on in the bird's universe. Sort of to help you predict what they are going to do next. Or, you could do it like a team of monkeys does it. Give enough monkeys enough typewriters, and they will hand you Romeo and Juliet, eventually..... William Robb