Confessions of a Camera Operator

I have always preferred shooting from the hip, much like the cowboys I used to imitate when younger. My first target was New York City during one of those organized school trips. I packed a roll of color film and a point-and-shoot of some kind. I remember not wanting to call attention to myself, a kid in New York for the first time—with a camera no less—so I took photos of the city in the least invasive way possible. I shot through windows, in between people and from my hip, half the time not bothering with the viewfinder.

This precluded my understanding that viewfinders never accurately showed you what you getting anyway. Most of the time I spent framing usually went to waste. My other disappointment with photography was the pictures I’d get back from the drug store. It always seemed like I was getting someone else’s film. Even though I recognized the things I saw on the prints, it wasn’t what I saw or experienced in person. Photography in most cases devalued my subject.

Coming from a town where a two-story building was considered a skyscraper, the Empire State building was a staggering sight to see, even from the inside of a bus. However my photograph of this enormous wonder was cold, flat and no bigger than the palm of my hand. Although I liked the camera, I was not totally enchanted with it.

A number of years later in the mid-seventies I bought a top line 35mm camera and that changed everything. For one, I would find out that some viewfinders actually do work. Secondly, having a camera of this caliber in my possession moved me to go out and look for things to shoot, as opposed to recording random trips and vacations. I learned all about things like exposure and depth-of-field, and pretty soon I was buying film in bulk and rolling it myself, then developing and printing it.

Skateboarding was the most exciting thing happening at the time and something I was already passionately involved with. I began shooting my friends, trying to capture this excitement and energy. Some of the angles I wanted to get forced me to give up my now-beloved viewfinder, so there I was shooting from the hip again, this time with a most expensive camera. Punk and New Wave was different, it moved me back to using the viewfinder again full-time, sometimes shooting bands live, other times composing portraits in the street.

In spite of finding success with these subjects, there was still a disappointment with photography that would not go away. I also had been living under the assumption I was a photographer—that was, until I discovered digital. All my unhappiness with shooting photos ceased that day because it was also the day I ceased being a photographer.

Digital photography was the catharsis that enabled me to see things as the camera saw them. Rather than being the photographer, I became the camera. I went wherever the camera wanted to go. I let the camera do the picture taking, and I just became its operator.

These days I’m shooting again like I did that first time when I went to New York, blending into the crowd and aiming from my hip. And I’m using cheap cameras once again, preferring them to my more expensive ones. The only difference between my frist day shooting and now is that I learned how to surrender.

Life is spontaneous, so photography, in order to capture it, must be spontaneous too. Photography after all is only about two things, life and art. Anything in between either doesn’t matter or I could care less about. When photography is free and spontaneous it reflects something genuine, and such reflection is art. For any camera operator, letting go of the desire to control and being present with the moment is not only the best way to take photographs, but to live.

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