A Lesson from the Book of Avatar

As this is a big block of text I have added some largely irrelevant (none HDR!!!) images to this post to jazz it up a little.

In all areas of life, be it politics, business, your personal life, or photography, it is advisable to stand back, look at what you are doing, look at what others are doing, regroup, and see if your own actions can be improved.

A case and point, shamelessly stolen from Stephen Fry and QI, is China and the Teacup. Because China invented china and the teacup so early in its history, they had no need other liquid-holding devices. It was not until Europeans arrived with glass that they had access to glass, and therefore telescopes, windows, and microscopes. If they had been able to compare their technologies with those of the Europeans earlier, they would almost certainly have utilised technologies such of glass and the course of human history would have been very different. The same is true of the Europeans; it took 400 years for gunpowder technology to filter through Asia and the Middle East before reaching Europe.

In a similar way photographers can learn from other arts and the way they use new methods and technology. Take for example the film world, and more specifically Avatar. Avatar has already snatched the crown of "highest grossing film of all time" from Titanic. As photographers it is useful to ask why Avatar is such a success and whether lessons can be learned from its success. To do this I simply popped onto the "critical response" section of Wikipedia's Avatar page.

Perhaps the most telling review quote is from Robert Ebert's Chicago Sun Times review of Avatar. Robert is quoted as saying "watching Avatar, I sort of felt the same as when I saw Star Wars in 1977. Like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, the film employs a 'new generation of special affects'." However, I think it takes more than a new brand of special effects to make a successful film; it is all in how the special effects are employed. Avatar was released simultaneously in 2D and 3D and although I saw it in 3D I am fairly sure it would still work as a film in 2D.

Without the effects, without the 3D and the razzmatazz, Avatar still works as a film. It still has a working plot, well developed characters, and moral lessons. These work so well and the 3D is so subtle and believable that while watching it I often forgot I was watching a 3D film. I am sure some of the 3D effects will look dated and cheesy in five years time but I am confident that it will be remembered as not only a technologically groundbreaking film but as a great film in its own right. In short, the makers of Avatar did not produce a film in 3D simply because the technology was available, they produced a great film where the technology was the icing on the cake.

How then does this relate to photography? The world of photographic technology is rapidly advancing. The hardware and software wizards keep coming out with new advances such as high dynamic range (HDR), an editing technique that allows photographers to merge together many different exposures of a high-contrast scene to produce an image where the tones are correct throughout the image.

Many HDR photographs seem to me to be taken because the photographer could not work out a way to record a beautiful scene in any other way. One of the first lessons I learned when trying landscape photography for the first time is that there is a big difference between a beautiful scene and a photogenic scene. Luckily for the millions arriving at the grand canyon every year, these two categories overlap; however, often they do not. By using HDR to try and make a beautiful scene photogenic the result is often an unbelievable post-apocalyptic cartoony feast of colours and tones that detracts from the scene itself. Perhaps this is still art but it is not photography.

I have nothing against HDR itself, just the way it is usually used. If used subtly such that it is not immediately obvious that it has even be used, HDR has the potential to be like Avatar's 3D effects; subtle enough such that it is not immediately obvious but pronounced enough to give high-contrast photographs of photogenic scenes a little kick. HDR can be used to make a photograph that tells 1000 words tell just a few more.

With this in mind, when the next big technological advance hits the shelves I hope photographers will ask how the technology can improve their photographs and not delve too deeply into the technological geekery involved to find out what is feasible, regardless of whether it improves the message of their photographs.