The majority of newer photographers that I see on YouTube, Reddit, and several other places often shoot exactly what they see. With that said, they’re not putting a special or unique perspective on what’s in front of them. Instead, they’ve become reactionary and act as if they’ve got aphantasia. Part of this, I believe, comes from the fact that so many cameras give you an exposure preview setting of sorts — essentially letting the camera make the decision for you instead of creatively understanding what one is seeing.
How many times have you shot in manual mode and simply just adjusted the shutter speed without looking at the actual metering settings? Instead, you’ve looked only at what the scene in front of you is rendered as. This is a problem — because it means that you’ve never learned how to have foresight or predict what the image is going to appear as. To that end, you lose connection with your creative vision and instead you give the camera 50% of the vision and conversation. All you do in the end is push a button.
Then, you’re probably going into Photoshop or Lightroom and editing for an ungodly amount of time instead of just shooting to get the image right in-camera.
Make no mistake, if your job is to simply capture something happening in front of you, then I guess that’s fine. But if you’re trying to create a scene, a feeling, a vibe, or art, then you’re not doing yourself any favors here.
Photographers, you need to start shooting without exposure previews on your camera if you haven’t done so before. And to that end, we all need to start making work that generative AI can’t make easily in order to ensure that we’re not replaced. At this point, we all need to become cream that rises to the top instead of a smaller individual in a pack of sardines.