TOO YOUNG
TOO SIMPLE

If you want to become a photographer whose images feel alive — unpredictable, original, and meaningful. It isn’t about mastering your gear or following trends. It's about thinking critically, challenging the machine in your hands, and refusing to let the camera dictate your vision. Drawing from philosopher Vilém Flusser’s provocative ideas, this guide invites you to stop seeing the camera as a neutral tool and start seeing it as a programmed apparatus — one that must be played with, questioned, and even resisted. If you’re ready to move beyond clichés and create images that truly matter, read on.

Don't see your camera merely as a tool for capturing reality. Instead, understand it as an apparatus – a complex plaything or game that simulates thought and functions according to a program. Every photograph is a realization of one of the many, but finite, possibilities contained within that program. Becoming a "good photographer" starts with understanding the camera's inherent structure and limitations, its "tricks concealed within"

Guidance: Spend time getting to know your camera's capabilities and limitations not just technically, but conceptually. What kinds of images does its design make easy or difficult to produce? What does its program prioritize?

Example: Uta Barth. Barth's work, particularly her Grounds and Fields series, explores the camera's inherent structure and limitations. By focusing on out-of-focus backgrounds and light patterns, she highlights how the camera's design influences the images it produces, encouraging viewers to consider what the camera prioritizes and omits.

This is a central tenet of Flusser's concept of the photographer. A "good photographer" doesn't just operate the camera; they engage in a game against it. The goal is to bring to light the hidden possibilities or even subvert the camera's predetermined outputs.

Guidance: Consciously experiment with your camera's settings and functionalities in ways that aren't typical or immediately obvious. Try pushing the boundaries of its modes and options to see what unexpected results you can achieve. Don't just follow the instructions; see how you can bend or challenge the underlying "rules" programmed into the camera.

Example: Barbara Probst. Probst simultaneously captures a single moment from multiple angles using several cameras triggered at once. This technique subverts the camera's typical single-point perspective, revealing the multiplicity of viewpoints and challenging the notion of a singular photographic truth.

Flusser argues that most photographs, especially those taken by amateurs or even documentary photographers, are "redundant" – they offer no new information and are endlessly repeatable realizations of already explored possibilities within the program. A "good photographer," in contrast, pursues the production of informative, improbable images that have not been seen before. Information, in Flusser's terms, is an improbable combination of elements.

Guidance: Actively strive to create images that are original and offer a genuinely new perspective or combination of visual elements. Avoid clichés and predictable compositions or subjects. Your goal is to enrich the "photographic universe" with unique realizations, not just repeat what's already common.

Example: Pedro Meyer. In his series Truths & Fictions, Meyer combines documentary photography with digital manipulation to create images that challenge the viewer's perception of reality. By presenting improbable scenes that appear plausible, he adds new information and perspectives to familiar subjects.

Every photograph results from the co-operation and conflict between the photographer's intention and the camera's program. A "good" photograph is one in which the photographer's human intention wins out against the camera's program, effectively subordinating the apparatus to human purpose. You must attempt to place information into the image that is not predicted by the camera's program.

Guidance: Be clear about your own artistic, conceptual, or communicative intentions before and while shooting. Ask yourself: "What do I want this image to convey?" rather than "What does the camera allow me to capture?". Consciously try to impose your vision onto the possibilities offered by the camera.

Example: Hiroshi Sugimoto. Sugimoto's Theaters series involves long exposures that capture entire films in a single frame, resulting in a luminous white screen. This method imposes his conceptual vision onto the camera's capabilities, transforming a temporal experience into a static image that reflects on time and memory.

Photography is not a naive act of simply mirroring the world. Photographs are images of concepts. Photographers encode their concepts of the world into images.

Guidance: Understand that when you choose settings, composition, and subject, you are translating your conceptual understanding of the world into visual form. A "good photographer" is aware of this and deliberately seeks to make their ideas visible through the act of photography. Reflect on the concepts embedded in your images.

Example: Lorna Simpson. Simpson's photography often combines images with text to address themes of identity, race, and gender. Her work encodes complex concepts into visual form, prompting viewers to engage with the underlying ideas beyond the surface image

The act of photography involves selecting specific combinations of the camera's categories, such as time and space settings. Flusser describes this as "doubt" – a quantum, atomized hesitation and decision-making process. This practice is seen as hostile to ideology (which insists on a single, perfect viewpoint) because it reveals the multiplicity and equality of viewpoints offered by the camera.

Guidance: When framing a shot and adjusting settings, consciously consider the numerous possible viewpoints and categorical combinations the camera offers. Don't just adopt the most convenient or habitual one. Embrace the multiplicity of perspectives and make deliberate choices about which combination best serves your intentional and conceptual goals. Your "choice is... of a quantitive kind," exploring the vast possibilities.

Example: Jan Dibbets. Dibbets manipulates perspective in his Perspective Corrections series by photographing trapezoidal shapes that the camera renders as squares. This approach questions the camera's representation of space and encourages viewers to doubt the perceived reality within photographs.

In the post-industrial world, value shifts from the physical object to the information it carries. For Flusser, the photograph as a physical object is often "contemptible," like a "flyer". The true value and power lie in the information encoded on its surface and the program that created it.

Guidance: While the quality of the physical print might matter for certain purposes, remember that the core of your practice, in Flusser's view, is the creation and control of information. Don't get overly focused on the material aspect; prioritize the conceptual encoding and informational content of your images. Show "contempt for the camera and its creations" as mere objects, concentrating on the information.

Example: Erika Blumenfeld. Blumenfeld's Light Recordings capture natural light phenomena without using a traditional camera lens. By focusing on the information conveyed through light and time, her work emphasizes the conceptual content over the physical photographic object.

Flusser identifies "experimental photographers" as those who are conscious of the fundamental issues of image, apparatus, program, and information. They are consciously attempting to create unpredictable, informative images – to "release themselves from the camera" and place something in the image that is not in its program.

Guidance: Approach photography with a critical awareness of the programmed universe you operate within. Your practice should be an ongoing experiment to challenge the automaticity of the apparatus and the redundancy of mass-produced images. Ask how your work can expose the "cracks in representation" and the "absurdity" of the programmed technical image.

Example: Hiroshi Sugimoto's Lightning Fields. In this series, Sugimoto creates images by applying electrical charges directly onto photographic film, eliminating the camera entirely. This experimental approach challenges traditional photographic processes and reveals unseen aspects of natural phenomena.